Strawberries! Day 1

What an exciting day today!  We love strawberries.  Our kids love strawberries.  Strawberries might be the most delicious fruit on the planet.  We would eat strawberries every day if we could.  Today, Heather, Emma and I went out to Visser farms to get some bare-root strawberry plants to grow in our garden!  Bare root strawberries are just strawberry plants that have gone dormant for the season.



I did a lot of research online about growing strawberries, and everything I read stated that in order to grow correctly, strawberries need to endure a "false winter," of around a month at least.  I followed the instructions I found to trim off the strawberry leaves, leaving only the crown and roots.  I then wrapped the roots in a damp paper towel, slid them in a plastic bag, and popped them in the crisper for their "winter."  

However, Judd, my guy at Mr. Growitall hydroponics store, called one of his longtime friends who has a lot of experience growing strawberries hydroponically.  He told me that his guy never "wintered," his strawberries, and instead just placed them into a DWC (deep water culture) system or Ebb and Flow system and let them go wild.

 

Sooo, Emma and I left the hydroponics store with a brand new bubble bucket.  A bubble bucket is just a self-contained DWC system, all it needs is an air-stone and nutrient water.  The lid of the bubble bucket has a net cup built in to it, no Dremel for Heather today.

Emma filled the net cup lid with grow rocks so we knew just how much we needed.

Then, she rinsed off the grow stones to remove any dust or small debris before we plant into them.

Every new system requires an air stone.  And an additional air line plugged into the manifold that came with my utility air pump.

 I strung the air hose through the net cup.

 Then I attached the new air stone to the end of the hose, so that it will hang just below the basket, maximizing the amount of bubbles going up into the net cup.

 

Bubble bath!

(or a functioning DWC system)

Strawberry plants need to be planted so the roots are buried, but the crown of leaf buds is not.  

For this reason, I held the strawberry plants in place while Emma "carefully," added grow stones all around them.

She was quite proud of her work.

Now all I can do is wait and dream about those delicious strawberries!

Transplanting to the DWC: Lettuce Day 17, System Day 1

Even though Emma, my four year old, and I woke up sick this morning, we still went through with our transplanting for today.  How could we not??? I have been waiting to plant things into the DWC for a couple weeks!  Now that the water has set out over night to let the chlorine evaporate, Heather and Emma added a half nutrient serving to the water.

And rinsed out the grow rocks($15 for a large bag)

Then I checked the PH of our water/nutrient solution.  It came out to about 6.5-7, so I added just a bit of PH Down, then rechecked.

It looked a little closer to 6 the second time around, which is where I wanted it.  So, onward to the planting!

Ah, and here is the bag of grow rocks.

I placed my 2" air stone in the nutrient reservoir(tote) through one of the net cup holes.  Then I turned on the pump.......and it works!  The water in the reservoir started bubbling away nicely!

These are those original basil cuttings I was attempting to clone.  Since they are growing roots nicely and not wilting, I decided to put them in the system along with the lettuce.

Emma was a big help placing the stones in around the rockwool cubes in the net cups.

Once all my little plants were in place, I slid the tote under the light bank and sent it some pleasant thoughts

So, this is day 17 for my lettuce seedlings, and day 1 with them in the system.

Day 16: Updates, updates, updates...

My Elephant garlic, which I am spraying daily with a very weak mixtures of PH adjusted water and nutrients is growing like crazy.  I am very pleased with the results so far, and I foresee growing much more garlic if I continue to have good luck with this.

I have moved my Roma tomato seedlings and lettuce seedlings out of the humidity dome.  I have been perusing as many indoor gardening sites as possible, and several of them recommend removing the dome as soon as leaves begin to appear.  Since I still have peppers under the dome germinating, I simply moved these seedlings out.  They are still under the lights, and now that there is no humidity dome, I assume the rockwool will dry out quickly, necessitating a watering before they are transplanted.

Once I see a little more growth in the tomatoes, I am planning to transplant them into individual DWC containers.  But as it is, I don't have the containers yet so I don't mind waiting.  I'm trying to do this in as frugal a manner as possible, so right now I'm looking for good DWC containers.  Once I am ready to construct those systems I will definitely make a post on it.

I feel like I can probably transplant the lettuce now.  I think that I will make a trip up to Mr. Growitall to pick up some hydroponics grow stones to put in the net cups.  I'm really looking forward to seeing the DWC system Heather an I constructed in action, definitely another post coming up for that!

My Globe basil clone is still doing very well, I think it will go into the DWC system with my lettuce tomorrow.

I planted some new seeds last night also, good fun.  Now in the seed starting tray is spinach, sweet habaneros, Big Boy tomatoes and some very pretty Sweet Tangerine Peppers (a bushy pepper variety).  I first soaked my rockwell cubes in nutrient water(PH tested of course) for about 30 minutes, then I dropped in the seeds.  Also, after tucking the seeds into the premade holes in the rockwool, I used a pencil to push some of the rockwool over the holes, so the seeds won't be exposed directly to the grow lights, as I've heard that can retard growth.  I started more seeds than I need, as I'm expecting my newbie success rate may not be so great!

Tonight I filled the DWC container with tap water.  I won't transplant the lettuce until tomorrow, but I wanted to give the chlorine a chance to evaporate over night.  I used the hose to fill a five gallon jug several times(this way I can see exactly how much water I have so that I know how much nutrient to use)!  There will be a more detailed post on getting this system running tomorrow or the next day.

The Spray Bottle: What not to do

So, 2 days ago (day 10) I got a spray bottle.  I filled it with water, added a tiny bit of nutrients, adjusted the PH and sprayed the seedlings in my tray, thinking that they would want some fresh nutrients.  Several things happened after I did this.

The elephant garlic that I had planted a few days ago shot up out of the ground like a rocket.  All five cloves I planted have now sprouted healthily!

The lettuce seemed to love the spray solution and is flourishing in a big way.  I see transplanting them very soon.

And my Roma tomatoes, which were doing so well, are dying.  They are browning at the leaves and starting to shrivel.  I don't know if they will make it, but I am helpless to save them, so I guess I will wait and see.

Another plant which seems to dislike the spray treatment is my basil clone.  It has developed some nice roots as you can see, but the edges of the leaves are not looking so good now.  Ugh, I'm hoping this little gal pulls through this mess!

A strange green goo has also developed on top of some of my rockwool cubes.  It's pretty gross, but I asked the guy at Mr. Growitall hydroponics about it and he said it's nothing to worry about, so I'm not going to worry.

Bottom line.  Don't spray the seedlings!

Day 8: Seedling Update

It's Day 8 of my indoor gardening adventure and I'm seeing some nice results.

All eight of my tomato plant cubes have sprouted nicely, and are ready to be thinned.

The rockwool cubes are holding their moisture incredibly well.  I did add some water to the bottom of the tray, but it probably wasn't necessary.

 The lettuce is coming up very well also.  There are some darker colored leaves coming up, and I was initially worried about some type of fungus or mold, but then I remembered the lettuce I planted is a variety pack with several different colors, so I think that's what I'm seeing...I hope.

The lettuce is ready for a good thinning.

Another very exciting development: the Globe basil cutting I was attempting to clone is putting down roots! You can see the fuzzy white roots at the bottom of the stem.

 I will put together a post specifically on cloning, but I wanted to make sure this plant took first.

So at this point, the sweet peppers, zucchini, and sunflowers have shown no signs of life.  I do believe this is because they germinate in warm weather and my basement is a bit chilly.  I found a seedling heat mat to place under the tray on Amazon.com for $20 so hopefully when that comes in they'll warm up and start growing.
I'm getting excited to transplant these into the DWC system, but I think I'll let them get just a little larger first. I'll also need to build a DWC system for the tomatoes and peppers, but that's another post...