I have been interested in growing plants in water for years. I have watched numerous videos online and have just never gone further until last weekend. I happened across a nursery in town, near the house, that I’d never visited before. Quite an impressive place. They had a hydroponics building and this little 5-gallon bucket starter kit for $50, so I thought I’d give it a try. I was excited until I got home and found there were no instructions. With a bit more research, I think I figured it out.
I bought some lettuce since it was in season. It was growing in dirt, so I had to rinse that out of the roots.
Then I put in the plastic basket surrounded by these little clay pebbles. I’m not sure I did that exactly correctly, but what I did seemed like the only option. Plop it in and add the pebbles around it.
The kit came with a pump to aerate the water. Seemed to work well.
I have a lot of LED plant lights that have timers, so I am using that to light this thing up for 12 hours a day. I need to drill a hole tomorrow for the hose to get into the bucket so I can seal the lid tight. I assume this will reduce the amount of water loss from evaporation.
I brought in our summer plants from outside given how cold it has been. I have lights set up for them, but should be able to return them outdoors in the near future. The plumeria and desert roses don’t do well with the cold. They got destroyed last year and it’s take a year to recover. I also brought in a jalapeño that we started far too late last year. It’s been doing well with a full grown pepper and a few more small ones on the way.
The basil behind the peppers we have had for years. It seems resilient to our neglect. Basil is not affordable at the store and this thing grows more than we would ever use.