Cautionary tale

I've been gardening for over 20 years, and during that time I've come a long way. My gardening odyssey began in 2001 and my first townhouse, and mostly involved killing, intentionally and otherwise. While my initial successes were few, apparently I gleaned enough satisfaction to keep trying, and now I consider myself a very successful gardener.

This hydroponic business I've embarked on, though, has been humbling for several reasons. First and foremost, everything I've read says that my hydroponic veg should be growing faster and stronger than the seedlings I started in soil, and that's just not the case. They are doing... okay, but they are noticeably coming in second place compared to their traditional siblings. I thus find myself feeling like a novice again. Humbling.

I've got several books for new hydroponic gardeners and probably a dozen or more related websites saved. Between all these resources, I've identified several probable causes of my difficulties. But really, the true problem is I am being the same gardener I have always been: that is to say, half-assed and hair brained.

Yes, I do the reading and the research. Yes I read the labels and advice and even sometimes make a plan. But when the rubber meets the road, my tendency is to do the bare minimum and see if it works. Asking "Do you really have to..." is generally my first step in any project. Fill in the blank with your favorite gardening maxim ("Do you really have to space plants that far apart?" "Is thinning really necessary?" "Does the hole really have to be THAT big?") and it should be easy to imagine any number of problems I've created for myself over the years.

I had not consciously realized this about myself until I began this hydroponics adventure. I bought a book, researched online, and quickly became overwhelmed by the (to me) complexity of most of the systems, so I opted for the simplest: deep water culture (DWC), specifically the Kratky method. In short, this is where you suspend the seedlings at the top of a container (like a bottle or jar) filled with a water/fertilizer solution. The plant's roots grow into the solution, which evaporates over time, leaving part of the roots exposed to take in oxygen while the ends continue to grow into the fertilizer solution and feed. 

Several sources tauted this as a "set it and forget it" method, and I should have seen that as the too-good-to-be-true red flag that it is. 

I had started some seeds the traditional way--mesclun, Romaine lettuce, tomatoes, broccoli, and peppers. Now that they all had developed true leaves, I began the true experiment: transplanting an equal number of seedlings into soil pots and Kratky containers (in this case, 1 quart canning jars). 

My sources all said that lettuces and greens were good choices for these small containers, but not necessarily large flowering veg like tomatoes and peppers and broccoli. But since, as I have mentioned, my step 1 is always "Do you really have to?" and I want to grow tomatoes and peppers and broccoli, I persisted because I already had the canning jars and some little plastic pots that fit perfectly into the jar openings, and I am a cheapskate. Also, science. 

Thus I mixed up my fertilizer solution in our old beer-brewing bucket with the handy spigot and covered my jars with socks (to prevent algae from forming) and filled them with fertilizer. I then washed the roots of half my seedlings and gingerly installed them in the jars in the little pots filled with clay pellets, with the roots touching the fertilizer solution. The other seedlings got a traditional transplant into 4-inch pots full of potting soil. Then everyone was placed side-by-side under identical grow lights to see who would grow faster and bigger. Science!

Long story short, soil won out, big time, but not on its own merits. 

Later that week, my little Kratky tomatoes began drooping sadly while the ones in soil grew taller and hardier. Concerned, I rolled down the socks on the Kratky jars and found the fertilizer solution had already evaporated as much as 2 inches, leaving the roots completely exposed. "Set it and forget it" indeed!

I quickly refilled the jars so that the root ends were submerged in the solution, and over the space of days my droopy guys began to recover. Now I'm trying to remember to check all my jars periodically to ensure this doesn't happen again. (Spoiler alert: it has happened again.)

All of this to say: I am a cautionary tale and you can avoid all kinds of garden trouble by not emulating my garden practices. The good news is that, in spite of my difficulties, I do have a nice number of veg plants a-going. I have even put some onions, lettuces, and kale outside in the garden with a row cover ("Do I really have to wait until April?") and they're not dead yet! I am not convinced they won't soon be, but maybe they'll live.