Today I trimmed down the plants inside the chambers. Trimming is a maintenance procedure where you remove some of the weaker/smaller plants to ensure the plants aren’t growing on top of each other and clear up space. I also used this opportunity to refill the reservoirs in the chambers.
Before trimming my plants looked like this:
This is the Bok Choy plant before trimming.
This is the Cherry Bell Radishes before trimming.
Here are steps to trim down your plants:
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Unplug the two black tubes from the top.
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Take out your reservoir and carry it over to another table.
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Remove the top tray and dump access water from the reservoir down a sink/drain or into another plant/garden.
This is the best way to position the tray, to not crush the tube. -
Clean and fill the reservoir back up to the indented fill line.
This is a photo of a refilled reservoir. -
Pull out plants that are weaker or smaller. Make sure to pull out the whole plant including all of its roots. Pull plants until you leave two (of the strongest) plants on opposite sides.
This is a photo of a Radish plant fully pulled out with all its roots.
This image shows two plants on opposite sides of the pot. -
Add some additional media on top
These are the pots with new media on top. -
Move the reservoir back into the box
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Attach the black end of the Black Tube with the Draining Guide (in the orange hole) to the front tube at the top of the box (the closest one to you). Keep pushing it on until you feel resistance.
This is an image of the black tube in the front tube.
Do the same with the second black tube. Lay the open end in the tray. The tubing should look as it did before you started this process.
This is an image of how your tubing should be set up on the tray.
This is an overall view of how the irrigation tubing should look inside the box.
After trimming your unit should look like this:
This photo depicts a unit after trimming. As you can see, there are fewer plants.