Shoeless Posted December 5, 2020 Share Posted December 5, 2020 Hello, everyone! Is anyone else experimenting with growing their own food? At the start of the pandemic, DH got interested in hydroponic gardening and growing microgreens. After some failures, we have now had some success! The container on the left has 2 cherry tomato plants, and they are FULL of flowers and green tomatoes. The container on the right has the start of butter crunch lettuce. These are Deep Water Culture buckets, meaning they need an aquarium pump with an air stone attached to keep oxygen in the water. About once a week, I check the pH of the water and top it off, if needed. If water is added, I add more nutrients, too. We tried growing plants via the Kratky method, which requires no pump, but the plants never produced fruit. I was constantly fiddling with the plants, water, nutrients. Kratky is supposed to be "low maintenance", but it wasn't for me. The DWC method is much easier for me to maintain. I don't like gardening here in Texas. Too many bugs, the weather is too hot, the soil is mostly clay, etc. It was a lot of work for little return. But the DWC buckets have been easy! I am really glad we started this, and will add more buckets to try growing bell peppers next. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
saraha Posted December 7, 2020 Share Posted December 7, 2020 That is so cool!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
saraha Posted December 29, 2020 Share Posted December 29, 2020 On 12/5/2020 at 4:17 PM, MissLemon said: Hello, everyone! Is anyone else experimenting with growing their own food? At the start of the pandemic, DH got interested in hydroponic gardening and growing microgreens. After some failures, we have now had some success! The container on the left has 2 cherry tomato plants, and they are FULL of flowers and green tomatoes. The container on the right has the start of butter crunch lettuce. These are Deep Water Culture buckets, meaning they need an aquarium pump with an air stone attached to keep oxygen in the water. About once a week, I check the pH of the water and top it off, if needed. If water is added, I add more nutrients, too. We tried growing plants via the Kratky method, which requires no pump, but the plants never produced fruit. I was constantly fiddling with the plants, water, nutrients. Kratky is supposed to be "low maintenance", but it wasn't for me. The DWC method is much easier for me to maintain. I don't like gardening here in Texas. Too many bugs, the weather is too hot, the soil is mostly clay, etc. It was a lot of work for little return. But the DWC buckets have been easy! I am really glad we started this, and will add more buckets to try growing bell peppers next. How did you pollinate the flowers? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shoeless Posted December 29, 2020 Author Share Posted December 29, 2020 49 minutes ago, saraha said: How did you pollinate the flowers? The tomatoes are Tiny Tim's and self pollinate. I keep a small fan blowing on them, just in case that helps with pollination, but I probably don't need to do it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
saraha Posted December 29, 2020 Share Posted December 29, 2020 That is so cool! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shoeless Posted January 1, 2021 Author Share Posted January 1, 2021 On 12/29/2020 at 4:11 PM, saraha said: That is so cool! Thanks! We've got microgreens, pea shoots, tomatoes, and lettuce growing right now. I have herbs growing in my Aerogarden, but they are about done for the season, I think. I ordered a second Aerogarden yesterday, and will try growing lettuce in there, too. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shoeless Posted January 3, 2021 Author Share Posted January 3, 2021 A plant update, 1 month later: The tomato plants became so sense that air and light could not get through to the inner leaves and fruits. I did a big pruning on both plants after I found some very pale tomatoes on the underside. Hopefully they will green up now that light can get to them. The lettuce looks a big shaggy because it is growing faster than we can eat it. We have had several salads with dinner over the last 2 weeks. The variety is Buttercrunch, which is susceptible to tip burn, which is the brown you see in the photo. I hope I can get better at understanding the nutrient needs to avoid this next time. Microgreens and pea shoots are kept above the other plants. We have already eaten some of the greens and shoots. They are good on sandwiches and in salads. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
saraha Posted January 7, 2021 Share Posted January 7, 2021 Holy Cow!!! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shoeless Posted January 9, 2021 Author Share Posted January 9, 2021 The lettuce started to bolt, so we "harvested" it (seems silly to say!), and ate it. I started new lettuce seeds in rockwool 2 days ago and the seeds have already started to germinate. My new Aerogarden arrived and I started a variety of lettuces in it, as well. My tomatoes are starting to put out more flowers. We're going to start a new tomato plant in a stand-alone bucket. I want to stagger development of new plants, so we always have a supply of ripening veggies available. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
saraha Posted January 14, 2021 Share Posted January 14, 2021 On 1/8/2021 at 7:36 PM, MissLemon said: The lettuce started to bolt, so we "harvested" it (seems silly to say!), and ate it. I started new lettuce seeds in rockwool 2 days ago and the seeds have already started to germinate. My new Aerogarden arrived and I started a variety of lettuces in it, as well. My tomatoes are starting to put out more flowers. We're going to start a new tomato plant in a stand-alone bucket. I want to stagger development of new plants, so we always have a supply of ripening veggies available. I saw your link for the aerogarden in another thread. How is it different then the setup in the pictures above? What made you decide on something different? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ausmumof3 Posted January 16, 2021 Share Posted January 16, 2021 This is quite amazing. Forgive me because I’m totally ignorant about hydroponics but is the nutritional profile the same as traditionally grown? I know a fair percentage of our supermarket food is grown this way here. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
maize Posted January 16, 2021 Share Posted January 16, 2021 (edited) 13 minutes ago, Ausmumof3 said: This is quite amazing. Forgive me because I’m totally ignorant about hydroponics but is the nutritional profile the same as traditionally grown? I know a fair percentage of our supermarket food is grown this way here. There are likely some trace mineral differences as hydroponic set-ups have no minerals other than those you add and whatever is in the water you use, where soil may be more complex. Vitamin and macronutrient content should be very similar as plants produce those themselves. Edited January 16, 2021 by maize 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shoeless Posted January 17, 2021 Author Share Posted January 17, 2021 On 1/14/2021 at 10:17 AM, saraha said: I saw your link for the aerogarden in another thread. How is it different then the setup in the pictures above? What made you decide on something different? The Aerogardens I have are smaller and have some built in features to automate the process a bit more, (light timer, reminders to add nutrients, etc). It's the same idea, just smaller. It's more of an unbox-and-go kind of thing vs the DIY set up my DH made. As for why, it was a pandemic purchase that gave me something to fixate on for awhile, rather than the news. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
saraha Posted March 15, 2021 Share Posted March 15, 2021 @MissLemon how are your plants doing? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shoeless Posted March 16, 2021 Author Share Posted March 16, 2021 On 3/15/2021 at 1:33 PM, saraha said: @MissLemon how are your plants doing? They are doing well! The tomatoes have again started putting out flowers. The plants are also growing again! There is a lot of new foliage and they are taller. These are supposed to be determinate plants, but apparently the plants didn't get that memo! We're still crunching away on lettuce. When the lettuce finished in one garden, I restarted it with herbs. I have 2 new micro-dwarf varieties of tomatoes in another garden: blueberry and "spoon" tomatoes. The spoon tomato plant seems to be struggling. I thought it had died during the Texas Freeze because it got too cold in the back of the house, but then it started putting out leaves again, so I let it ride. Now it's again struggling. I may need to just pull that plant and try again. I need to redo the power strips for all these gardens. I have some tubs and buckets that are idle because I have no where to plug them in. Once I get that sorted out, I will try growing cucumbers and mini peppers, (requests from kiddo). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
saraha Posted March 16, 2021 Share Posted March 16, 2021 Sounds great! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shoeless Posted March 17, 2021 Author Share Posted March 17, 2021 The Texas freeze killed off our citrus trees. I'm pretty sure the orange tree is totally dead. The grapefruit trees may have living trunks, but we have a LOT of pruning ahead of us to figure out where they stand. Ugh. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
saraha Posted March 21, 2021 Share Posted March 21, 2021 On 3/16/2021 at 8:10 PM, MissLemon said: The Texas freeze killed off our citrus trees. I'm pretty sure the orange tree is totally dead. The grapefruit trees may have living trunks, but we have a LOT of pruning ahead of us to figure out where they stand. Ugh. Oh no! I am so sorry! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
saraha Posted August 10, 2021 Share Posted August 10, 2021 @MissLemon How are these projects doing? Anything you would change? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shoeless Posted August 10, 2021 Author Share Posted August 10, 2021 3 hours ago, saraha said: @MissLemon How are these projects doing? Anything you would change? The only thing I would change is to only put 1 tomato plant in a bin, not 2. When there are two, they compete for nutrients and it's a little harder to manage them. The tomato plants above lasted about 10 months, and then they started putting out fewer and fewer fruits. That's a pretty good run! I am about to reset all the gardens with new seeds. I took a break from fiddling with it all for awhile, but I am ready to give it a try again. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
saraha Posted August 10, 2021 Share Posted August 10, 2021 That is pretty cool! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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