Hydroponics - Part 2

There are many hydroponic growing systems on the market in various price ranges but using inexpensive canning jars is a budget-friendly option. With a little creativity, your hydroponic mason jar garden can be an essential part of your kitchen.

Follow these simple steps to make your hydroponic mason jar garden:

• Plant the seeds in the rockwool growing cubes. (See Hydroponics Part 1) 
• While they are germinating, you can prepare the mason jars. 
• Once the seedlings have roots extending out of the bottom of the cube, it’s time to plant your hydroponic garden in glass jars
• Wash the mason jars and rinse the clay pebbles.
• Prepare the mason jar by spray painting it black, coating it with tape or enclosing it in a fabric sleeve. 
• Place the net pot in the jar. Screw the band onto the jar to hold the net pot in place. 
• Fill the jar with water, stopping when the water level is about ¼ inch (6 mm.) above the bottom of the net pot.  
• Filtered or reverse osmosis water is best. 
• Add hydroponic nutrients. (for more information see Nutrients below)  
• Place a thin layer of clay pellets in the bottom of the net pot.  
• Next, put the rockwool growing cube containing the sprouted seedling onto the clay pellets.  
• Continue carefully placing clay pellets around and on top of the rockwool cube.  
• Place your hydroponic mason jar garden in a sunny location or provide adequate artificial light.

Nutrients:

Without soil, the nutrients that plants need to live and thrive must be delivered directly to their roots (or occasionally, their leaves). Doing this in a practical, effective way is the goal of any hydroponic grower. But the goal of delivering the ideal amount of each nutrient to plants is not as simple as dumping hydroponic fertilizers into the system water.

To be ‘complete nutrients’ for hydroponic plants need to have the essential elements for growth these are:

• Nitrogen (N)
• Potassium (K)
• Phosphorus (P)
• Calcium (Ca)
• Magnesium (Mg)
• Sulphur (S)
• Iron (Fe)
• Manganese (Mn)
• Copper (Cu)
• Zinc (Zn)
• Molybdate (Mo)
• Boron (B)
• Chlorine (Cl)

The levels that these elements are present in your hydroponic nutrient tend to vary between brands, since there is no one single recommendation for concentrations. Many nutrients may also contain some of the ‘beneficial elements’ such as Nickel (Ni), Cobalt (Co), Silica (Si) or Selenium (Se). While these are not ‘essential’ (plants will still grow without them), they can be beneficial to many plants.

Selecting and Preparing Nutrient Solutions:

You can create your own nutrient mix or get a Hydroponic nutrient package from the store. For beginners, I highly recommend you buy it, saving the experimenting and mixing your own nutrients when you get a bit experience.

Normally, you will see listed in the ingredients and formula of the solutions sold at the store are 3 numbers in percentages. These are the 3 most important minerals that listed above - Nitrogen (N), Phosphorus (P), Potassium (K). For example, they come at the ratio 10-10-10, meaning that each the nutrient is composed of 10% of the solution. The rest of 70% is water, micro-nutrients, and other chelates that assist the nutritional process. 

Of course, that ratio will be different, depending on a variety of criteria:

• Plants types
• Plant growth stage
• Parts of plants you want to bring the most yields (leaf, fruit, root)
• Light intensity, weather, temperature, the season of the year. 

If you are to choose available solutions for your hydroponic garden, the one thing to keep in mind is that you should get the nutrient designed specifically for Hydroponics only. Forget all about the all-purpose package which can be used in both soil and hydroponics. Common fertilizers used in soil do not contain necessary micro-nutrients that Hydroponics plants require.

Second, it is recommended to use the 2 or 3 parts solution in the liquid. Normally, a liquid solution is easier to work with than powder form because it easily digests in water, and most of the liquid solution comes with pH buffers. 

And you should buy the 3 part because it does help you later when you need to blend and mix in different combinations for the plant's growth purpose, and specific stage of growth. 

Mixing a 3-part solutions example:

General Hydroponics.

1. Check which stages of growth your plants are in order to mix the 3 parts with the correct ratio. Check the manufacturer instruction of your nutrient products.
2. Start by adding fresh water to the reservoir.
3. Add the Micro part first to the water. It contains elements like Calcium, Copper, Boron, Iron, Manganese and Zinc and some Nitrogen. Stir the solution
4. Next is the Grow part. This contains ammoniacal nitrogen, nitrate nitrogen, phosphate, potassium, and magnesium. Stir well.
5. Add the Bloom Hydroponics solution. This contains phosphate, potassium, soluble magnesium and sulfur. Again, stir the solution.
6. It's very important to Check the pH of the nutrient mix after getting all nutrients into your nutrient tank. Plants fail to take up important nutrients when the pH level goes out of its recommended range. The ideal one is between 5.5 to 6.5 
7. Don't forget to check the temperature of the solution. About 64 to 66 degrees Fahrenheit is ideal.

Harvest:

The growth rate on a hydroponic plant is 30-50 percent faster than a soil plant, grown under the same conditions. The yield of the plant is also greater. Scientists believe that there are several reasons for the drastic differences between hydroponic and soil plants.

Resources:

Recommended Varieties for Hydroponic Growing

Even in upstate New York’s frigid winter weather, this lettuce harvest is crisp and bountiful

pH Guide for Hydroponics

Home Hydroponics

Hydroponics - Part 1 of 2

Hydroponics means “working water” (hydro means water and ponos means labor). Many different civilizations have utilized hydroponic growing techniques throughout history. As noted in Hydroponic Food Production by Howard M. Resh: "The hanging gardens of Babylon, the floating gardens of the Aztecs of Mexico and those of the Chinese are examples of 'Hydroponic' culture. Egyptian hieroglyphic records dating back several hundred years B.C. describe the growing of plants in water." While hydroponics is an ancient method of growing plants, giant strides have been made over the years in this innovative area of agriculture.

Throughout the last century, scientists and horticulturists experimented with different methods of hydroponics. One of the potential applications of hydroponics that drove research was growing fresh produce in non-arable areas of the world and areas with little to no soil. Hydroponics was used during World War II to supply troops stationed on non-arable islands in the Pacific with fresh produce grown in locally established hydroponic systems.


Later in the century, hydroponics was integrated into the space program. As NASA considered the practicalities of locating a society on another planet or the Earth's moon, hydroponics easily fit into their sustainability plans. By the 1970s, it wasn't just scientists and analysts who were involved in hydroponics. Traditional farmers and eager hobbyists began to be attracted to the virtues of hydroponic growing. 

Where can hydroponic grow?

Anywhere. Indoors, in a greenhouse as well as outdoors. Any plant can be grown with hydroponics, though some are more delicate than others. If there is enough light for the plant to grow, you can probably bet somebody has grown it using hydroponics. 

Supplies needed to grow hydroponic plants in a jar.

You’ll also need a way to block light from entering the mason jar in order to prevent algae growth. You can coat the jars with black spray paint, cover them with duct or washi tape or use a light-blocking fabric sleeve.

Steps for starting seeds with Rockwool Cubes:  

1.    Preparing Rockwool Cubes

a.    Rockwool Cubes have a PH of roughly 7.8. This is pretty alkaline, yet plants prefer to grow in a slightly more acidic environment (between 5.5 – 6.5). In order to prepare our Rockwell cubes for the seeds, we need to soak them in some PH adjusted water, that way they have everything the seeds need to germinate and sprout; water and a slightly acidic environment.  

b.    Fill the container/bowl with water from your tap. You may also choose to use water filtered through a Britta or reverse osmosis (R/O) water, I’ve had success with all 3 of them so whichever you have on hand will work fine.

c.    Using either a PH test kit or a Ph meter, determine the Ph of the water. Water comes out alkaline, usually around 7.4, so you will need to acidify it a little bit to bring that Ph down to the desired level. Aim for as close to a Ph of 5.5-6 as you can get.

d.    To accomplish this, use either Ph down chemicals, or lime juice (as it’s acidic). Add these to the water in small increments (VERY SMALL) and test the water to see where the Ph is. Continue doing this until you have a Ph of 5.5-6.

Important: Do not let the PH of the water go below 5. A Ph this low will damage the fibers of the Rockwool Cube

e.    It’s time to stabilize and hydrate the Rockwool cubes in it. Insert the Rockwool Cubes into your container and let them soak for roughly 1 hour. Once the hour is up, the cubes will be big and fat with water. Take them out of the bowl of water and put them somewhere you don’t mind getting a little wet. Save the remaining water for step 3.

DO NOT SQUEEZE THEM TO DRAIN ANY WATER 
f. Rockwool Cubes are designed to maintain the correct water to air ratio and squeezing them may damage their structure. 

    2.    Plant the Seeds

a.    Most Rockwool cubes come with holes in them, if yours did not, than create a hole in one side that is approximately a quarter inch (0.75 cm) deep.

b.    Take 1-2 seeds and insert them carefully into the holes. Use a toothpick or similar object to push them down to the bottom, as you want them to be at the bottom of that hole. Rip or push a piece of the Rockwool over the hole (you don’t have to fill it completely), so that the seed can germinate in a dark moist environment.

c.    If you can, place them in a tray with a dome on it. This will help create a little humidity in there which seedlings like. This is not mandatory, but it helps.

d.    Put the container in a cool dark place and leave them alone. The temperature should be roughly 68 degrees F.
e.    Check in 2 or 3 days, if seedlings sprouted and are touching the dome, remove dome.

   3. Let them Grow

a.    If you put more than one seed in your cube (just in case one didn’t make it), than you probably have several seeds sprouting up in each cube at the end of 2~3 days. Once the first true leaves emerge, we want to select for the strongest one (the one that grew the tallest) and cut off the tops of all other seeds that are growing next to it. Do not pluck them out, as you may uproot it’s neighbors. Simply cut it off as close to the hole as you can without messing with the stronger one that you plan on keeping alive.

b.    Depending on how hot it is (and other factors) you may need to water your cubes 1-4 times a day. Use the Ph adjusted water when doing so (that’s why I had you save the leftovers from step 2). If you already threw that water out, go make another batch of Ph adjusted water and keep it in a separate bottle or container for watering. Note: Do not over water and Do not add any nutrients to your Rockwool Cubes.
    

  4. Transplant

About 2-3 weeks after germinating, you are ready to transplant these babies into the hydroponic system of your choice. A good rule of thumb to go by is that you want to transplant them once the first roots begin poking out of the Rockwool cube. Don’t wait too long though, as eventually the roots will begin tangling around the cube since it is their only source of water. You want to catch them right as they pop out, so that when you transfer them into your hydro system the roots will grow down into the system, and not just try to feed off the Rockwool cube alone.

See Part 2 for steps in creating a Hydroponic Glass Garden