Hey,

I should begin by introducing myself as I am new to this forum.

My name is Bill, and I've been growing tomatos in a large (26'x8' w/ 11' ceilings) southfacing window of my loft studio for a couple of seasons now.

To save floorspace I was using the "upside down" system where the tomatos would grow out of the bottom of 5 gallon buckets that were hanging from the ceiling. I was using an organic soil and nutrient combo. But it turns out in my case that maintaining the moister levels in the buckets was really tricky and required way way too much effort from me... watering 2 times a day, constant checking etc.

So to simplify things i've thrown organic out the window and gone to the opposit extreem with a trough and drip recirculating hydroponic system.

I built a trough 8' long and 6"x6" in profile. I've got 6 tomatoes in there each with it's own dripper. I'm using perlite and coconut peat as my growing medium with the bottom inch of the trough filled with 100% perlite for good drainage, and the next 4 1/2" a mix of the coco peat and perlite that was recomended to me by my local hydroponics shop.

The plants seem to be doing great, but here is my question.

The guy at the local hydro shop suggested that I get a timer and turn on the dripper pump for 5 or 6 minutes every hour only during daylight hours. This seems fine, but I wonder if the tomatos wouldn't do better on greater flows... I've been running 3 minutes every 30 minutes only during daylight hours, but I'm not sure why I shouldn't run more. The plants seem to be doing well, but I am worried that as they grow and as the tempurature goes up they are going to need more water.

Also, this may be a touch greedy, but I've also plantet some basil and arugala in the trough as well... I thought it would make a nice salad as well as a cool looking "ground cover"

Any thoughts here?

Bill