Let’s try first
Use the purchased supplies to build the first hydroponics system.
Use existing perilla seedlings.
Retry.
My own small hydroponics system.
I read some information online before starting, but there are still so many things I don’t fully understand. When that happens, I prefer to try first and see how it goes.
I already have a lot of baby perilla plants for my soil garden. I didn’t need that many, but I wasn’t sure about the germination rate since the seeds were from last year. I figured I could use some of them for my hydroponics experiment.
I mixed Flora Gro and Micro according to the feed chart. The product instructions also say that the mixing order should be Micro → Gro → Bloom, stirring well after each addition.
The detailed feed chart is available on the General Hydroponics official website.
I thoroughly washed all the jars, net cups, and LECA. For the seedlings, I removed and washed off as much soil as possible. Here’s the result of today’s attempt!
I had some metal mesh cube storage that I’m not using, so I made a simple structure. The mesh structure is super nice because it allows airflow and lets me hang lights.
I didn’t have any dark cloth, so I used an old white t-shirt to cover the glass jar. The cover is supposed to block light, so this probably won’t work well — but it’s better than nothing until I find a proper solution.
I have an unused Philips Hue Smart Plug, so setting up the light timer was easy. I set 14 hours per day for now.
- The lights are brighter than I expected. I might need to shade them somehow. I might also need small fans for airflow.
- The distance between the lights and the plants is currently about 25 cm. As the plants grow, the distance will naturally shrink, so PPFD should be enough. One possible problem I can think of for now is that I’ll need to keep the plants short due to the space limitation.
- My robot vacuum doesn’t handle the mesh structure well, so I just added an unused white furniture piece as a platform.