The Dose is the key.
If you aren’t getting the results you were hoping for from your Naked Planter, it’s almost certainly due to the wrong amount of nutrient.
And I’m prepared to take -at least- some of the blame.
The problem is there are just too many variables to give an exact dosage, starting with the amount of sunlight your planter gets every day, the time of year, your locality and latitude, the hardness or softness of your water… The dosages I prescribed on the first run of sample bottles were, I have to admit, almost certainly too high for most situations; even though they are in accordance with the manufacturer’s recommendations. I guess I was more concerned with being able to honestly tell people “there is enough nutrient in the sample pack to last at least 2 months”, than with the results people were likely to get.
Unfortunately, too much nutrient is probably worse than not enough; not only does less nutrient cost less, but you don’t really have to panic if you’re going away for a weekend. Even when your heavy feeders are coming into full fruit, changing the nutrient fortnightly will just slow them down; it generally won’t kill them, provided of course they don’t run out of water altogether.
Too much nutrient, on the other hand, does appear to be toxic.
Capsicums and Chilli’s I’ve discovered, are particularly susceptible to over feeding. Although they don’t actually die, they just look ridiculous. These are photo’s of capsicums we’ve treated like tomatoes.
It seemed reasonable to me to group all ‘fruiting vegetables’ together; certainly tomatoes, cucumbers and eggplants go well together.
Clearly, I was wrong.
This is my idea of what a Capsicum should look like.
Unlike the first 2 photo’s, it was really challenging to show the fruit, the plant was so bushy. Note the red fruit at the bottom; it won’t be there for much longer.
In terms of dosage, the first 2 capsicums went on to 10ml of Optimum Grow a week fairly early, and went to fruit almost immediately. The last capsicum has only ever received 10ml a fortnight, and secretly I think we may have missed a couple of changes too.
Now that it is nice and leafy, we have just -3 days before this photo- changed the nutrient to 10ml of ‘Optimum Bloom’, to encourage more fruit; although I think 15ml of Optimum Grow would probably work just as well. I now intend to find out, with a direct comparison starting March 16, 2011. Watch this space (for a few months).
As for general feeding, this is a planter on just 5ml of Optimum Grow for a fortnight.
By the way, all photo’s on this website should be “clickable”, for a closer view. If you find any you can’t click on, please let us know. We have placed mint in the extreme left, furthest away from the filler hole, as it will be permanent. (Revision! We do NOT recommend this any more! We suggest you place mint in the hole closest to the large filler hole. Then you can reef the mongrel stuff out, when it -inevitably- starts to take over.) All the others could be transplanted, if necessary.
These tomatoes have just been promoted to what I would call a ‘lazy 10′ ml; ie they could be replenished every week, but I wouldn’t lose any sleep if I forgot.
This planter is also on (a very strict weekly) 10ml, but on this day it’s due to be upgraded to 15ml. It won’t do the lettuce any good, but it’s about to bolt anyway. Dianthus are great value by the way; they flower for months and take up little room.
This is the time to move tomatoes up to 15ml a week, when they start to flower. 
It doesn’t hurt to prune your tomatoes fairly strictly; remember it’s fruit you’re after, not a big mass of leaves. If you can trim the growth tips about 150ml (6”) long, you can pop them straight back into a planter -with only 5ml nutrient, or less- and keep your best plants going pretty much forever. I’ll show you how I do cuttings a bit later on.
Tomatoes, basil, mint of course all strike very easily, as do a number of flowering plants and trees. In fact, it was taking cuttings of Hibiscus which started me on the Naked Hydroponic road.
And finally we come to the 20ml weekly maximum tomato plant. This to my mind is the perfect hydroponic tomato bush, heaps of fruit on a nice compact vine.
All these planters are in varying degrees of shade.
A northerly aspect is generally ideal, as you really want more sun in winter, and shade in the hottest days of summer, if possible.
Too much sun in the hottest months can lead to ‘blossom end rot’; bad fruit on an otherwise healthy plant is quite disheartening.
I hope you find these notes on my methodology helpful, but please don’t ever take anything I say as inarguable gospel; you need to assess your own situation, and make your own decisions. I’m still learnin’, and as I’ve said, I was a bloody awful gardener to start with.
But these days, I do manage to keep the weeds in check…
P.S. (or Piss…)
About my lovely ‘perfect hydroponic tomato bush’…
Pride do Goeth Before a Fall.
I have stressed on a number of occasions not to trust the plastic plant ladders with your tomato vines. This was a real ‘Oh Bugger!’ moment.
