Here's the basic design:
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2 tomatoes, 2 cape gooseberry, 2 ghost pepper
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My first attempt at outdoor hydroponics
The tomato plants are an eldritch horror
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but growing some lovely fruit
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Cape gooseberries have some flowers but I don't think they usually bloom until later in the year. The ghost peppers have been drowned out by the obnoxiously large tomatoes, I don't expect any peppers from them I'm afraid.
So far I'd say my first attempt has been a modest success.
EDIT: Here's an earlier pic showing the plumbing:
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Hydroponics is a lot more efficient than soil. The plants don't have to "fight" or rather "negotiate" with the soil for nutrients (there are other organisms, bacteria, insects etc that also call soil their home). Nutrients are made available immediately to the root system. Plants tend to grow faster and larger.
In fact, with my cape gooseberries I tried to also plant some of them in soil but they just wouldn't fucking grow. Exact same lighting conditions, temperature, everything, they just stayed toddlers their whole life and then eventually just died. Maybe there's some special nutrients in Peruvian soil that we don't have here fuck I dunno, but the hydroponic ones were very successful under the same conditions.
Tomatoes another good example, I have 5 tomato plants in soil and they're of equal age to the hydro ones but about half the size.
Mostly I just developed a irrational obsession of hydroponics during the covid supply chain crises. Messed around with some indoor plants, moved into a place with a yard and just ran with it. It's kind of a niche hobby on account of the startup costs being rather high.
I'm feeding them Jacks nutrients. Same stuff the professional cannabis growers use. Easily the best (and cost effective) nutrients I've come across.
Check out the Hoocho youtube channel, the man is a mad genius with hydroponic systems.
Main challenge I've had is keeping the reservoir cool during the hot summer days. Once it hits 25* C it starts to negatively affect the plants. I do a daily run of dumping half a dozen 1.5 litre soda bottles filled with frozen water in the afternoon. Next year I'll probably just bury the thing in the ground to save me the trouble.
Interesting! The temperature thing is very interesting. I would not have expected plants to care so much. Thanks for the response.
It would definitely be nice to not have to deal with weeds! Unfortunately I have my hands completely full with my raised bed garden, and I didn't even plant this year! Maybe next year? 😅
Yep no weeds is a plus. Indoor hydro is even better (if you have the space for it) because you don't have to deal with pests/bugs either. These little tabletop grow systems are rad I have three of them (not this exact model but similar). The marketing images are very deceptive no fucking way can you grow tomatoes in these little things, but they're great for herbs, bok choy etc.
Happy gardening :)