Winter is coming for my cucumbers + hydroponic root system reveal

Ok, lets not exaggerate too much, autumn, autumn is coming for them.
My cucamelon plants started drying off about a week ago and before that there have not been any new flowers for a while now.

The newer growth is still green but I can see it's starting to turn.

I've decided to remove the plants and harvest all fruit that have reached maturity. Got another bunch of plant material that needs to be composted. I'll give them a couple of weeks to dry some more before hand though so I can remove the plastic netting they grew on.

I got a pretty good parting of ways harvest which I will pickle. My last effort turned out great, the little cucamelons were far better pickled than the lemon cucs so this time I will put a few jars just with the little ones; I've got a few requests from friends who tried the pickles so I will give most of them away.

Now as a bonus have a look at how the root system developed in my system. This is from a nasturtium plant I cut off about 10 days ago because it got way too big and I couldn't keep the black aphids that started munching on it under control. As you can see the roots found their way into the drainage pipe.

The roots are looking pretty good considering the plant has been dead for a while now. They're still mostly white.

The roots managed to get through my roots filter/blocker, it was expected to be honest and they were slowed down enough that they didn't block the drain pipe in any way.

The great thing about having this sort of a system is that the buckets are ready for a next crop immediately if needed. Just remove the pebbles, put new ones in and it's good to go. I will reuse the clay pebbles from this season, but I will give them a good clean before hand. I will probably also use some peroxide or maybe even a weak bleach solution to kill of any bad stuff that might be in there.

Alright, that's all for now.

Cheers for reading!