We mentioned a few weeks ago that we’re diving into hydroponics this year. So, let’s talk about one of our three new hydroponics systems we are introducing this year!
For the uninitiated, there’s quite a few different hydroponic based methodologies one can select from. All of them work to provide the plant’s roots with water, comprehensive nutrition and oxygen. Almost all of these methodologies are “active” in nature, requiring pumps to move water or air pumps to provide oxygen. We strongly prefer off grid and passive focused techniques, there’s just less that can go wrong without complexity.
Back in 2009, a gentleman by the name of Dr. Bernard Kratky invented a passive hydroponic technique, what is now known as the Kratky Method. Basically, plants are placed into an inert growing media in a net pot, which is then suspended into a vessel containing non-circulating hydroponic nutrient. As the plant matures and uses water, it draws down the water level in the reservoir.
His studies essentially proved that plants can develop distinct “air roots” and “water roots” in this method. The key with this method is that once the water level draws down, the “air roots” are not again submerged with nutrient solution as this will effectively drown the plant. It’s quite common that most practitioners of this technique try to use a vessel size adequate for the plant’s entire lifecycle.
We really liked this technique as it’s very similar to our current subirrigation container gardens. In fact, almost all of the methodologies we use in subirrigation are also applicable to the Kratky method. You’ll see us demonstrate a distributed system in a future post!
For this system, we opted to grow head lettuce. We selected this crop because we can grow it out, harvest by cutting the base of the plant and then the plant will then re-grow. We suspect we’ll be able to achieve at least two, maybe three, harvests over our entire growing season. Next year, we’re planning on trying celery, a full season crop.
This technique can be used to grow the overwhelming majority of of plants. We’ve got two more examples to show in coming posts, using slightly different variations of this same method.
Oh, and one last safety thing! These black and yellow crates are super common, but not all are created equally. We think it’s important to find NSF food safe certified containers! Many of these (e.g. from big box stores) are made from recycled plastics and are not food safe. Recycled plastic scares us, there’s no telling what could be in it.
