Greenhouse: Hydroponics, 4 by CountryGardens

CountryGardens wrote:
As long as you are new here, Welcome.

I don't raise tomatoes hydroponically. But I do raise them in greenhouse/high tunnels.
I have been doing this nearly 20 years. I visited a hydroponic operation near me at the beginning.
Because I was raising tomatoes outdoors, I wanted to get the jump on the market.
We had been using T-Tape in our garden. When I saw his operation, I thought why can't I do this without all the expense.
I laid out 5 rows in my 30ft x 96ft house & planted tomatoes. Each row was a double row of plants. Rows 6" apart & plants 24" apart in each row. So a double row had plants 12" apart. Tilled the ground, applied some 10-10-10 fertilizer, tilled again & planted my plants. Ran a length of T-Tape down between the rows.
Watering is simple & takes very little water. We run it every 4 days when plants are small, to almost daily when production gets heavy. Tomatoes are picked 3 or 4 times a week.
About every 2 weeks clipping & pruning are done. Plants are pruned to one stem.

We have a injector to put liquid fertilizer on the plants during the growing season.

We started with 450 plants in that house. Snow took it down 4 years ago. Now we have 4 high tunnels, 1 can be heated for early tomatoes. Around 600 plants now as these are smaller houses.