I used to recommend the GH 3 part flora series, too. But, I started using their dry Maxigro and Floramato this year. The price is way lower per gallon, you can buy a 1.5lb container for less than $15, and you don't have to measure with anything but a teaspoon. It also buffers 10 times better. I haven't added any ph up or down once to the tomato rez this year. Last year it was every other day sometimes. Of course, the nutrients aren't the only change I made. I also now have a single, much larger rez as opposed to individual 5 gallon buckets for tomatoes. Much better for maintaining ph and temps. FYI and maybe a non issue in this thread: I switched to Maxibloom for the peppers since the nitrogen seemed so high on Floramato. It's also a dry nutrient. It is much better. So, my 3 commercial favorites have just been narrowed down to GH's Maxigro (all vegetative growth), Maxibloom (peppers and eggplant flowering and fruiting), and Floramato (tomatoes fruiting). PH Meters: Get the cheap liquid drops. I found some disturbing issues with my Milwaukee pH meter. You don't have to worry about whether or not the drops are calibrated or if your battery is dying or your probe glass is crapping out or you're too close to fluorescent lighting. You don't have to buy storage, cleaning, and calibration solutions ($7 to $10 each). You don't have to worry about what happens if you drop it. I know I sound like a General Hydroponics employee, but I'm not associated at all aside from satisfied customer. Anyway, they make drops that are about $7. They last a really long time. At least one season. More if you have only a couple reservoirs to tend to. Here is a link that might be useful: PH Drops at bottom of the page at this link

Palms are difficult to transplant into hydro. They do not like their roots being disturbed. That is a beautiful palm. If it were me, I would put it back in soil before more damage occurs. The only way I have luck with palms in hydro is starting them from seed. I have tried to put several varieties of palm in hydro without success; probably because of the roots. I have Washingtonia filifera & Canary Island date in hydro using peat as a media. They are very young, however, so I have as of yet to see how well they would do. Perhaps someone else has a better suggestion or has developed a method for growing palms, but I have not.

georgeiii Another proverb from the book your writing I see. But yet again posted as truth without any verification whatsoever. Simply repeating something to death dosen't make it true. And Yes I do know what a FAQ is? For the people in the real world (planet earth) it's short for "Frequently Asked Questions." But Yet again your wanting to make up your own reality in whatever world it is you live in. Not to mention your being so hypocritical with that statement/untrue definition it's simply laughable. You want to say I only know what I'm told, yet your the one trying to get me to believe what you tell me to believe, and without any verification of it (laughing to death with that). That is the true definition of hypocritical there georgeiii (on planet earth anyway). Now that I stopped laughing once more, I can finally type again. It's so funny to me that you should say "the internet is clogged with these one page wonders cause their no deeper than a page." Yet your the KING of being a one page NO-wonder. You post a couple threads in a forum, a few pictures that don't prove squat, refuse to post anything from reputable sources to back it up, and yet you think that makes you an authority in the field of hydroponics, thus demand to be respected as such without question (hypocritical, hypocritical, hypocritical, hypocritical). I have taken many pictures of my progress, both good and bad. But I refuse to use a third party website like photobucket (or any such websites) to store them just so I can link to it from a forum. The only reason that's even necessary here is because this forum's software is so out of date, and wont allow you to upload them directly from your computer. Thus making it necessary to use third party websites to link to them. Not only do I have hundreds of pictures of the things I have grown, but I also use software that allows me to make 3D drawings of the systems. I use that to make drawings of systems I have done, as well as ones I wish to build, or even whatever may come to mind as a concept. Unfortunately for someone as financially challenged (I guess is the politically correct term for, poor) as me, there are many more plans to build, than things built. I haven't had the money to even buy nutrients for months. But I have had the good fortune to have access to money to build a commercial greenhouse. Witch is where I spend my time and money these days. Once operational it will provide me with an income of between $30,000 and $50,000 a year (after operating expenses). Rich, no, pay the bills, yes. But it is the catalyst I need to expand the business into one that will not only provide high quality produce to our community, but for lower prices, and year round. As well as even allow me to higher people from our community. Thus helping our local economy in multiple ways. Thanks for asking. As usual I take plenty of pictures, to date I have 353 MB of pictures on the greenhouse build alone. I have been in construction since mid September (been planing it for 1-1/2 years), and right now I'm about 2 months behind scheduled (from where I expected to be in the build). But I need to come up with about $1000 more to complete everything. Total cost will be about $6,500 when finished. that includes the greenhouse itself (200 sq feet), 3 in-ground 275 gallon reservoirs, custom built hydroponic systems, pluming them all, cooling and ventilation systems, electrical to run everything (including 3 new breakers), business licensing etc.. However that dosen't include the propagation system. I'll be starting the first plants in the hydro systems, then use the funds/profits to build a propagation system in order to increase productivity. If I had the money right now I would be about two weeks from starting seeds (2 months from having an income). I'm also registered for a free class given by the SBDC (Small Business Development Center) on Feb 13, on business tax/retail tax that I will be attending. P.S. Hall monitor? Good one. I guess when nobody else in class wants to speak up, that just puts you at the head of the class by default (and you somehow become hall monitor too). But I never even wanted the position. I have always preferred to sit in the back row of class myself. Though if I have somehow been designated hall monitor, it wont change anything. Front of the class or in the back row, I'll still speak up when I feel it's important.

Bre, She was not a pleasant person---didn't make eye contact, didn't speak to anyone, always had a scowl on her face. I felt sorry for her. I believe she had a pretty unpleasant childhood and seemed miserable all the time. Would you voluntarily tell someone fitting that description that they were doing everything "wrong"? No, I did not. Her husband came over to the house one day and asked me why they weren't getting tomatoes, so I carefully explained to him (he was a very nice man) everything she was doing wrong. (Growing them in almost total shade, and she pinched off EVERY branch and limb, so that her tomato plants, which were tied to 6' tall wooden stakes, essentially looked like miniature palm trees with long skinny trunks and a cluster of 4 to 6 leaves at the top.) After I explained everything to him, he hesitated and then said something like "Uhm, I think I'll just forget I came over here and we had this conversation. I really don't want to have to tell her all this....". He knew she wasn't going to handle the news well and might 'kill the messenger', so to speak. I solemnly agreed with him "I think maybe that would be best", and it took every ounce of self-control I had not to grin or giggle. Had she been an approachable person to whom you could speak, I would have told her early in spring that she was getting her info on how-to-grow-tomatoes from a source not written for north central Texas. We bought this place and moved here not long after that, and I have no idea if she ever tried growing tomatoes again. Dorothy, The first time I grew Bush Early Girl, I put it in the garden very small and it had flowers, so I left them there. I bet that little plant produced 28 or 30 tomatoes that were ready to pick in late May and early June. After it had recovered a little from that craziness, it then bore the rest of the summer. You know, for years Early Girl was not early for me at all (though last year it was), but it always is Late Girl here, continuing to set fruit even in August when everything else slows down. Bush Early Girl is reliably early and produces just as late in the year as Early Girl. I don't think there is a plant around that beats the two of them for reliability, although Better Bush is pretty good too. I might grow a couple of plants on the sunporch for winter, but won't even try to drag containers of existing plants into the greenhouse in the fall to keep them going. I had trouble with that last year. The plants did fine, but in order to keep them happy, I would leave the greenhouse closed up during the day for the most part so heat could build up....and the heat kept the tomatoes happy. However, the lettuce I had growing in tubs certainly did not appreciate the heat and it made some of them bolt. Having to choose, I think I'd rather keep the greenhouse open and cooler in autumn/winter for the lettuce, and just keep a couple of tomato plants producing in containers on the sunporch. I just don't think I can keep the tomato plants as warm and happy inside the greenhouse as they'd like while simultaneously keeping the lettuce cool and comfortable. I always say that BEG is the only tomato plant I've ever grown that literally has more fruit than flowers, but I just thought of another one, although it is a Roma. Martino's Roma will produce more fruit than leaves, and I like the fruit fine, but the fruit on Martino's Roma seems more prone to sunscald than the fruit on BEG. For whatever reason, even though they are not well-shaded by foliage, the fruit on BEG rarely sunscald. Maybe it is because they are growing earlier in the season in cooler temperatures and less intense sun. By the time they are covered by fruit in intense heat and sunlight, adjacent taller plants may be shading their fruit enough to keep them from sunscalding. Dawn