Update on the “Hydroponics” Experiment
Filed Under: Do It Yourself, Organic Gardening on August 18, 2009
I may have mentioned it before, but I don’t think I’ve gone into any detail on our hydroponics experiments here at our house.
We had several tomato plants in our garden this year. Attrition took down two of them and another was the victim of an over-zealous cat in the garden box. That one broke off at the base and was lying on its side when we noticed it. We tried leaving it in place and just propping it up to secure it into place so the stem could grow back together, but were apparently too late as the plant began to wither noticeably.
It was decided that it needed to come inside or be thrown away. I thought it would be a great chance to try something out I’d been wanting to see in action, so the little tomato plant was placed in a jar of water.
Sure enough, a few days later tiny root sprouts could be seen and within a week, we had half-inch long roots coming from the bottom of the stem. So nutrient solution was added to the water, a straw was put in to aerate it (by blowing) occasionally, and the experiment took off.
The little plant never grew much and is half-withered all of the time, probably because a permanent aeration was not given to it. The water is plain tap water and nutrients are added as simple organic garden feed mixed into the water directly. Just a few sprinkles here and there. The plant is occasionally removed from the water so the container can be emptied and cleaned and the roots are rinsed to remove algae and other growths.
Optimally, I would have chosen a darkened jar to cut down the algae, but my inquisitive mind wanted to see results, so a clear Kerr jar was used to make for easy monitoring.
As you can see here, the little plant is producing two small tomatoes that will be ripe and ready in the next few days! Normally, at this stage, the plant would be about two feet tall. It measures around ten inches right now, so it’s less than half it’s expected size.
Obviously, there are a lot of things that could have been done differently, but this is an example of how this can work.
Here’s what should have been done differently to make for a much healthier plant:
- A wider, shallower container with netting or media (like fish tank rocks) in it for plant rooting.
- More controlled, easier nutrient solution mix, like liquid nutrients from the garden store.
- Shallower water at just the level of the roots so the plant can naturally aerate.
- Dark-colored container to fend off algae.
Sometime soon, possibly this winter, I plan to start a full-on hydroponics system for indoor growing. That will, of course, be detailed here as it happens.
How do your hydroponics experiments or anything like what we did here work out? Any stories? Let me know by commenting below! Hey, that rhymed.
