Tomgrow
Full Member
Posts: 10
Joined: Tue Dec 12, 2017 12:03 am

Newbie set up pics

I've essentially just grown my plants like I would in potting soil. I've just been giving them filtered water with a low dosage of hydroponic fertiliser. Plus a bit of root stimulant every now and then:
tomatoesre.JPG
The small plants are tomatoes, big ones are hydroponic green beans. The tomato pots with vermiculite are hydroponic and the ones without are potting/seed raising mix. The bigger tomatoes in the top left were started earlier than the rest.
cucumbersre.JPG
Cucumbers
zucchinire.JPG
Zucchinis. They really grow quick!

The plan has always been to use the Kratky method. I don't see these big plants trying to grow roots out the bottom on their own, I'm assuming I need to coax them by setting them up in the reservoir right about now.

imafan26
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Posts: 13962
Joined: Tue Jan 01, 2013 8:32 am
Location: Hawaii, zone 12a 587 ft elev.

You want to encourage water roots so they should not be allowed to dry out. You would need a trellis system for the tomatoes and any vining crop. You can build a box to do small crops like lettuce but tomatoes have large roots systems so you would need a larger container or a garbage can for that. The link describes the set up. Note that the media in the net pot or forestry tube was placed with the bottom in the nutrient solution and the seed planted on top. It was always in contact with the solution so it developed the water roots it needed. As the solution drops the air roots will provide oxygen. This is an older article on how to set up a Kratky non-circulating system. Later, it was found that aeration helps improve plant growth. Different plants require different amounts of nutrients so you may have to do some customizing on the solution. It is also better if you are going to plant multiple plants in one container, you need to make sure it is the same plant. Otherwise some plants may grow faster than others and the ones with the longest roots will win.


https://www.ctahr.hawaii.edu/hawaii/dow ... method.pdf

Tomgrow
Full Member
Posts: 10
Joined: Tue Dec 12, 2017 12:03 am

I've got 20 litre containers that I planned to put in the ground for insulation and I was going to connect them via pipe according to species of plant.

I don't want to spend the money on bigger set-ups until it's clear that things are working out. I guess the plan is to transfer them once they outgrow their reservoir container.

The tomatoes are still very small. I'll go ahead and put them in water trays for now and fingers crossed, hopefully I'll have the zucchini's and cucumbers in their containers tomorrow.

Tomgrow
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Posts: 10
Joined: Tue Dec 12, 2017 12:03 am

Update:

zucchini's:
kratky1.JPG
Green beans:
kratky2.JPG
Got the tomato plants somewhere else but don't have a pic. I discarded the cucumbers because they weren't doing well and I felt like I'd bitten off more than I could chew time wise.

I'm surprised how well the zucchini's seem to be doing considering how little light they're getting and how little root growth there's been. As of yet I haven’t seen any roots grow out of the orange pots. I seem to be growing bonsai zucchini's.

adelegypt
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Joined: Mon May 05, 2014 10:46 pm
Location: Egypt

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