Speculations er specifications

For this grow, I slowed things down. Instead of ADHD'ing out with 6-7 plant types and 3-4 different growing mediums, it's one plant in one type of container.

The Plant: Strawberry. There's a million different types of strawberries, so which one are we talking about here? For the time being, they are Blackwater berries, because their identities are unknown. My best guess is they're normal ever-bearing strawberries with special ops training.

The Setup: One type of setup here and it's hydroponic. I made as few improvements as possible to little Venice. One improvement was covering the top of the reservoir with aluminum foil as to keep the light out. Last time I had algae growing in the reservoir and it got gross and weird. No more of that. Yeah, that's all I did. I'm looking up cheap ways to boost co2 and things like that, but until I get some cheap answers, that is the final list of improvements.

Preparation: I threw all the tomato plant corpses into the trash. That's a bad atmosphere and counterproductive foreshadowing to the strawberries. If they were to see dead comrades, they would most likely give up hope and quit growing. The reservoir and grow area got bleached and refilled. I used 6 gallons of water and 5 teaspoons of Miracle Grow 24-8-16 blue powdered fertilizer. Strawberries do better in acidic medium, so the solution was PH-balanced to around 6.3. That may be too alkaline, but we'll find out. The main goal right now is to get the plants growing leafs and otherwise. I'm looking for signs that they are adjusting to their new environment and beginning to take to it before I go jazzing up the nutrient mixture with proper fertilizer. I'm considering buying some grow light flourescents and seeing how that plays. Since the area is small, I may even spring for a HPS outfit or build my own CFL grow lamp, which could be fun and... educational.

Research: Came across some information saying that picking off runners and little berries will encourage root growth. So I did that along with yanking off anything dead looking. Spider mites are a concern with strawberries and there was some funky stuff going on with the plants before I got them indoors. Did my best with that, but I'll see what happens. I have no idea if Lysol helps, but I Lysol'd the shit out of my room and specifically the grow area. I'm hoping spider mites are one of the 99.9% things Lysol kills and that strawberries are among the .1% it does not kill. These berries must be tough though or they never would've made it through Blackwater's training regiment.

Temperature wise the room's a pretty decent 65-75 degrees Fahrenheit now that it's summer, so I'm not worrying about that much.

We will see how this horrible experiment plays out. Possibly adding a few more blackwater berries into the mix, because 4 plants makes it look all sparse and depressing. Plus, I'll be damned if I don't get at least a few nice strawberries out of this mess.