Mandurian Round Greenhouse Trial

After growing carosello cucumber-melons for a number of years, one of the main concerns that I have as a grower is consistency. When I say consistency , I mean that the cucumber variety that I grow comes “true to type”. This means that I expect the cucumbers to be a specific size, shape and color. Dark cucumbers should remain dark, light cucumbers should be light, striped cucumbers should exhibit bands of light and dark, etc.

Perfect color and texture for the Mandurian Round.

Both consistency and honest packaging are a real concern when I purchase seed from Italy. I often find that the packaging may be correct but the fruit is not consistent or the fruit looks much different from the packaging but is at least consistent. Very rarely do I find that the fruit matches both the name, the packet photo and consistently produces what it is supposed to.

The greenhouse plants were moved outside during a vacation

One variety that is often mixed up is the Carosello Tondo Manduria or – what I refer to as the Mandurian Round. This variety can come either as light and larger or speckled and possibly a little smaller. The two varieties can often get mixed up in the seed packets. Additionally, my Italian friend Giuseppe has informed me that there is another variety that is very similar to the light one.

Just looking at these pictures makes me think of summer

In any case, when growing out this variety, I like to know that the seed I am growing produces fruit that is true-to-type. Like most gardeners I know, I like to trust that what I am growing is what I’ll get. This Mandurian Round is one of the few varieties that developed just I had hoped. I was so grateful for this. I’m thinking of possibly reserving one of my plots this upcoming year for a growout of the Mandurian Round. Each time that I save pure seed, I increase the genetic stability of each of my home-grown varieties. One huge reward of being a wise steward with each cucumber variety I am entrusted with is that it me enables me to better appreciate all the work involved in the initial breeding each of these beautiful and delicious carosello cultivars.

Fruit when about ready to pick for saving seed

Trialing a Russian Cucumber-Melon

From most all of what you see on my blog, one might begin to believe that I prefer Italian cucumbers above all else. Not true! In fact, I am always looking for new and different cucumber-melon varieties from anywhere in the world.

The smaller plant on the left is the Russian variety

That brings me to this variety. Though I have become quite advanced at butchering the pronunciation of many Italian Carosello varieties, I don’t even try to pronounce this. If someone who speaks Russian can tell me how to pronounce it and what it means, I’ll gladly update this post to include this important information.

I grew this one after the Zorzi Carosello Leccese in the same spot. It grew pretty well and produced fruit. I’m not really sure what to think of the fruit other than it looks like a type of Mandurian or some other light carosello. If you would like to purchase this variety online and try it out, please do. 

Germination was good – no problem there. As with many seed packets I get, this variety just lacked in the area of “picture matches the end product”. I’m even happy to have kept trying this variety, if I didn’t have many other light round carosello varieties to choose from. My overall take on this Russian carosello variety was I would grow it if I didn’t have anything better.

The 2019 Greenhouse Garden

So, last year I used EasyOllas to grow out my garden, while this spring I started with both the EasyOllas and the bucket reservoirs. I quickly found out that, past the first set of true leaves it is best to ease off the Ollas, if you already have a water basin under the plant.

March 26, 2019

March 26, 2019

April 1st, 2019

April 1st, 2019

I started out my garden around the last week of March. In many of the early pictures, you will see 2 liter bottles or other containers. Early in the season, water-filled jugs can be invaluable. They provide a free source of radiant heat when they are exposed to sunlight during the day and exposed to cooler air at night. This radiant heat was able to keep my plants warm despite less-than-ideal conditions outside the greenhouse.

During a cold spell, April 5th, 2019

 

During a cold spell, April 5th, 2019

As with all gardening experiences, I also had some other learning opportunities. Without proper soil health strange things can (and do) happen. Some of my plants did not care for my less-than-fertile soil and grew a little strange. Once I improved the soil fertility by adding some healthy compost, the health of my greenhouse plants greatly improved.


 

Abnormal growth due to low fertility

 

More abnormal growth

 

April 17, 2019

 

April 17, 2019

 

April 18, 2019

April 18, 2019

April 19, 2019

April 19, 2019

April 24th, 2019

April 24th, 2019

April 25th, 2019

April 25th, 2019

April 26th, 2019

April 26th, 2019

After removing the EasyOllas from the baskets, I decided to plant out my sweet potatoes in the margins between the buckets. This enabled me to make the most of my greenhouse space.

May 20, 2019

July 1, 2019

Eventually, when I needed to take trip, I had just removed my first crop of striped Carosello Leccese from the garden. Because there were no male flowers on the new transplants, there was minimal chance of cross-pollination of the mature greenhouse plants with new transplants. I was able to lift the baskets with plants in them and put them in buckets in my patio area where would receive partial sun while I was away.

July 18, 2019

July 18, 2019 - Transplants about to be put out.

Though there may have been some minimal cross-pollination between the greenhouse plants during this time, I’ve never seen honeybees (my main pollinator in this area) flying around the patio area. I hope you enjoyed

Buckets and Hydroponic Baskets for Growing Summer Veggies

The challenge of growing summer vegetables in containers:

Unless you live in a relatively cool climate in which the sun never directly hits your potted plant, growing vegetables in containers can be quite a challenge in the summer time. Successful gardeners in warm climates often require a very big container, daily watering or some form of water basin for the plants to survive the daytime heat. After years of researching my options, this year I found an incredibly easy and affordable option that is worth considering.

After seeing such things as the GroBucket, EarthBox containers and other containers with reservoirs, I wanted to try something that would work and allow me to continue to take care of my plants even when I went on vacation. At the same time, I did not want to spend the money buying equipment for, or investing time in learning how to manage a hydroponic system. I wanted to use the knowledge I already possess about growing plants in soil to grow something with a substantial water reserve. The most promising option looked like the Kratky hydroponic method, but I wasn’t quite sure.

One day, while browsing some related items, I stumbled upon a Hydrofarm GH10 Mesh Pot 10 inch Bucket Basket Lid. The price on this item swings quite a lot, so if you want to get it for the best price, it is well worth checking on it occasionally and looking for the best deals. As with all things that initially seem too good to be true, I did some investigating to determine that these would actually fit my need, then I purchased a dozen. When the baskets came, I found them to be very durable. I then went to a local retail store and picked up some 5 gallon buckets. Total cost up to this point was around $7.00 per with the basket and bucket (if I had to pay for the bucket). When I could find buckets for free, the price was closer to $3.50.

The Hydrofarm 10 inch Mesh pot basket.

 
Here is some of my initial thinking to putting the basket and bucket together: The bucket should hold somewhere around two gallons worth of soil, while the majority of the rest of the bucket should be filled up with water. Initially, it may help to have the water level in the bucket just above the hydroponic basket line, so that the uptake of moisture at the bottom would encourage the plant’s roots to grow towards the source of the water. The sides of the basket would need to remain dry so that the plant’s roots can breathe. The sides and bottom of the basket either need to have something to keep the soil from falling through or the soil in the basket needs to be compact enough to keep particles from falling through. As compaction can always be a concern, I chose to choose covering the inside bottom and sides of the basket.

My Summer veggie bucket plan

To set up the buckets, I began by putting the 10-inch hydroponic basket in the 5-gallon bucket. A screwdriver was placed along the bottom of the basket, with the tip poking through the sides of the basket and pushing against the inside vertical surface of the bucket. I then rotated the basket so that I scratched the inside of the bucket with the screwdriver all the way around the bucket. I then drilled two holes on either side of the bucket along the line I scratched on the inside. The holes were then drilled with larger bits to ensure that the water could come out quickly, if needed. I then filled up a bucket all the way with water while the basket was inside to see where the water line would be when the bucket was filled with water. It turned out that the water rested just above the basket. My screwdriver must have had a narrow enough profile to make the marks for the drill holes just above the bottom of the basket.

Using the screwdriver to scratch a hole in the side (Later ended up drilling lower)

Drilling the hole using the scratch point as a guide.

Increasing the hole size with a larger drill bit.

The hole here is too high. I had to go back and drill a lower hole.

Broken down wood chips to put on the sides of the basket

I then filled up the basket with material by alternately placing partially decayed woodchips on the outside with filling the inside up with coconut coir, finely sifted garden soil and some other inert ingredients. Once all this was done, I decided to put my EasyOllas along the inside for two reasons: to help establish the seedlings and to see how long I could go without maintaining the plants. I also buried each bucket inside my greenhouse beds in order to ensure that the sides of the buckets received adequate insulation from the heat of the warm greenhouse air. I had enough Ollas for all but one of my buckets.

 

Wood chips and leaf at bottom of basket.

 

Adding coir and other inert soil matter.

 

Building up the basket a little at a time.

Checking the fit of the buckets before putting them in the stock tank.

 

Everything set up except the EasyOllas

A broader picture right before planting out my seeds.

What I learned:

First of all, the reservoir buckets with the Ollas was overkill. To make things worse I was also hand-watering. By the time the plants acquired their second set of true leaves, the dark green color in many of the plants was beginning to fade. They became more and more light colored until their growth began to suffer. Because the fertility of the soil was very low, once I put amendments on the soil, the plant roots were unable to use it effectively because of a lack of supportive microbiology. Plant health did not improve until I took the Ollas out of the baskets and replaced the ollas with high quality, biologically active compost.

I was also tired of watering summer veggies in the barrel, so I tried it here too.

Second – examine the roots often. I was not able to even begin understanding what was going on with the whole system until I was able to look at the roots. In this kind of system light roots are good. Brown roots are not as good. Generally clear water is good. Smelly, brown water is not. Any hanging roots that have side roots are roots that require air. Putting too much water into the bucket and covering the roots that require air (too much watering) will kill the plant much faster than having the plant use up the water in the bucket (too little watering). With residual moisture in the soil around the roots, the plant will likely survive a day or so without water but, if waterlogged, the roots may deteriorate to the point that the plant will no longer recover. This means that you can only refill the bucket up to the point where the air-dependent roots stop. If these branching roots go all the way down to the bottom of the bucket, then you can still refill the bucket a couple inches. I had a really good time learning from my mistakes, including the mistake of trying to add a water-soluble solution to the water basin part-way through the season (something I would highly advise against).

One of my failures. Don't do this.

...and there's the water with the fertilizer. Not recommended for this application.

Even though watering a little on the soil surface definitely helps to maintain overall plant health in this system, the reservoir definitely does its job if the gardener needs to leave home for a while. I left my buckets in partial shade for several weeks and the plants did just fine without surface watering. Of all the advantages of this system was what I was able to do. Because of these buckets I grew out a lot more in my greenhouse in the summer without having to worry about watering on a daily basis. This, along with the spiders that keep the pollinators out of the greenhouse, enabled me to trail more cucumber varieties than ever.

What plants will look like once they really get going.

A closer look with terrible lighting.

Generally speaking, for all I learned I definitely would have done this all over again.

And the roots are looking okay, but need to be rinsed off a little.

In future posts, I hope to share how each of these trial varieties did for me.

A tomato plant before going into the wine barrel.