Yes, it is true. The lettuce in the raft has transformed from seeds into small plants. I haven't managed to kill them yet. It's a relatively simple setup. I went to the large box hardware store and over to the insulation area. That's where you'll find sheets of the 1-1/2 inch styrofoam. Cut that a size that will allow free floating inside a nice tote tub. Then it was off to the hydroponics store to find net cups. (I've since discovered that just taking a knife to a regular little pot will transform it into something that will hold rockwool and let the roots out to the nutrient fluid.) The pet store yielded an inexpensive pump, air stone (for making bubbles) and some air hose. Quick inexpensive little hydro or aeroponics set up. Right now I dont' care about the terms. I have plants growing on my front porch!
The lettuce is up and growing. It might be planted a little close together but I moved some over into the cantaloupe pot. The cantaloupe didn't seem to be sprouting so I figured at least give some of the lettuce a chance in that pot. The peas are looking very good. I haven't killed off the tomato either. In fact, I see that it has a bloom on it.
So I started another raft system. I managed to score a pot of burpless cucumbers that had three plants in the pot for $3. That's $1 per plant and gives me a head start which I really need here in the cooler climate. It's 54 here today, cloudy and rainy...the plants don't seem to be growing much. I did shock the plants a bit when I added them to the second tub. It was nice and warm when I filled the tub...of course the water was cold. So I removed the plants from their dirt and packed them into pots with rockwool and stuck them in their raft. A few hours later they were looking wilted. OOOPS! So I pulled the pots and sat them on the raft out of the water. Back in and wilt, back on the raft for recovery. After a few trips they seem to have figured out that they are going to have to adjust to the new temperature.
I started some New Zealand spinach in the dirt starter disks. They've been sitting outside with their little plastic cover held in place by rubberbands. They were used to the weather. They didn't go into shock when I placed them in the raft. So it looks like I'm going to have some success growing food in tubs of water and nutrients. I'm hoping to move everything inside for the winter.
Labels: gardening, hydroponics, lettuce, plants, tomato
So I'm in Costco today. A lady wants to know where the rice is located. Turns out they had no white rice in stock. They were sold out. Only brown rice was available. Limit of 5 bags on the 25 pound bags of pinto beans.
I'm reminded of the Jericho boy whose mom was at home trying to grow beets in the bathtub. Not such a bad idea...well not necessarily turning your bathtub into a gardening operation but learning to grow vegetables indoors using hydroponics might not be such a bad idea. It seems hydroponics components are not that easily acquired in my area. Forget about buying all the parts at Home Depot and I was sadly disappointed by the selection of items at my local plant nurseries. They seem to have all switched to ornamental plants with just a tiny selection of seeds. Their hydroponics selection consisted of an 'as seen on television' sit on your kitchen counter growing setup. Not exactly what I had in mind and too pricey for my budget.
This weekend I began collecting parts to build my own lettuce raft. What the heck is a lettuce raft? It's a raft of styrofoam that floats in a tub of the nutrients feeding the lettuce roots. I already have an 18 gallon rubber storage tub. Net cups to hold the seeds and growing medium? No where to be found locally...by locally, I mean less than an hours drive away. After all it's not the distance but all the stop lights and stop and go city traffic that kills the gas mileage. Hydroponics nutrients and rockwool...zip, nada. Might as well have asked for moon rocks cause they had no idea what I meant when I said rockwool. Rockwool is made from basalt rock and chalk that are heated together and spun like cotton candy. It looks a bit like wool, thus rockwool.
What I did manage to find locally was the pump, air line for the pump and my air stone. Hello, Petco aquatics department. Of course, a couple of betta fish came home with the kids. They've survived a day and half and are not plant food yet. It appears as though the kids may be on their way to having a larger pet in their future. Or maybe we'll step up to raising trout in a barrel before we go for the dog. Worst case scenario, it's a lot easier to eat one of the fish from the barrel than the dog that licked your face and kept you warm last night.
So the plan is to start with lettuce on a raft, if I can manage that without any huge setbacks...or children sitting on the raft, I'll move on to other vegetables. I want to get the kinks worked out before winter when I'll move the tub indoors. Perhaps that big, unused, jetted bathtub would make a great place to park the tubs. It's got good sunlight....oh wait, we're talking Oregon in Winter. Cross out that sun part. We'll just call it daylight. I think the towel bars will work nicely for clamping a grow light above the plants. I think window boxes of carrots around the tub should add a nice touch, perhaps some beets and radishes for color.
I don't think food is going to get cheaper or more plentiful anytime soon. It's in our own best interest to learn to grow some of our food ourselves. It doesn't take much to grow bean or alfalfa sprouts on the window sill. Wheatgrass looks nice, cleans the air and has lots of nutrients. I'm not sure how successful I'll be but I just put a couple of avocado pits to sprout. I love glass block vases and candle holders. They have clear lines and river gravel for aquariums look nice in them. So much better than sticking toothpicks in the avocado pit.
I'll update on the lettuce raft when the rest of the parts arrive and I begin the adventure of assembling all of the parts into a growing system.
