Hydroponic Vegetables and Herbs

Funny the things you end up doing or learning in a COVID lockdown year. In some ways it has been a really great year for personal development and growth, and in others it has just been dreadful.

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Anyway, after a bit of a renovation in 2019 we had a bit of wood left laying around, and I thought I'd make my wife a herb planter using it. In typical fashion I did a reasonable but not awesome job. It came out OK, but the base felt a little weak and I wasn't sure if I could fill it with soil.

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So I had a thought - what about filling it with vermiculite and some clay pebbles and running a hydroponic system on it? So I did. This is my first hydroponic setup - it is a very small and simple setup.

• I have a 20 liter storage container under the planter for the water/nutrient reservior.
• Inside that is a small garden fountain pump that runs off a solar panel and pumps out to a 6 spray dripper system on the surface of the planter.
• The pump is controlled with a timer system so that it runs for around 10 minutes every hour, day and night.
• I drilled a hole in the bottom of the planter and into the water/nutrient reservior and used a piece of pipe to reclaim the water that gets pumped around.

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It is an outside system so I do not use artificial light.

I'm just growing leafy greens - lettuce, spring onions, celery, garlic chives, mustard greens, etc. Apparently these need a different nutrient balance than say flowering veges, and I use the appropriate nutrient additive in the water for that. Depending on the amount of sun etc, I might have to top up the reservior once a week to once a fortnight with maybe 5 - 8 liters of nutrient/water mix. Easily done using a watering can on the veges themselves - the water makes it way into the reservior after a while.

Anyone else do hydroponic veges or herbs?

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James.

When it was still illegal to grow your own marijuana in Canada, there was a hydroponics supply shop in a mall near a secondary school outside of Toronto. They sold to hobbyists and greenhouses and the occasional illegal grow operation.

Whenever they sold a large amount of hydroponic equipment (several thousand $$), if they thought the buyer was at all suspicious, they’d pass the information to the police who would wait several months and then bust the grow op that had purchased the stuff. After enough time had passed that the confiscated equipment was no longer required as evidence in a prosecution, it was donated to the biology or greenhouse programme in a local highschool.

That school district has a large number of graduates with useful experience in hydroponics.

Yeah, I was going to say that here the only hydroponics operations were typically growing weed. I worked a bunch of jobs confiscating property for the Federal Marshall Service with some of them being hydroponic grow sights.

Wow, really? I know hydroponics and pot are a classic, but I'm surprised that backyard hydroponics for vegetables and herbs is not a bigger thing in the US. It is a bit of a rigamarole setting it up, but so easy afterwards. I mean, there's no weeding - just plant and grow, and clean out the water reservoir occasionally (every few months).

James.

There are outfits that sell kits for starting your own hydroponics. Some are quite large and some very small.

I've seen the small ones. It's a nice idea for veggies. Would you say the cost for a larger one like yours is a lot more than a basic planter and soil counting any fertilizers and such?

Unless you have a dedicated greenhouse or do it outside the expense is much more than a traditional planter. You need lighting arrays and a bunch of other hardware for indoor applications.

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Originally Posted by Gasman

I've seen the small ones. It's a nice idea for veggies. Would you say the cost for a larger one like yours is a lot more than a basic planter and soil counting any fertilizers and such?

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Yes for sure. Even taking into account what thebigspendur said about say lighting, in my setup you have to buy a water reservoir (eg 20 liter storage container from Target or US equivalent - walmart?), you need to buy an irrigation system with a pump, plastic to line the planter with to keep it an enclosed system, and of course the nutrient mix additive. Would have been way cheaper to just dump some soil and potting mix in there.

Perhaps over time it breaks even - but I reckon you are talking years, not months, for that to happen.

James.

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Originally Posted by Jimbo

Wow, really? I know hydroponics and pot are a classic, but I'm surprised that backyard hydroponics for vegetables and herbs is not a bigger thing in the US. It is a bit of a rigamarole setting it up, but so easy afterwards. I mean, there's no weeding - just plant and grow, and clean out the water reservoir occasionally (every few months).

James.

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I looked a few up in my neighborhood and these are a few examples.

https://www.usnews.com/news/best-sta...ity-inspectors

https://www.agritecture.com/blog/201...ponics-venture

https://www.outsideonline.com/238910...anics-fix-food

I didn't find the one I wanted easily. They use a vertical turning set up.

Well, you could always buy an Aero garden. You get everything you need in one package. You can't grow much and they are pricey but it gives you an idea of what hydroponics is all about.

The problem I have with hydroponics, is usually there's no flavor, in comparison to organic grown.

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Originally Posted by outback

The problem I have with hydroponics, is usually there's no flavor, in comparison to organic grown.

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Would this be the nutrients in the water compared to the soil or the choice of plant grown?

Heirloom plants taste so much better but are not conductive to modern production.