Hydroponics: It makes me want to pee

[Doomed Predator]

My babies all died because of the lack of water and extreme heat But fuckem anyways...I have more seed and I intend to spread it.

If it's any consolation, my veg are also dying due to the constant rain and SLUGS AND SNAILS EVERYWHERE

How bad is it? If it's just a few you could get a few cups and pour a little beer in them (like 2-3 cm). They will either drown or be in a convenient container to dispose of. If you have a lot of slugs or snails(50+) you have no other choice but getting pesticide in either spray or pellet form. Then make a border around your garden and pray.


Well, there is always the choice of getting a knife and going to your garden after it rains and start slicing. It's obviously much cheaper but kinda disgusting, especially if you come back after an hour and see 2-3 snails/slugs on each fallen comrade going cannibal. Our family has a greenhouse near a small stream that probably houses thousands of slugs and nothing is really effective except constantly going out and cutting them apart.

[Aypse]

Things seem to be growing nicely. This is two weeks of growth:



I do find it striking though that some plants seem to grow so fast and others, like these strawberry plants, are just barely growing at all. Are strawberry plants typically slow growers or perhaps is there something they don't like with my system? This strawberry plant below was planted at the same time as the rest of the plants in the photo above. They look healthy enough so....\/O\/



Some healthy and happy bok choy & tomato plants.





And finally the root system of the beans which continue to grow at an amazing rate. Their roots are growing even faster than their vines up above. Also, in the center of the root structure you will see some brown, slimy areas. About a week ago several plants, including both bean plants, started to get discolored & slimy root structures. Thinking it was some kind of infection I dosed the system with 200ml of H2O2. That seems to have done the trick, except for this small area. I may pull the plant and place it in a bucket with higher concentrated h2o2 for a few days to clear it up before it spreads again.

[Cortess]

Fitting music for when you go into your hydroponic-basement:

  Spoiler:

yes, you actually should've played ss2

The video about the volksgarden also gets much better with this.

[Aypse]

I had my first harvest on Monday..2 bok choy plants and a basil plant. That is probably about 2 servings of bok choy and a month of basil. I blanched and froze the bok choy, so when I have enough I will let you know how it tastes. I did taste a small sample and oh man was it crisp and flavorful. I am looking forward to eating it with dinner one night.

From what I have read, there are basically two ways to harvest the leafy veggies. Either clear cut them for a better immediate yield but slower over time or to just harvest the mature growth leaving the underdeveloped time to grow. I went for the slow and steady approach. It is kind of a pain to harvest a little each week...but hopefully its more growth over time.





And finally just a general picture after the harvest. You can see the tomato plants on the left are a bit over a foot tall and filling out quite nicely. A bok choy is nearing pruning in the back center and foreground center. The basil plant on the right still has some really nice growth that I will pick soon, even though all the leaves above I just took from it.



I also expanded the system a bit by adding three additional pipes. It's been a bit of a nightmare to be honest and I should have planned it better in the beginning. The three new pipes don't fit in between the existing pipes so they had to be elevated a bit. I didn't realize it until it was up and running, but they are also a bit warped creating shallow areas in the center and deeper pools at the ends. In retrospect I should have made the system much simpler by using plastic gutters and no elbows/Ts....or just 5 gallon buckets linked by tubing. For now though the serious leaks are patched and its functioning ok. I am also considering purchasing a second grow light. You can see how the center is quite bright compared to the edges. I keep rotating things in and out of the center and it really makes a huge difference in the rate of growth. It's $160 and an additional $25/month in electricity so I just don't know if I want to do that.

[Aypse]

Everything (except for those damn strawberry plants) seems to be growing amazingly well. Comparing it to the picture above on 8/9/2012 is amazing what plants can do. So much so that I am struggling to keep the inner plants from blocking the light to the outside plants. I have harvested each bok choy plant three times already and they seem to average about 2 salad-plate sized leafs every four days per plant. I have been blanching and freezing it for later use but the samples I have eaten have tasted great...somewhat like a mixture between spinach and cabbage. On the right is a large tomato plant, center is mostly lettuce and bok choy, and left is basil trying to do a photo bomb. Underneath the fan is a jalapeno plant that has flourished in 3 weeks.



The tomatoes are starting to flower nicely and I have added another fan to circulate the air and pollinate them. You can also see the white string I am wrapping around them and tying to the ceiling to support them. In the back left is a bean plant. They are starting to reach maximum height and have started reaching across the ceiling. Every few days the vines are long enough for me to tie them into the chicken wire I have attached to the ceiling. They are really aggressive growers and I have to constantly trim them to prevent them from overrunning other plants, tangling up the fans, and generally just taking over everything.




Another tomato plant on the other side so you can see the size. This one is approaching three feet tall and the other two are six inches shorter. Its hard to tell here in this photo, but on this plant I didn't cut off a sucker early enough and it is now as tall as the main growth stem. It has so many side branches, flowers, and appears so healthy that I am going to just leave it to grow. It's going to make supporting that plant a real challenge when (hopefully) tomatoes start growing. Does anyone know if it's ok to top off the tomato plants once they have grown to the maximum height I want them at? It seems like it would be good to encourage the plant to pour all its energy into the tomatoes, but it's my first garden and first tomato plants so I don't know that for sure.



And finally, my lunch!



Edit: I forgot to mention that I have planted chives, squash, and spinach.

[definatelynotKKassandra]

Tomatoes: yes, you can pinch the tip out when you don't want them to get any taller. Traditional advice is to leave two leaf branches above the last fruit truss. For the pollination, try giving a trusses a tap and/or giving the plants a gentle shake. In the wild they're pollinated by the vibration of bees wings causing the pollen to be released, so if they're currently perfectly still the fruit might not set properly.

[Lallante]

This thread makes me so happy.

I am planning to attempt a natural light, smaller scale version of this in my flat soon using a homemade version of this:


Essentially its like a normal hydro farm BUT ITS VERTICAL.

Vertical = best, amirite?

[Aypse]

Are you going to use the air bubbler to lift the water to the top? I saw a few examples of this on youtube and I was amazed at the simplicity and efficiency of using the air pump as a combination aerator and water pump.

[Lallante]

Are you going to use the air bubbler to lift the water to the top? I saw a few examples of this on youtube and I was amazed at the simplicity and efficiency of using the air pump as a combination aerator and water pump.

Yes - air bubbler is also very quiet and low power consumption too, then gravity does the rest of the work. The one concern I have is uneven distribution of nutrients and water - surely the top plant gets the lion share, which then decreases as you drop?

[Aypse]

In the last month there have been some major changes. To start with, I have completely rebuilt the system from the ground up. In the beginning, when I spoke with a guy at Home Depot about my project, he recommended that I use PVC drainage pipes as pictured above. The problem was that they were ribbed and never meant to form a perfectly watertight seal, leading to an endless series of leaks needing patching. I tore those pvc pipes out and replaced the system with plastic storage containers, rubber gaskets, and plastic tubing. I am happy to say that I haven't had a single drip from any of the seals. This system is both better and cheaper, too bad I didn't do it to start with.

The second major change has been the addition of lights on the right covering the tomato plants and the lights in the foreground covering the younger plants. I have come to the conclusion that the strength of the plants isn't as important as the distribution of the light. My original plan was to have one single light covering everything (which it did) but that created problems with the plants at the edge stretching too much, tall plants not getting enough light, and everything moving towards the center and creating too much crowding. I could have done much better with cheap CFLs distributed across the system on the basis of the height/width of individual plants. Right now I have the metal halide light covering the rear leafy plants, CFLs covering the tall plants on the right, and circular lights covering the younger leafy plants in the foreground. This system allows me to put low kelvin light on the flowering plants and high kelvin lights on those I want to discourage from flowering.



Tomato in various stages of growing. The red one in the background is somewhat of a freak, I believe as a result of the system switch. It had pollinated and started growing just before the switch and then the plant was in a minimum of water for about 18 hours. For whatever reason it stopped growing and now is ripening even though its about the size of a small grape. It is the first tomato though, so I love it for the special little snowflake it is. The rest of them seem to be growing to normal size, roughly the size of a walnut.



And speaking of pollination, I discovered early on that running a fan was not consistently pollinating the flowers. So I created the perfect tool....a vibrating motor out of a sex toy duct taped to a small paintbrush.



It has, so far, pollinated 100% of the strawberry flowers. Oh, did I mention that the strawberry plants are finally growing and flowering? They appear to be just exploding with flowers and new growth. Who knows what finally inspired them. The roots are also turning a healthy red color. I am not sure if this is normal, but the plant is flourishing so I am not too concerned.



Jalepeno plant...it just finished three flowers, which I think pollinated successfully but too early to tell, and about 10 more in various stages of about to flower. All the flowers appear under the canopy, so I wasn't able to get pictures.



Not all is perfect though. The hybrid romaine lettuce I have been growing doesn't seem to like hydroponics very much. It is one single lettuce plant that runs from the top right, to a lettuce head at the lower left. I don't know why, but it keeps aborting the leaves on the main stem (center) and extending that stem out. The new growth does seem to appear to be stopping that, but I just don't get it. Normally stretching is a result of insufficient light, but the position of these plants gets them plenty of strong light in the proper spectrum. I just don't get it. In the background are squash leaves that are discoloring. Perhaps the lettuce has a disease and has infected the squash. I am watching it carefully and I may pull them both soon.



Finally, just the stem I have settled on for starting new seeds. The 'ol seeds in a baggy works great. I started a few different types of lettuce, some celery, spinach (I think I got bad seeds here because they have a terrible germination rate and all die quickly no matter how I germinate them), and some beefsteak tomato seeds to grow a new strain along with the other cherry tomatoes. I also started chives, peppers, brussel sprouts, swiss chard, and something else I can't remember.



Oh, I wanted to add that the basil has been amazing. As soon as I cut a piece off the smell fills the entire area and it tastes like absolutely perfect basil. I have also eaten the bok choy boiled with garlic and a touch of salt....delicious, crisp, and freezes well for storage. I am going to boil it a bit more though next time as the stems are thick at the base and a bit too chewy.

[Aypse]

Lallante, did you ever try this out? Have any pictures to share?

[Lallante]

Haven't got to it yet but will do sooon