Pollinating Indoor Plants Without Bees Cloning Tomato Plants

Have you ever wondered how plants in an indoor aquaponics system get pollinated?  This is a bit of an issue because no one wants bees living inside their house.  Well, my husband has found a very simple way to pollinate the vegetable plants growing in our basement using a tiny paintbrush. 

He is also "cloning" the tomato plants in our aquaponics system and planting the new plants in our outdoor gardens.  Tomato plants have a unique quality which allows you to clip their branches and replant them to start a new tomato plant.  We have been very successful cloning the tomato plants growing in our aquaponics system. We automatically have a jump-start on our outdoor tomato plants because the new cloned plants start out around 8-12" tall. 

In his latest video, Todd will show you how he pollinates and clones our plants.  During the video he also, ironically, gets stung by a random bee that made its way into our house!

Aquaponics Walkthrough Episode 9 - Pollinating and Cloning Indoor Plants





This post was shared at:  The Backyard Farming Connection, HomeAcre Hop, Simple Lives Thursday, Homestead Barn Hop

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Alternate Follow up To The Alternate Cloning Method It Worked!

 

Here is an update to our original follow-up (confusing, we know!) of our attempt at an alternate tomato cloning method.  Our tomato clones did fantastic last year and cloning was a great way to get a jump-start on our gardens here in Michigan.   Well, we made some changes to our first attempt, thanks to some advice from a fellow gardener, and it worked this time! 

We hope our trials (and errors) help you on your journey to grow your own food!

 

 

 

 

Watch this quick video for more details!

 

 

 

 

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Aquaponics Alternate Cloning Method

 

 

Check out this video to see an alternate way to clone tomato plants of any kind. I have used several other methods and I am hoping that this will be have the best success rate overall.

In the past I have just grabbed some containers, filled them with dirt, and stuck a bunch of tomato clippings in the dirt and kept it moist for a few days. About half of them or sometimes less would make it and the rest would just get thrown into the worm bin. The tomatoes grow so quickly in the aquaponics that I had no shortage of tomato branches to clip. I am also dealing with limited space so I have to cut them back all the time anyway. What I ended up with last year was about 15-20 cloned tomato plants to start my garden in late April. This made a huge difference to the amount of production we had last year. The plants all did great and even though it was a horrible year for tomatoes we still had a good harvest throughout the summer.

 

What I am trying to do here is come up with a more reliable way to start these clones that will save me some space and time. The idea with this setup is that the branch can start to root while it has access to the main plant for nutrients and water. This should allow for a 100% success rate with these clones which will mean more plants for my garden this year.

 

I am just using some old seasoning containers, those cheap store brand plastic ones will work just fine. As I show in the video I am making a sort of sleeve for the branch that I want to clone that will hold some moist soil in contact with the plant until it starts to root. I have seen this work for others on YouTube and hopefully I will also have the same luck. I will post an update to this process in a week or two so stop back by to check out the progress.

 

Original video I say this idea from - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9gxRKRGslYs

 

 

 

 

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Cloning Tomatoes

Just a quick video on how I clone my tomato plants.  Only one plant was grown from seed in the greenhouse and everything else has been cloned.

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Alternate Cloning Method Follow up Did It Work

Here is a follow-up to our original post and video on our attempt at an alternate tomato cloning method.  Our tomato clones did fantastic last year and cloning was a great way to get a jump-start on our gardens here in Michigan. 

We hope our trials (and errors!) help you on your sustainable journey as well!

 

 

 

 

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1 A New Beginning

An early post at 3x5 Aquaponics
Just today I was reflecting that I needed a new name for my blog.

I started an aquaponics blog almost a year ago. At the time, I wanted to prototype an indoor DIY system that would allow year-round gardening. I picked the name 3x5 Aquaponics because:

Anyone with a 3 by 5 area (that can literally support a ton of water/gravel/etc.) can have an aquaponics system for well under $1000. Thats under $1000 complete with lights, fish, and rocks (most experts recommend home aquaponicists stick to rock-based systems).

I designed the system and created a prototype. Seeds sprouted, and I transplanted them to the garden.

It worked. But the taller my plants grew, the more I envied those who can grow outside. When my tilapia "failed to thrive," I was free to create a system outside.

The garden grew...

July 2011
And grew...

August 24th, after a month away
And grew.

After Hurricane Irene swept past, August 28th

Im loving this aquaponics adventure. Alas, "3x5 Aquaponics" doesnt really describe what Im doing now. What new name could I pick?

Then I browsed to the Aquaponics Association website, to review what the site is promising about what Ill present this month in Orlando...

...Meg Stout of "365" Aquaponics
365 Aquaponics.

Year-round gardening.

Its perfect to fit where I am now in my journey, as well as including my original idea of a small indoor system.

So thank you, thank you, thank you to whoever decided I was Meg Stout of 365 Aquaponics.

For the next year Ill continue to blog here about what Im doing, with design details, tales of joy and woe, and pictures (always pictures)!

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