by Tony
Transplanted strawberries
3:31 am in Getting Started, Nutrients, posts with pitcures!, Projects in Process by Tony
Strawberry transplanted in growcubes
This weekend I searched for a place to buy hydroponic supplies in the Chicagoland area. I found the “Brew & Grow” in Roselle, IL. (www.altgarden.com) It was a nice little store with all sorts of stuff and a helpful staff so I asked for what they would recommend for getting started in hydroponics. This is what I bought:
Davids Grow Trial Package 29.95. This has all the nutrients in a three part liquid mixture. The main components were in pint bottles. 4oz bottle of PH up- 3.95. 4oz bottle of PH down-3.95. PH test kit-7.54. 4″ net pots-1.80 each. A bag of growcubes-24.90. I asked about the hydroton pellets, but they were out of the small bag and I did not want to buy a life time supply and get the huge bags they had. The growcubes are small chunks of rockwool and they are very absorbent. After running the pump continuouly for a few days I decide to just run it a few hours a day since they stay pretty wet. Has anyone tried rockwool in their windowfarm?
As far as plants go, I did not want to go out and buy anything in case I killed it. The ground around here has thawed and my strawberries are starting to grow again so I dug up two of them. I planted one in the window farm and the other in a pot of dirt and this one sits on the window sill next to the window farm. The picture is of the plant the day it was transplanted. Strawberries may be a bit ambitious for the a first time hydroponic setup, but what the hell. Anyone try strawberries in a window farm?
So after the inital transplant shock, both the hydroponic and soil plant are starting to push up new growth from the crown so that’s a relief. The other observation is that the ph creeps up each day which I suppose is normal in hydroponics. I have made one correction downward with the ph down product this week.
Sounds like a great starter set you got at your hydro store!
As far as rockwool, it may be a great choice, simply because its cleaner than using peat pellets or a natural medium… bit wont get clogged in the pipes, or shouldn’t. The only thing I dont care for with RW is the MASSIVE amounts of water it absorbs. This sounds like a good thing, but can lead to overwatered seedlings. Also, with the drip system, there is a chance most of the water would be absorbed by the RW before reaching to back to the bottom resevoir… just something to look out for.
And yes, pH in hydro tends to creep up on a day by day range, do your best to keep it in the ‘optimal range’ but maybe dont adjust every day… maybe be to much constant change on the little ones
strawberry are very touchy in a hydro system (I am a hydro farmer) they get a black sludge on the roots, which can look bad but I have had some success. I have had some luck sanitizing the system, by periodically (between changing nurtients) with runing plain water and hydrogen peroxid (1-2 tablespoons per gallon) to clean this up. after runing a day I go back to nutrients.
Also if you have a chance, get an aphid trap. its a yellow card with a sticky substance on it, you can usually get them from garden suppliers. you would be surprised how quickly they set in. Even in a steril greenhouse.
Thanks for the comments. I am very new to this so I’ll keep a look out for that. Is the black sludge some type of fungus? Just to be clear, you take the nutrients solution out and run the h2o2 solution in its place for a day? The plants do not mind this? My only concern would be that I am growing these in rockwool cubes and these hold alot of fluid. Maybe I could then run just water through to help flush out the cubes.
On another subject, in the last couple days I have been getting a lot of flowers coming in and I have been researching pollination. Being indoors I assume these will need to be manually pollinated. I have taken a q-tip and brushed things around in the flowers. Any pointers on pollination? About how many days after pollination would you expect to see something that would resemble a fruit?
I’ve never had to ‘manually’ pollinate any plants. Even the slight burst of air from the AC or open window causes more than enough to float the little guys stamen to stigma.
In fact, I always keep a small desktop/clip fan on, its great for the plants to get the air circulation, plus makes the plants stronger… and would certainly take care of any need to pollinate
If you find you need to pollinate (no fruit setting), try a small paintbrush. Some plants won’t pollinate from air movement, I’m not sure about strawberries. If you have two plants in flower, try alternating plants, so that there is some cross pollination–some plants will only set fruit with cross pollination, some simply do better, and some don’t care.
Mine were growing great first two weeks now about half of them are dieing