Hydroponics - Anyone tried it?

[Robert]

Following last years greenhouse tomatoes doing pretty badly i decided to try something different for this season - hydroponics. You add nutrient to water and your plants grow in the water. sounds easy.

I had the idea at the end of the growing season but thought I'd get some stuff to play with. So I have some 'Masterblend' nutrient that should last a long time as you don't add a lot to the water...some coir pellet starter plugs.. mesh pots in a couple of sizes and various containers for the water.

Winter with light through a workshop window is not a good time to be growing things but i found some very old tomato seeds in a drawer so i thought why not.

This was late December and was about as far as I got.

Roots

After this I neglected it as it was far too cold for any growth. There were flower buds starting but I'd seen it could work and the plants went in the bin.

Plan is to try half and half this year. Some in compost and some in water. Not decided yet if i make a wooden trough and line it with DPC polythene or just buy some black storage boxes - you have to keep light out of the water.

I feel like there is loads to learn yet. So much of what is online is geared towards marijuana growing which is not helpful. Anyone been there done that and got tips? No problem if not as i'll just keep muddling along

 

[AJB Temple]

Friend of my wife's experimented with this last year. She did a trial of tomatos grown in similar fashion to you and same varieties grown in her greenhouse in soil.

Hydroponics works. But when we tried the tomatoes the ones grown in water had little taste and noticeably thicker skins. They remind me of Waitrose essentials cheap tomatoes, which also have poor taste and unpleasantly thick skins. I think they were produced in the Netherlands.

I suspect your trial will only be meaningful for you if you compare with the same variety grown and fed conventionally.

 

[Robert]

I suspect your trial will only be meaningful for you if you compare with the same variety grown and fed conventionally.

Interesting about the flavour. We will be growing the same seeds both ways so hopefully can compare assuming it works out ok.

 

[Woodster]

Interesting idea if you have a greenhouse. We refuse to buy any Spanish veg if we can help it due to a lack of flavour, definitely with things like tomatoes and strawberries. As a result we normally end up buying English or Dutch tomatoes. We grow a small amount of veg sometimes so we try to ensure they get a good feed of stuff like Tomorite or similar. Interestingly we’ve noticed the best tinned tomatoes for Pizza are San Marzano so we’re going to try growing some this year. Good luck with the project.

 

[Chris101]

No practical experience but it might be worth phoning your local hydroponics store even if they are geared towards a certain sub set of the total market in pot growers they might be able to give some useful pointers for your purposes. The wikipedia page might produce some leads if you scroll down to the 'References' Section.

Refining search terms to hydroponic farming etc might help? Devil i in the detail with web search terms sometimes eh?
https://www.ice.edu/newyork/explore-ice ... nic-garden (etc)

There has to be a good source of free information online, it's the nature of such a 'new' idea that there are those who want to promote and share knowledge.

I listened to a fascinating article on Radio 4 a while back (farming today?) about the rise of growing 'salads and greens' on hydroponic walls, inside warehouses. I believe a lot of it was done in the dark with lighting carefully controlled along with heat, moisture and nutrient introduction all being maintained by computer systems.
(Another reason the pot shop owner might be able to have a chat, they know about UV lighting and timings etc. Just a thought. Phone at a quiet time of day, it might be quite enlightening if you get the right person on the other end of the line. (No pun intended)).

Really interesting overall when you consider the future implications generally for a system that needs far less water, 70 percentish I think from memory. (?) Certainly something I think we will see more and more.

Interesting thread! I will follow this one closely.

 

[jimmy s]

I used to grow tomatoes with hydraphonics at a previous house we stayed, last time was probably 8 years ago.

I got ours from a comany called Nutriculture I think. It worked really well - tomatoes tasted great. There were 2 nutrients that we used, one for leaf growth and another for flower/ fruit development from memory. The nutrient PH has to be adjusted as well but didn't have to do that very often.

If I ever get the house finished I will give it another go. Always fancied trying strawberries in a hydraphonic set up.

 

[AJB Temple]

I remember seeing on TV a programme that showed hydroponic growing with fish in the water to provide nutrients: the plants clean and oxygenate the water. This was a commercial scheme I think, with quite large and long tanks.

 

[TrimTheKing]

I remember seeing on TV a programme that showed hydroponic growing with fish in the water to provide nutrients: the plants clean and oxygenate the water. This was a commercial scheme I think, with quite large and long tanks.

I was just about to mention this. When we took the kids to Disney in Florida a few years ago, there is a 'ride' at Epcot that does this and takes you on a tour of where they grow a lot of the stuff. Apparently they grow a lot of the veg they serve in the park in that facility.

They had row upon row of what looked effectively like horizontal white drainpipes with the plants in, and the water that flowed over the roots came from the large aquariums and ponds all over the park, bringing with it fish poo nutrients etc.

I'm sure they added other stuff but I remember that part distinctly.

 

[RAF]

I'm the IT guy at this company:

https://www.duchefa-biochemie.com/

The Dutch tomatoes Mr. Woodster is talking about are most likely grown with the help of stuff we make. There really isn't a Dutch food or flowers exporting company that's not a customer of us.

I'm willing to forward any specific questions to our micro biologist who knows about this stuff. Lots of information on the website as well.

 

[Robert]

They had row upon row of what looked effectively like horizontal white drainpipes with the plants in, and the water that flowed over the roots came from the large aquariums and ponds all over the park, bringing with it fish poo nutrients etc.

I'm sure they added other stuff but I remember that part distinctly.

I'm thinking of having a dabble with square drainpipes and flowing water too

No fish though. Growing plants with fish seems to be call Aquaponics and I don't want any livestock.

....
Had a quick look at the site linked above. Looks like rocket science compared to what I'm trying to do. If I ever know what I'm doing well enough to ask a question at that level I'll bear in in mind. Thanks for the offer RAF.

 

[Robert]

I posted in Andy's thread with a picture of my tomatoes growing in water + nutrients and was asked for progress reports so here goes.

First those pictures from 21st may

And today..

So as you can see things are growing. I've been away for a week in cold cloudy Devon. The lettuce has suffered a bit from the water level getting very low. Toms still have plenty of water.

Growth is comparable between those grown in compost and mine in water.

The 'bucket' growing method wasn't my only dabble in hydroponics. I also made a NFT system. Nutrient Film Technique where the roots have water running past them but do not sit submerged in water.

This was it first set up on the flat roof of our lantern roof extension. I wasn't allowed any space in 'her' garden to try it out somewhere more accessible!

27th May

To my surprise when i came back yesterday after a week it was almost out of water but things had grown

It is made out of square drain pipe from B&Q and mitred + PVC cement at the corners + butted and glued joints on the long sides. Made from 3 pipes.

Blurry pic that doesn't show much of the tanks.

Camo tarp is because you can just see it from the end of the garden!

I couldn't find a little water pump that would run off solar and have enough flow/head so i bought a larger 12v one. There is a box with a 12v battery, charge controller and timer as the pump draws 2.1A and the panel only puts out 0.6A. The pump was way too powerful so i bought a buck convertor from Amazon and now run the pump at 7V. it is still too fast so it fills a plastic box and gravity drains that raised box into the pipework and back to the lower box you can just see.

Overly complicated but it works.

What have I learnt...

For seedlings the nutrient needs to be half strength. I need to work on getting seeds started as what I'm doing isn't getting enough roots sticking out of the net pots. Think I need to try those rockwool cubes to plant seeds in.

growing plants seems to prefer weaker rather than stronger nutrient. They suck up a lot more water than nutrient so the mix gets stronger if you don't add water and then the plants don't like strong solutions.

Ph changes all the time. I seem to be adding acid (phosphoric, sold as 'PH down') quite frequently.

Some say just leave plants in the same solution and some say change it out monthly. i have no idea

This is the nutrient system I'm using - it's called Masterblend.

2kg cost me about £35 and i haven't used much. Had to get some drug dealer scales to accurately measure the small amounts.

 

[AndyP]

Thanks for that Robert. The plants certainly look healthy. Next will come the taste test.

Can you equate the effort involved compared with growing in soil?

 

[Robert]

I'm still on a learning curve but once the set up is done I'd say it was less effort than with soil. The toms have been virtually untouched for weeks - not even water added yet but will need more soon. No weed problems and no disease. Also there will be no old compost to get rid of. garden ground levels can't take just spreading it around.

 

[AndyP]

Interesting Robert,
I do have a ready supply of natural nutrients by way of chicken poo which gets mixed in with our kitchen waste and garden compost. If I went hydroponic I am not sure what I would do with it all.

Under different circumstances ie smaller garden, fewer mouths to feed and hence less kitchen waste and no chickens, I would give it a go.

Please keep us updated though with crop yields and taste tests.

 

[Robert]

Thought I'd update this.

I took 2 panes of glass out or the roof as the plants were growing so fast and it is not a tall greenhouse. I started out pinching out side shoots but gave up after a while

Pruned off some lower leaves. Toms are growing well but nothing near ripe yet.

You can see in that first picture 2 circles of vinyl flooring that cover the 2 new holes i drilled for access. I could top up the water without the new hole but couldn't do much else. Going by the EC meter the plants had used half the nutrient so I needed a refresh. I pumped out the remaining water and refilled with fresh nutrient mix.

I'd say the ratio of water to plants is about right in the big boxes. The 3 plants in the smaller box are too crowded and not fruiting as well but they are healthy and have some toms on them.

My circulating system on the roof works too well. I can't keep up with it! Things grow quickly so I can't just fill it up as everything comes at once. I need a constant flow of plants and as i didn't realise that earlier I somehow never got organised. So as a lazy answer I've put in a load of bare root strawberry plants. may be too late for fruit this year but at least I'll see how they grow.

What has become obvious is that having a separate tank with the water in - like on the roof - is a lot easier to maintain. Assuming the taste test passes i can see hydro being a permanent thing so I'll need to get some kind of circulating system in the greenhouse.

It looks like I'll have used about £10 to £15 worth of nutrient by the end of the season so ignoring plastic boxes cost it is cheaper than grow bags by a long way.

 

[jimmy s]

Looks good Robert.

I didn't find any issues with the taste of the tomatoes I grew in my system a few years back. I need to get myself sorted out for next year and make a system up using NFT. I have to get a power supply down to the greenhouse first.

Jimmy

 

[Doug]

Just out of interest do you heat your greenhouse in the late winter early spring Robert?

 

[Robert]

Just out of interest do you heat your greenhouse in the late winter early spring Robert?

In winter it becomes a storage area for my wifes geraniums to overwinter. There is power to the greenhouse so I set up a tube heater on a digital temperature controller just as a frost protection not real heat. Vegetables interest me but flowers don't so my greenhouse time is limited

Jimmy, if you do get round to NFT building please post how you did it. I'd like to have had a bigger cross section rectangular white tubing like you see on youtube but no idea where you'd get it or how much.

 

[Robert]

Finally have some ripe tomatoes on both soil and hydroponics so at last could do a taste test.

It was just a cherry tomato from each setup chosen to match ripeness as close as possible but we tried them and - absolutely no difference!

The courgette plants on the NFT setup have been producing well and there is no problem with flavour there either.

Based on this years experience any produce next year will be hydroponic. There is yet another system called 'Dutch buckets' and I can see now how it may have benefits so may well try that next year.