Vegetables Gardening - Growing Organic Vegetables

When the Mittleider book mentioned Mittleider gardening was "poor man's hydroponics," that got me curious about hydroponics, so we got into it spring 2019 and it's been going very well.  But there are still some things that work better in the Mittleider garden... for instance, I tried cotton hydroponically over the winter but got very few bolls.  So in the future I'll grow cotton only outdoors in the Mittleider beds.  Cabbage heads didn't get very large for me hydroponically, either, so I'll keep those in the Mittleider bed from now on.

I can point you to some hydroponic videos that helped me get set up.  I do DWC (deep water culture) and Kratky method hydroponics.  They're a little more fool-proof if you live in an area that is prone to power outages (hurricanes, severe thunderstorms and ice storms are sometimes a problem where I live).  Other hydroponic methods rely on a pump (electricity) to move nutrient solution towards the roots (with DWC and Kratky, the roots are already dangling in the nutrient solution, so there's no risk of the roots drying out and dying during an outage).  You could have complete crop loss from a single outage with some of the other methods.

Heavy duty 27-gallon totes (like the Command or HTX brands) make sturdy, beginner-friendly bins for DWC (deep water culture) style hydroponics.  You could put one in a closet or somewhere else out of the way.  A 27-gallon tote can grow up to 17 plants... not bad for a footprint of 2.6'x1.7'!  Kale grows crazy huge!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fhDQV_7wVDM&list=PLZQSDGZ1sBDVNhNm8Jhzb1-cftoamr7K7&index=2&t=154s

I do use an aquarium air stone in my bins to help oxygenate the nutrient solution.  This helps the plants grow faster and bigger.  Like we learned with Mittleider, it's the roots of a plant that actually take in the oxygen.  I can get a head of buttercrunch or romaine lettuce to mature in just 30 days using this method.

For my larger beds (where I grow strawberries and celery) I use floating rafts (approx. 4'x3') on top of large 45-gallon cement mixing bins.  Each raft can raise 24 plants.  This video shows the floating raft idea:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e3imrVkIUhg&list=PLZQSDGZ1sBDVNhNm8Jhzb1-cftoamr7K7&index=24&t=141s

I also like to grow culinary herbs hydroponically in quart-size mason jars, like in this video.  Kratky is similar to DWC, except the nutrient solution is stagnant (i.e. no airstone - plants don't grow as fast but it works -- I keep several of these mason jars near my kitchen for cooking):

I recommend the book "DIY Hydroponic Gardens:  How to Design & Build an Inexpensive System for Growing Plants in Water" by Tyler Baras if you want to try hydroponics.  In the appendix is a list of the veggies and fruits that do well hydroponically and what their nutrient, pH and temperature requirements are.  It lists specific varieties of plants-- not all veggies and strawberries do well hydroponically, so this book gives recommendations about what works and this will save you time.

You can do hydroponics indoors but you will need a grow light (which can get expensive).  You can do these totes outdoors in the spring/summer and save yourself the expense of the grow light.  The advantage of growing greens and cilantro in the basement year round is that my basement (unfinished, with a cement floor) stays in the high 60's F pretty much year round.  Lettuces and cilantro don't do well in the heat-- lettuces become bitter and cilantro bolts pretty quickly in the heat.  Greens grow faster hydroponically.  I get a small handful of strawberries nearly every day from 24 plants... I usually freeze or dehydrate them.  When I have enough frozen, I make jam (and I've made a lot of jam!)  I've been picking strawberries nearly non-stop since about August of last year (I started with bareroot Evie 2 strawberries in May 2019).  I don't yet know how long the strawberry plants will last, whether they will just keep on fruiting or eventually exhaust.  My grow lights are on for 16 hours a day which keeps them producing.  They are still flowering (I have to hand-pollinate them with a paintbrush every day). 

There are trade-offs:  It's nice not having to weed in the heat or deal with pests, but from time to time the nutrient solution has to be flushed completely, which is a bit of work too.  Like Mittleider, I keep dried chemical fertilizers designed for hydroponics on hand.  There are liquid fertilizers available, but they are more expensive.  I find advantages and disadvantages for both Mittleider and hydroponics.  We're learning to make the most of both methods to meet our needs.

Teri of NC