Can a complete hydroponic salad be grown in one tote? Watch me violate the laws of hydroponics and find out.
The fuzzy material the plants grew in is called "rock wool". Get details on the rock wool I used at https://amzn.to/2TVGf0m. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.
Music is Siegfried's Funeral March from Wagner’s Götterdämmerung. If you enjoyed the music, consider joining me on Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/JebGardener. Using commercial audio recordings significantly reduces ad revenue on my channel.
I grew a radish, romaine and butter crunch lettuce, cilantro, and 2 Nantes Coreless carrots in a 3 gallon Rubbermaid tote with square holes cut in the lid for the 1.5 inch Grodan Rockwool cubes. This is the same tote I used to grow Kratky hydroponic carrots. Carrot grow details at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DYa0Syea4P0
Plants were grown Kratky style, however several top offs (to about 50 percent reservoir capacity) were performed. Some refills were fresh tap water and some were nutrient solution (depending on appearance of new growth in plants).
Thrips forced me to restart the grow, because I didn’t want to be spraying stuff in my office. Pest issue details at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XHLbzEsSw8k
I don’t check PH anymore, but in the past, this tap water has started around 7.8 and comes with about 350ppm of salts (mostly calcium I hope).
My setup:
Light fixture is a 4 bulb 4 ft T5 Milliard grow light 216 watts 6500k.
Tops of the plants were on average 8 inches from the bulbs.
14 hours on 10 off light cycle was maintained by a digital Hydrofarm timer (little white box everyone else uses).
Office environment stayed around 70 degrees F with 40 – 50 percent relative humidity.
Nutrient Solution Recipe (same thing I grow everything in)
1 gallon water
2 grams MasterBlend Tomato 4-18-38
2 grams Calcium Nitrate 15.5-0-0
1 gram Epsom Salt (Magnesium Sulfate)
Filmed on an iPhone6
Edited with iMovie 10.1.5
Voiceover recorded on a Blue Snowball ICE
