Just Saving for Later

One does not simply "wish" for Lychee Wine,

it must be made.

I promise you, I cleaned that jar.  Inside and out.

What better use of 5lbs of lychee?

Say Yes to Fresh Lychees and No to Sulfur Dioxide Import Alert 99-21

I re-post this because I've noticed quite a few obvious cases of lychee being brown on the outside not matching the inside.

Via Blueproduce

It is well known in the industry that China, Taiwan, and Israel have been shipping lychees treated with Sulfur Dioxide (SO2) gas now for several years to the United States. There are already a few Chinese Exporters on the FDA Import Alert List for illegally applying SO2 to fresh lychees. Foreign exporters do it because it is the only commercially known method to preserve lychee fruit (also done with longan fruit) for the 25-30 day boat trip to the USA and because the lychee color can be maintained better since they avoid normal browning that is naturally occurring on the fresh lychee shell when exposed to oxygen. When the cold chained is maintained well you may see some light browning on the shell, this means it is fresh with no harmful post-harvest chemical treatments.


Here are a few photos that you can use as a reference guide when checking to see if the lychees you are buying are fresh:


Lychees with Sulfur Dioxide (SO2) Gas Treatment
Click on the picture for more detail


As you can see from the photos, most lychees that undergo SO2 gas treatment turn beige in color and this is a good indicator that these lychees likely do not follow FDA Food Safety Guidelines. However, when the SO2 gas is applied optimally and the lychee fruit is later dipped in an acidic solution most of the lychees return to their natural green or red color which makes it difficult to detect if a lychee has been treated with Sulfur Dioxide without performing a full laboratory analysis.

If you are in doubt, there is no need to panic, just contact your distributor and ask them for a lab certification guaranteeing that the lychees they are selling you are 100% fresh and free of SO2 gas residue. If you suspect you have lychees with SO2 gas residue, you should notify your distributor to get your money back and register a formal complaint with the FDA.



Lychees are yummy when served chilled and fresh, let’s make Food Safety our #1 priority by saying “yes” to fresh lychees and “no” to sulfur dioxide.



Import Alert 99-21

Progression of Peas

This is an older picture, in fact thse peas have come and gone.  I got a decent yield from them about 2 pounds of peas, which is plenty. 

Today I'm starting another batch.  However, this time I'm using the Dwarf Gray Sugar Peas which apparently won't require trellising.  We shall see.

What's the best PH and EC for lychee??

On the left acid peaty soil, Om the right ordinary soil

Following the advice of this paper, Soil PH variation and Lychee Growth by Robert A. Nanz and a few other places from the web I've decided to take greater control of the PH in the nutrient solution. My first readings revealed a PH of 6.7 and ppm of nearly 3000.

Update: It's been about a week since the
original drafting of this post and currently the ppm is 1500 and a PH of 6.2

String Trellis

Here is a picture of string trellis I made for the peas. I hung the strings from the top of the shelf the holds light. I then wrapped the string around the plants to get them started. Hopefully the string is thick enough for the peas to hold on to.

Wait, What?

So for the past several months I've been trying a new "organic" nutrient solution from General Hydroponics called Biothrive Grow.  It's even vegan.  I've put up with a lot from this stuff, you can't test it in any way accept for temperature(no PPM/TDS/PH), and the recommended dosage turned my reservoir in to a foamy foul smelling mess that, at one point,  I had to nuke with peroxide.  Seeking a solution to these problems I found this post on the General Hydroponics blog.

So the foaming is most likely caused by the small bubbles made by both my water pump and by the air stone in the reservoir.  A General Hydroponics employee posted a suggestion that a General Hydroponics Product called Bio-Marine, which is essentially fish oil, would help.  Which is supposed to work in the same way that adding a drop of oil will stop a pot of ramen from over-boiling.   This helpful tip, however is refuted, in another unrelated post, by another GH representative stating that Bio-Marine will "funk up" a recirculating system. Sigh.

Later on in the original post, appears this helpful quote:


"While lots of growers are experimenting, at this point, GH is not intending BioThrive to be a base for hydroponics."

Thanks for nothing General Hydroponics

I shall press on.

The Hardware

Here is my current system configuration:

4 Tier adjustable metal shelf from K-mart
American Hydroponics Baby Bloomer w/ Hydroton
180 watt Blackstar LED Grow light from Lighthouse Hydro
Hydrofarm Commercial 2ft 4 tube T5 fixture
Four 4" Personal Fans Two to exhaust heat and the others circulate cool air
Vick Ultrasonic Humidifier
Hard Cider CO2 Enrichment System (the subject of an upcoming post)
all happily wrapped in Mylar

Three plug-in timers:
one for the lights (currently on an 12/12)
one for the water and (currently in a 3 hour cycle)
one for the humidity and air circulation (currently in a 30/15).

This setup is going strong so far. The only downside is that the UFO, which I keep abount in the middle of the box, blows its exhaust air in all directions around it resulting in heated air blowing unto some of the leaves. 

My future upgrade plans are to automate the fans and humidifier with a thermostat and humidistat for greater precision.  Also, I'd like to upgrade to a 54w T5 Fixture.

Perpetual peat pot problems

Note to self: Peat pots are problems o' plenty.  Once wet, the pots hold too much moisture and drown the seeds. After that, they dry out too quickly, sucking the water and life from the seed and roots.  Of the 10 I've used thus far, only 3 or 4 seeds have sprouted. One of them being basil, the world's easiest plant to grow.  The rest have either remained lifeless or grown a layer of green mold, marking what should have been a place of new life into a tombstone  . 

Wonder and Warnings

The good, the bad, the longan

I was walking through the store today and came across a bunch of longan that were the largest that I've ever seen. Pictured above, with a quarter for scale, is a few from that bunch. There were about the size of a large grapes. However, should you come across such longan, leave them where you found them because the taste was horrible. The increase in size came at the cost of flavor.  Longan isn't the best, but watered-down longan is hopeless.  Another reason why you're not reading Longanyum.

Yearly Reading

After finding a really nice copy of The Lychee and Lungan by George Weidman Groff on the Internet Archive. I feel like I've just read it for the first time. Most copies of this text consist of scanned pages that are then converted into a black and white image, while this version is a color scan of the book and I think that made for a much easier, or rather more natural reading.

Lots of Good Info Here

Merry Christmas!!

How did the Tempura Lychee turn out?

THE PLAN






THE RESULT



I think I was pretty close. They didn't taste too bad either. The next time I try this, I'll only bread them once, the taste of the overpowered the Litchi slightly. However this might have been because they were canned lychee. I also think that it would be better to dry the fruit as much as possible before frying. Also, deep fryer would have made life a lot easier.

System 2.0

I'm predicting that the lychee will out grow their window this year. Three of them have already begun to send leaves past the top of the light which can't be moved much higher. The solution I've chosen is to build a new system and use both of my windows instead of just one. Here are a few pictures of my current set up before I change it.



In this picture here you can see I've taken a tupperware container and cut holes in the lid to place the pots. The bottom of the container is painted black to block as much light from the rootzone as possible. The top has been painted white to reflect as much light as possible back to the trees as possible. You can also see the tube that is used for both drain and fill. (the plant on the right of the photo my pineapple plant Amy which I grew from fruit purchased from Sam's club)



Here you can see the reservoir and the water pump. The water both drains and fills through the pump itself. In the bottom left portion of the photo you can see drain tune which connects to the container housing the trees.



Here is a photo under the lid. If you look closely you can see the bottom of the pots are partially submerged.


Not shown in any of these photos is the light which is a 125W hydrofarm CFL and the timer which is controls the light and pump.

What I liked: This system has held up pretty well for a while now. It was much easier than watering individuals plants. The timer


What I didn't like: water only submerged lower 20% of pots, the plants closer to the window grew much faster than the one on the farther side, forcing me to raise the light, making the problem worse. The pots are made of a soft thin plastic which prevents me from easily removing the trees for cleaning/foliar feeding.

It appears that there are 42 different varieties of Lychee

Take a look here. It appears to be a website of another Chinese lychee amusement park. This one however seem more dedicate to the history of the fruit rather than the growing of it.

Here's what I'm going to try tonight

I found this recipe today over on Herbivoracious, I think I'll give it a try.

The O'Berry Lychee and Yoga Farm

View Larger Map


Yes, and yoga. Picking season for lychee and longhans from the last week in May until the fruits are gone (usually in July)

My next Grow light

Here is where my next $600.00 dollars are going.


There it is. The Procylon-100 LED Grow Light
Features:

• 56 CREE* Xlamp high power LEDs (40 Red, 16 Blue)
• 100W nominal LED power delivery
• 125W total power consumption
• Integrated power supply; requires no “ballast”
• Replaces 400W HID light, giving 75% power savings
• Covers approximately 10 square feet
• 50,000+ hour LED life**
• Proudly Made in the USA!

Make Your Own: Supernatural's Green Stay

SuperNatural Green Stay The importance of keeping the leaves healthy and green through out their growing cycle can make a dramatic difference in flower and vegetable production. It is easy to keep your plants healthy and green. By using a foliar spray of professional quality nitrogen, magnesium, and iron formula like Supernatural Brand Green Stay, results can be seen in just two days with one application. Combine with Ultimate B1 Thrive for the highest quality first aid for plants.

Mix:
6 grams of potassium nitrate
2 grams of Epsom salts
5 ml of Seachem iron (or other soluble chelated iron use Seachem as it's easy to find)
1 gallon of water

Foliar feed once midway through the flowering cycle, and once 2 weeks before harvesting. This should allow the plant to more effectively photosynthesize by keeping chlorophyll alive and well, which should in turn increase the mass and density of the flowers.

The spray schedule is not for lychee but its a start. This product is listed as a first aid and not a regular fertilizer.