2017 Bag Culture in Screened Tunnel
 

Checking in with my 3rd season of bag culture. 2nd season under the tunnel.
New additions this year include framing out the end walls and sidewalls and installing screens to keep bugs out (especially stinkbugs).
Also added an injector system so I don't have to mix up a 250 gallon nutrient tank every 2 days. I went with the in-line Guardian Monitor to be able to see my pH, EC, and temp in real time and not have to screw around with an hand held meter.
Everything is looking really good. I'm at the beginning of flower truss number 3 emerging.
The earliest fruit (marble to gumball size) I have is coming from the Red Jazz line from Fred H. They are also the most impressive plants as far as growth and stem thickness out of 15 or so varieties I am growing.

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Very nice!

6/7 Update. Waiting on some multiple days of sun in a row. Should get there by Friday. For the last 3 weeks or so its been 1-2 days of sun for 3-4 of clouds. Plants are hanging in there, but they should be further along. We'll get there. At least the temps have been perfect 70's during the day and low 60's at night. Supposed to get a 5-7 day stretch of full sun with 80's.

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Very healthy looking, seems like less leaf curl than last year. Are those 2-stem or 2 plants, in the 5gal or 7 gal white poly bags?

Two plants, single stem in all bags.
I have black and white. Some of the black are wrapped with white pallet wrap from last year to keep the bag cooler in summer.
Farmtek calls the black ones 5 gallon, and home depot calls the white ones 7 gallon. Both hold the same amount of soil, but the black are taller and skinner, where the white are shorter and wider.

broken pic links :(

I have the Home Depot white ones, and you're exactly right on that 7gal white Viagrow plastic, being a 5gal size. Even their stated dimension says it, 14 x 8.5 x 10 inches, divided by 231 cu in gal, = 5.15

The grey root pouch fabrics are off about the same, the 10's are 8gal, the 5's are 4gal

Not sure what is up P88.
Are you viewing from an IPAD or Iphone?

Killin it! Looks great dude. Your string holders look different than any I've seen. Are they the rolls or something else?

Farmtek calls them Tomato Rollerplast Assembly:

[URL="http://www.farmtek.com/farm/supplies/prod1;;pg110013_110013.html"]http://www.farmtek.com/farm/supplies/prod1;;pg110013_110013.html[/URL]

They are cheap (.95 each, .89 for 50-99, .75 for 100+), work great, and the spool has enough string to get through at least two years. Some of mine are going on year 3 and look like they could get to 4.

Some updated shots. Hoping to see some color breaking next week.

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Grafted Row

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Mrs. Maxwell

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Orange Jazz

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I predict your going to love OJ, I got about 20lbs per plant last year, outside!

Indian Stripe
 

Ate my first tomato last night. Crnkovic Yugslavian. It was phenomenal.
The plants look terrible and the fruit are smaller than they are supposed to be but it tasted fantastic.

My Indian Stripe (regular leaf) look awesome. Full, big fruit, uniform fruit set, and the plants are some of my most compact. And the ripening ones look unreal, to me anyway.
Here's one I picked the other night. Not ready to eat yet though.

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Platfoot
 

My first Brandywine Platfoot.
Eating eat today at lunch. Psyched to try this one. Never tasted one before.

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Beautiful fruits PH. IS can make some beauties for sure.

[QUOTE=PureHarvest;650649]Ate my first tomato last night. Crnkovic Yugslavian. It was phenomenal.
The plants look terrible and the fruit are smaller than they are supposed to be but it tasted fantastic.

My Indian Stripe (regular leaf) look awesome. Full, big fruit, uniform fruit set, and the plants are some of my most compact. And the ripening ones look unreal, to me anyway.
Here's one I picked the other night. Not ready to eat yet though.

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Update: IS RL taste was just "good". A pinch of salt really brought out the flavor to the point it was impossible to not eat the whole thing.
Curious how the taste will progress over the season. I've already noticed a difference in taste of any given variety from different plants in the tunnel (started the same time, grown the same way).

Lookin' good PH.
How do your "inside" and outside temps compare when the sun is out?

No difference. In fact, it feels a pinch less intense inside, perhaps because the plastic has UV inhibiting properties.
We are really getting lucky with most days under 90 so far this year. Had a few low 90's last week, and started to see some splitting on some varieties. Picking earlier, but they even start on some green ones just starting to blush.
I'm really thinking now that the grow bag system is only meant for controlled environments (or northern areas) where heat can be kept down below the upper 80's at all times. I guess you could counter this with varieties that don't have this problem, but I still think it would happen if we hit heat indexes over 100 for 3 days or more in a row like we did last July and then again in August. Hasn't happened yet, but typically does here. I'm not sure shade cloth would solve the problem either when it's 98 with 75% humidity. It's sort of like why the deep south can't grow summer tomatoes. Only difference is that we don't get it all summer long. It comes and goes, but when it does it hits your marketable yield.
My original plan, and leaning heavy towards it again, was to heat the house early spring. Transplant into bags March 1st and start harvesting mid-May. Then find out how long they go till the heat comes on. Have a second set of seedlings ready to install in late July maybe? Harvest them from late September to Thanksgiving. Added together, they would be the same yield as a season long crop, but more work because of the in and out of the old and new plants. But doable.
I'd be curious to see how plants would do in this same style (single stem in a tunnel on drip feed), but in the ground where the roots can be kept cooler. I use white grow bags, so I don't know how much cooler I can make the roots. Maybe bury the bags in the ground? Ugh, thats a lot of holes to dig or auger.

I don't know how I missed this thread but everything looks great, PureHarvest!

With just enough media, and feeding just enough ferts, the bags are models of efficiency in smaller sizes, but so unforgiving. Finicky and frustrating, the 4-7 gallon bags have taught me as much about container growing in the last month than the 15-20 gallons did all of last year. Growing 2-3 stem in the 10gal poly in white is very promising, a little hotter than the fabrics in the 10gal, but less water. Fine by me, the poly is cheaper.

I'm so small scale a lot does not apply to growers, but the info you and they give back, is the wellspring of nearly all my garden thinking. Good thread, and keep posting.

Plants look great. What's the production per plant? (last year)
Also, how was the the taste of that Yellow brandywine?

Really great looking setup. You are right about Red Jazz stem thickness and vigor. Mine are late in the ground but kickin it.

PH, what exactly are you struggling with?
Not sure of your feed schedule, but less media requires smaller more frequent irrigations. Small bags are less forgiving, but manageable with automation.

Let me try to hit all the replies here.

The Platfoot Brandywine was [B]excellent[/B]. Plant is stingy with production though, and many of truss 2 and 3 flowers have aborted during some high temps.

Red Jazz has turned into a major disappointment. Blossom end rot on fruit while they are still 1-2" diameter to beat the band. I'm getting zero BER on the other 17 or so varieties I'm growing. That and they are staying small, like 2-3" diameter when ripe. Thought they'd be big like Orange Jazz (which by the way are absolute monsters. I think some are approaching 2lbs. Plants are loaded up with green fruit too. Right on BigVan!)
I will be tasting my first Red Jazz today though (strain #3 and #1), and my co-workers grab those first to inspect out of the boxes I'm bringing to work. That's the first they pick up and ohh and ahh over.

Last years production on the overall operation was poor. 2 very big heat waves split a lot of fruit. Stink bugs and worms destroyed [B]at least[/B] half my crop. I did not fruit thin and the plants did not support the loads and the new growth went spindly like a #2 pencil. 2 heat waves with heat indexes above 100 hurt everything too.
Mixing up 200 gallon fert tanks was a pain, and I think my meter was off and it was possible that things were not mixing properly (even though i did one ingredient at a time and used a circulating pump to mix). Basically, my plants never seemed quite right. Also possible that my EC was too strong for heirlooms (was using the hybrid rates). I am using the heirloom rate chart this year on the 4-18-38 with dramatically better results. Much lower EC.

This year, with screens blocking the outside world, I have no bug damage. Do have aphids for the first time ever. I think they came in from the grafted plants, since they were produced off-site at someone else's greenhouse. That, or more likely, the one Bonnie cabbage plant i brought into the tunnel to help my daughter grow that the school gives away to all the kids for the scholarship contest for biggest cabbage..
I spray soap every week now. Lady bugs were a waste of time. Green lace wing larvae didn't work either (did not spray them after release). Thought about parasitic wasps. Tired of spending money though and soap is cheap. Just gotta keep doing it.

I am thinning fruit to 4-5 when they are about 1" diameter. Went with injectors, so no more mixing up tanks and sumping to the bags.

Production is way up and better this year. Splitting is a concern, but not too bad right now and not on every variety like last year. Mostly on Brandy Boy and some BW Sudduth, and a few Cherokee Purple and IS. I may have overstated the splitting in yesterday's post. Just really worried that if we go above 90+ at some point it's gonna rear its ugly head with gusto.

I am automated, and have 3 injectors. One for 4-18-38+Epsom, one for Calnitrate, and one for Potassium hydroxide (pH UP). I have a mixing chamber after the ferts, and one after the KOH so I can have piece of mind that the solution is mixed thoroughly before it passes by the inline EC/pH meter.
I have my four rows broken down into 3 zones. Each zone runs for 15 minutes in the morning, with the first zone starting at 7am. So, each bag is getting about .8 gallons for the 15 minutes, or 102 ounces. So that's 50 ounces per plant.
When I get home from work around 4:45, I run it again for 5-7 minutes depending on conditions. That gives each plant around another 25 ounces.
The hydro-garden manual says 40-50 ounces per plant per day, but this is for temperature controlled environments. I have more heat and wind than what they are assuming at that rate. This is why I do a second run.
I'd like to do the second run closer to noon or 1 pm, but my control box won't let me change the duration from the original 15 minutes. I need a more advanced control box and am going to get one.
So, I am trying to start the day with full moisture, but I'm thinking 4:45-5 pm is too late for the afternoon top-off. I'm thinking mid day around noon-2 would be better.
Last year I did small waterings starting at 7 and then every couple hours throughout the day. It was not good. The bags never got fully hydrated and the plant usage against the heat and air stayed too far ahead of that cycle. I even tried doing a little more in the morning and at noon, but it still seemed like not enough.
So, this year, I wanted to start the day fully hydrated. That, and a production researcher/fert salesman I met over the winter suggested full water once in the morning with a top off around noon.
I believe Mark does it this way too (only topping off a second time if it s really hot).

So, if I can keep the bags from getting to a point where they are a little too dry during the day, maybe I can avoid the splitting altogether?

I have picked aver 60 pounds on the season, starting about June 26th. Last 4-5 days I'm getting about 20 lbs/day from 132 plants. And I haven't even gotten any of about 10 of my varieties yet.
When my grafted plants, which are a couple weeks younger/behind, kick in, I will have about 175 plants producing.

Thanks everyone for taking interest! More pictures to come soon.

So the handsdown winner on flavor so far this year is Mrs. Maxwell. It beat Brandywine Sudduth, Platfoot, Brandy Boy, IS, Orange Jazz, and Crnkovic Yugo, and Cosmo Volkov.
Still have yet to try Chef's Choice green, Mat-Su Express, Cherokee Green, and KBX.

Had OJ last night and liked it VERY much. Not as much as BWine Platfoot though. But production-wise, would easily dump Platfoot for OJ.

Here is OJ:

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Here is one of the flats that I delivered to a produce stand today. I am getting $25 per 10lb box. He is retailing for $3.99. He said he would actually rather have mostly half ripe with a handfull of ripe in each box. Said they would hold for him better that way. Also wanted mixed sizes like in the pic below, which is great for me with so many varieties making different diameters. Nice to not have to grade and find something to do with the 3-8 ounces fruits.
He is also going to buy all the strawberries I can deliver at $3/pound (for those that are familiar with my day-neutral berry trial).
Lastly, I am taking him my garlic too (for those familiar with my garlic trial). I'm putting a 1/2 pound in a netted bag with an attractive plastic card attached. I'm getting $5 and he's selling for $7-8 after he decides.

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Very nice pH!

HTG has the white poly 7gal and 10gal bags for about 50 cents a bag on ebay. I picked up 50 of the 10's for $32 incl shipping and this is about half of what they charge on their actual website.

[URL]http://www.ebay.com/itm/GROW-BAGS-Black-and-White-Poly-Plastic-1-2-3-5-7-10-gallons-10-25-50-100-Count-/121070962341[/URL]

Thanks for the heads up Ricky!

We've broken the 2lb barrier!

Orange Jazz is some plant for me.
Here are some shots of some small "pumpkins" I picked last night.

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They should have orbiting moons.

Same dude. It blew my mind last year. Some of them were so big the weight split the fruit against the support pole. Glad iit is doing the same for you. Fred hit a walk off homer with that one.