Another reason for hydroponics

[Odsox]

I grow mange tout peas every year and those I grow in the ground tend to die when they have finished producing pods, although you do see a few green shoots on the ends of some vines, but not enough to make me leave them though.
This year I grew some in the hydro and I'm amazed. They took 7 weeks from sowing (direct in the pipe) to first picking, and then I continued to pick every day for 3 weeks. A couple of weeks ago I picked the last pods and as I could see quite a lot of new shoots coming I left them where they were.
Now 11 days later the vines look as fresh as they did the first time round, they have masses of flowers and even more buds, and I have just picked a few pods to go in a salad.
The plants look even better than the first time and I'm sure are going to provide even more pods for the next few weeks.

It's all good fun and a bit of an eye opener at times, this hydroponic lark.

[battybird]

Will have to look into this further...like the sound of hydroponics! AND I love mange tout!

[Smilesbetter]

Good to hear! What type of hydroponics system have you used for growing these? Are you using any kind of light too?

I'm hoping to experiment with a few different hydroponics systems this winter, and I happen to loooove peas haha so I was very happy to read your post :D

[Odsox]

My main hydroponics system is an "ebb & flow" type made from two 150mm pipes about 4.5m long filled with a 50/50 mixture of perlite and vermiculite.
This is it's second season and is still working extremely well, running automatically which means I just have to change the water every 3 weeks and pick the fruit and vegetables. At the moment it has the peas, tomatoes, cauliflowers (white and purple), pepper, cucumbers and 2 varieties of everbearing strawberries.
No lights on this one, that is reserved for my smaller nutrient film unit.

You can see details of it here http://selfsufficientish.com/forum/view ... 38&t=27872
Sorry about the missing pictures and the others being corrupted, that happened when we had problems with the forum a while back.

[Smilesbetter]

Thanks, I'll sit down this evening and get reading, looks great from what I've looked at already though! My version when I finally make it will be faaaaar smaller haha, since i live in a flat and don't have my allotment yet. Can't wait to get started, you're post is making me very jealous haha, but keep them coming! :D