Anyone into gardening/growing your own food?

[Crow]

I just checked out your tutorial on making a DIY DWC.. great stuff!

I'm thinking of starting a hydroponic medicine garden (not that kind of medicine ) in the atrium. I'll be sure to keep you posted on my progress.

[sgreger1]

this is even better.

Yah those work good but you still need the Ph up and down chemicals to adjust the water (though you could use lime and vinegar etc). The kit from GH is like $20 and works great. These strips would be nice for spot checking though.

[voodooman]

As for Ph tester, you don't need a pH meter, you can just get a pH kit similar that which you would use in a pool.

this is even better.

[sgreger1]

I grew everything in this micro-green salad, check out the album: http://imgur.com/a/UK55y











All grown hydroponically. I eat one every night that I pick fresh from my garden. Tomatoes, basil, cucumber, micro-greens & 1 lemon from my lemon tree.

[sgreger1]

Thanks for the great info. That Coco coir sounds pretty cool. I guess my first hurdle will be clean PH balanced water. I need the PH tester at a minimum. And those RO filters are fairly expensive for a good one. I want to get a decent one. I'd like to start filtering all my water for drinking and also have something for SHTF purposes. I was thinking of making a Berkey style filter and buying their filters but RO cleans more stuff out so probably better for hydroponics. So yeah still trying to figure out what I want to spend money on.

An RO filter is not required necessarily. IMO the plants do prefer it, but again it isn't required as far as I am aware. I use the RO filter to filter my own drinking water, but truthfully it tastes weird with everything stripped out of it, it's definitely a noticeable taste difference, and I tend to prefer the Britta filter over the RO one, though I use both.

The only reason RO filters are nice in hydroponics is that it brings the PPM down to almost 0 so it's easier to add your nutrients and measure them since you know you started with 0 and can tell what is in the water. But if you have a low PPM out of your tap (like 300 or less) than it's almost unnecessary. It's like $350 for a good R/O filter, and even at that price range it will be a very slow filter. It takes almost 10 hours to fill my 55 gallon drum for example. If I were you I would invest in other things before the RO water, as you could get more bang for your buck with other things at that price range.

As for Ph tester, you don't need a pH meter, you can just get a pH kit similar that which you would use in a pool. They are about $20. Check out General Hydroponics' kit, it comes with pH UP and pH Down chemicals and the vial to test with (plus the testing liquid). You just add some water in there that you want to test and then put a drop of liquid in it, then see what color it turns to gauge the pH. Cheap and easy.

[Mr. Snuffleupagus]

Thanks for the great info. That Coco coir sounds pretty cool. I guess my first hurdle will be clean PH balanced water. I need the PH tester at a minimum. And those RO filters are fairly expensive for a good one. I want to get a decent one. I'd like to start filtering all my water for drinking and also have something for SHTF purposes. I was thinking of making a Berkey style filter and buying their filters but RO cleans more stuff out so probably better for hydroponics. So yeah still trying to figure out what I want to spend money on.

[sgreger1]

Day 3 and already the roots have doubled in size since yesterday:

[sgreger1]

Hey sgregor1, your plants look great! I really enjoy reading about and seeing the progress. I've been growing a bunch of food crops outside in containers of soil but not getting nearly the amount of growth you are getting with the hydro set-ups. I might need to try a hydro setup. I work in horticulture and also do a lot of irrigation work so it would be pretty easy for me to set up a system. I've also been studying and propagating native plants in my area and am very interested in understanding the edible and useful native varieties that can be foraged for survival. Looking into getting an RO filter set up soon as well.


Nice work on the blogsite! Keep it coming!

Thanks Mr. Snuff! It's become a real hobby of mine, and if you ask my wife she would tell you i've taken over the house and yard with all my damn plants lol. I'm glad you like the blog, I havn't had a whole lot of time but I try to post new things at least every week. I am actually setting up a forum right now for it so I have been busy with that. I've had over 2k pageviews though and at least 60 unique visitors a day and i've only had it up for about a month so I guess people enjoy growing something other than weed afterall! lol.

I'm even growing microgreens[album] which is a really simple form of hydroponics that make amazingly tasty salads and only take 2 weeks to cultivate (and cost almost nothing). These are great since even a small child could grow them and they have a fast turnover and are super tasty.

I have been picking ripe cherry tomatoes for a few weeks now, but I ate my first regular tomato yesterday as it was the first one of my crop to ripen and MAAAAN was it tasty! It was a Cherokee Purple Heriloom variety and it was absolutely amazing. Still getting like 3 cucmbers every other day off that single plant too, I don't know what to do with them all. I have basil coming out of my ears and actually had to kill off 6 basil plants last night because I need their current containers for something else. But I still have 2 large ones that I can harvest a whole ziplock bag full of basil from at least once every week or two.

If you are into container gardening and dont want to do regular hydroponics, you should take a look at using Coco Coir, it's something I have been getting into recently that works wonders and it is essentially the same as soil. The only difference between soil and coco coir hydroponics is that the coco has no nutrients by itself, it is just a medium that lets the roots grow and allows optimal air and water for them to grow (plus it fights off fungus). You supply it with nutrient laced (and pH corrected) water. It's as close to soil as hydroponics gets, and requires no system to be built, it's just like a regular container plant. The great thing is that it can't really be over-watered, in fact the best method I have found is to put a big dish or something under the container and fill it with the nutrient water, the coco will just suck of water as it is needed and it essentially keeps itself watered, that way you only have to tend to it every few days. It works WAY better than soil and is great for people who are used to soil gardening as it offers an into into hydroponics (things like preparing nutrients in your water and pH correcting it), but it doesn't require any crazy system or anything and you just water it like you would any other plant. Way better growth than in soil if you ask me.


I'm going to put up a tutorial on it in the next week actually, I just gotta figure out what I want to plant in it first.


Edit: If you want to set up your own hydro system let me know and I will walk you through it, there are several different types and at this point I have built al but maybe 1 or two of them (but I know how to make them). It depends what kind of veggies you plan on growing and whether or not you plan to grow inside or outside. But I say go for it, hydroponic plants grow really fast and yield good too. I couldn't ever keep a soil plant alive in ym whole life, but my first try and I have a whole forest of veggies growing right now, that's how much easier it is (for me at least).

[Mr. Snuffleupagus]

Hey sgregor1, your plants look great! I really enjoy reading about and seeing the progress. I've been growing a bunch of food crops outside in containers of soil but not getting nearly the amount of growth you are getting with the hydro set-ups. I might need to try a hydro setup. I work in horticulture and also do a lot of irrigation work so it would be pretty easy for me to set up a system. I've also been studying and propagating native plants in my area and am very interested in understanding the edible and useful native varieties that can be foraged for survival. Looking into getting an RO filter set up soon as well.

Nice work on the blogsite! Keep it coming!

[sgreger1]

OMG I want to eat them!

[Crow]

I planted a few blueberry plants today.. "Blueray", "Bluecrop", and "Jersey" blueberries to be precise.

I saw some "Pink Lemonade" blueberry plants for sale, so I might plant one to try it out.. I've never had pink blueberries before, but they look tasty:

[sgreger1]

Made a new DWC too, gonna grow me some lettuce and spinach. Already got roots in the reservoir after 2 days:




Here's on day one, you can see in the above pictures how much they grew in just 2 days.




I made a tutorial for anyone who wants to try building one for themselves here: Beginners Guide To Building Your Own Hydroponic DWC

[sgreger1]

Check out my basil roots man!

[sgreger1]

the one that burned probably wasn't ready to move enough water to counter the heat. ones in the cloner are used to hydro and the root system can efficiently absorb from it. 2 inches was probably a bit too close this early. 6 or even more will work well. air circulation is important too. you will get a "bubble" of standing hot air right below that light. perhaps a nearby fan would be nice. you could even cut a hole or two in the reflector, and mount small computer fans to blow the heat right away from the bulbs.

Yah the other one had small little roots because it was in a small pot, it's roots haven't really gotten down into the reservoir yet. Oh well, the leaves will grow back. I have been meaning to put the fan there but havn't yet, I like the idea about using a computer fan in the side too lol, that would be ideal.

[voodooman]

the one that burned probably wasn't ready to move enough water to counter the heat. ones in the cloner are used to hydro and the root system can efficiently absorb from it. 2 inches was probably a bit too close this early. 6 or even more will work well. air circulation is important too. you will get a "bubble" of standing hot air right below that light. perhaps a nearby fan would be nice. you could even cut a hole or two in the reflector, and mount small computer fans to blow the heat right away from the bulbs.