HOW TO: Grow plants for hydroponics PART I

So we will be doing this Brett-Thompson Style. Yes that's right, my auto mechanic is my hydroponics teacher. He swears he grows 9 foot corn stalks. And his sweet peppers are bigger than my head. As if that isn't intriguing enough, he offers to help me set up my own system! That brings me here now.

 

The reason this is part one is because I am blogging as I go along. We aren't "there" quite yet. Come along for the experience. :-) Learn with us.

 

Let's go over some Bret-Thompson basics...

 

We will be growing from seed. Because it is good to see everything from the beginning. We will learn more that way. ALSO fall is NOT the time to purchase tomato and pepper plants... apparently. Who knew...

 

 

Soooooo. Anywho, here are our seeds. First I placed a wet cloth in a ziplock container (a bowl of any sort would work just fine). I placed a few seeds in the wet cloth and closed the sides of the cloth on top of the seeds. Then I stored them on top of the refrigerater. Note: I found that the cloth dried up too often so I draped a plastic bag lightly over the cloth to keep the water from evaporating so soon. Every day, I checked the the cloth. When it began to dry out, I just added more water to the cloth, put the baggy over it again and put it away.

 

A little Botany 101... To germinate (begin to grow a seedling) all a seed needs is water and warm air. Seeds can grow a seedling in the dark and lacking dirt. This is because the seed has everything the plant needs to begin growing. It will not begin the process of photosynthesis right away during germination. (of course we are going to see that the plants don't REALLY need dirt at all, but let's not get ahead of ourselves.)

 

 

 

 

At first some roots popped out, this was maybe 4-5 days. Then about a week later, when the roots had grown and the plantling was starting to appear, I took them carefully out of the cloth. I placed them in a small yogurt-ish container and covered the roots with a wet napkin, again making sure that the napkin stayed constantly moist. I put a plastic baggy over the napkin when I noticed it started to dry out too often. Right about now, the plant was good to have some light. I put it by the window. Then went off to see Brett.

 

Tools:

We need a Ph and PPU Reader. Ph (how acid or basic something is) and PPM (parts per million, it is essencially a way to see how much food is in the water). Brett was kind enough to let me borrow his until I get my own. They cost about $250.00. 

Brett recommends (and again has let me borrow some for this experiment) MaxiBloom 5-15-14 made by General Hydroponics for the plant food. This was purchased at Worms Way in Hebron KY, cost $29.95 AND it goes a long way. Totally I plan to head over there soon to check out what they have and see how they are doing things. Luckily I have Brett here to show me how to get things started first.

Pargro Quickdrain. It looks like insulation. When you touch it, you should wash your hands. It can cause itching same as insulation. Now mine is already soaking. It should soak 24 hrs before use. I am starting with 1.5" starter plugs (cubes). ( I do have bigger cubes soaking too which will continue to soak in there until it is time to put the small cubes into the bigger sized cubes. More about that later.) I started by filling a bathroom-sized grabage can with 3/4 full with water.

I put in MaxiBloom a pinch at a time until the PPM reads between 600-650 (it didn't take much MaxiBloom to get it there) and Ph should be around 6-6.5. If it is too low you can purchase "UP" from most pool supply stores to balance the Ph.

 

LAST, I need a terrarium. I don't have one, but I do have a small fish bowl and glass lids for my pans. So I fixed one up this way.

 

 

 

 

I took the small Pargo plugs and, using a small skinny pencil, I put a hole in each one big enough to fit the seedling's root. After inserting the seedling I smoothed out the hole so it was closed around the plant. Now I put the plants in my terrarium. They will need to be checked to make sure they stay moist, of course. This is where the terrarium lid comes in of course, keeping the mixture from evaporating out. The terrarium should be by a window. The plants need sunlight now. The plants will grow in here about a month. I will update to show my progress. In the mean time I am soaking sweet pepper seeds and hot pepper seeds, to get them started too. So exciting!!

 

 

 

If you want to learn more about what I am doing for this ongoing project... http://hydroponicandgarden.blogspot.com/