True Love and TOMATOES

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Hygiene is crucial to hydroponics. Just one pregnant whitefly or gray leaf mold spore can introduce a plague. Scrub groroom surfaces and furnishings with a strong, environmentally friendly disinfectant. Boil, steam or disinfect all tools, containers, growing medium and water. If possible, filter incoming air. Keep humidity low to discourage spread of disease, and maintain room temperature at 65°F nights and 80°F days.

Growing media adapted to the (simplest) flood-and-drain method of feeding and watering plants are cubes of rock wool, kiln-fired shale spheres from Germany (Hydrox) and ground coconuthusk fiber (choir) sold by hydroponics supply retail outlets and by mail.

CANNING TOMATOES

Along with sauerkraut and sour vinegar pickles, tomatoes are one of the few garden products that can be preserved safely by boiling the canning jar (for an hour or less if directed by canning recipe) in a simple hotwater bath (as well as in the higher temps of a pressure canned.

But be on the safe side. Modern tomatoes have been bred for diminished acidity since the 1940s. Many are too bland to develop sufficient natural acetic acid to protect the preserved product against deadly (and often totally hidden) botulism. Always follow a recipe from a modern (late 1980s or younger) canning manual. Unless otherwise directed in your canning recipe, be sure to add 1/4 teaspoon citric acid or 1 tablespoon of lemon juice for each final pint of tomatoes or tomato product prior to final cooking. And to double the safety margin, boil each jar of canned product for at least 15 minutes after it is opened and before it is served. Then scrub the canning jar and lid parts well in hot soapy water before storing.

Many small firms now offer organic nutrients made from such natural ingredients as bat manure, fish meal, seabird guano, rock phosphates and seaweed meal. They all assay to firm percentages (of 2% to 10%) and are odorless. The widest variety we know of is offered by Worm's Way. Or you can invest in a TDS (Total Dissolved Solids) meter and an NPK tester. Make up your own solutions by soaking/cooking compost, worm castings from a worm-powered garbage digester plus rock minerals, blood meal and other goodies.

You will need an aquarium-type water heater and air pump, tubing and airstone to warm and oxygenate the solution along with a delivery/recovery/recycling system. You can hand-feed a few tomato plants in double-bottomed pots or plastic-mesh bags of choir hung over a catch basin, or grow dozens in a fully automated outfit, such as Light Manufacturing's Living System; conning on an auto-timer, it circulates and recovers nutrients to one or several dozen self-draining go-pots of any size. All you do is test and renew or replace the solution as necessary.

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