Hi all! I am about to branch into hydroponics for the first time and have just purchased my first 12 pot hydroponic system (with grow lights). I'm hoping to grow some herbs and vegetables but would love some tips and tricks to help a total beginner out!
I have never done veggies or herbs but I do have quite a few houseplants in hydro. Make sure to test your tap water, if your tap is too high in minerals or chemicals like chlorine/fluoride can be a good way to fail from the get go. Ph between 5.5 and 6.5 is ideal. Distilled water is your best bet if your tap is not up to par. You may be able to get away with filtering your tap. Feeding your plants is incredibly important especially if using distilled water. I feed probably every other water top up. Depending on your set up it could give you instructions on fertilizing. Humidity should be between 40-60% so you may need a humidifier. Make sure you put them in a spot with good air circulation. You’ll want temps to stay over 50 degrees at the coldest All of my houseplants get at least 10 hours of grow light time.
1 like Ooh I never thought about the tap water, that's a great tip! Thank you!
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Exciting! What type of system you using - nft, bato bucket, etc? For veggies and herbs you’ll need a nutrient mix to feed your plants. Nutrients will alter pH slightly (so measure pH last) but I’ve never really had it go too far out of the range suggested, though I don’t mind if my mix drops it to 5.2ish but wouldn’t want to go lower than that. Aside from pH the other important measurement is EC, it means electrical conductivity, fancy term but essentially just measures the ratio of nutrients to water to make sure your nutrients aren’t too strong or too diluted. You can buy an EC meter cheap on Amazon, and it’ll either measure in microsiemens or millisiemens, and a good range to be in for what you’re growing is 1200-1600 microsiemens or 1.2-1.6 millisiemens. A couple options for nutrient mix - I started with a Foxfarm liquid fertilizer, really easy for starting off as it’s just adding a couple cap fulls depending on how big your reservoir is. But I’ve moved to Master Blend 4-18-38 combo kit that comes with water soluble fertilizers (NPK, calcium nitrate, and magnesium sulfate) that I mix on my own. I always thought it sounded overwhelming but it’s actually quite easy and really helps you start to understand plant nutrients a little better (not to mention I think my stuff is definitely growing better). And if you go that route, a tip is dissolve the nutrients individually in a cup of warm water before adding to your reservoir, the warm water dissolves things better which could help prevent clogging in pumps or lines. Hope that helps! Happy to answer any other questions best I can.
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Hi there ! So for me , they told me to put 2 seeds in each hole but literally all the seeds germinated 😰 so removing them was kinda tricky. Then I planted 4 diff things in each row and I feel that was also a mistake. Cause when they start growing it becomes less and less room for them to grow. I’d put one seed and in only one pod per row next time for myself. Only because I have only one hydroponic machine with 12 holes. 💕
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Yea just because you have 12 pods, please don't use all 12 pods. U can at first but once they get a couple inches tall move to another system or acclimated them to soil. Tomato plants do not try putting more than 2 in a 12 pod system. Some tanks are bigger than othhers. My holds 6.5 liters of water. So plenty of room for 2 big plants. Also keep unused pods covered. Light causes algae to grow. r f
0 likesTheses are cucumber plants
Here i have tomato and kale growing
