Growing Lettuce Without Soil
Last post 28-04-2009 8:05 PM by Jackie Major. 13 replies.
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25/07/2006 05:32 PM
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- Penguin
- 25 Jul 2006
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I grow a variety of vegetables and fruit in my greenhouse but I have had a very interesting experience this year. I had heard talk about a method of growing called hydroponics. This essentially means growing without soil. Strange as it might seem but with the current problem with the water supply I felt I needed to look at something else and this methoid of growing can use 1/10 of the water used for traditonal gardening.
I was growing these lettuces in an uunbelievable 30-35 days.
Has anyone else ever heard of this before and I don't mean in a criminal way. Hydroponics can be associated with the cultivation of illegal plants but I want to hear from someone who has tried any salads or fruit.
I bought my equipment from [url=http://www.aquaculture-hydroponics.co.uk]www.aquaculture-hydroponics.co.uk[/url] take a look.
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25/07/2006 07:57 PM
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- Digger
- Northern UK
- 18 Jul 2005
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4,743
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Penguin my friend i have heard tell of this system called hydroponics on many occasions indeed achap in Scotland at one of the universities has a whole array of plants growing in this way. Whilst the method does have a role to play perhaps by providing food crops at low cost etc..etc... It is not a very picturesque way of growing plants or do you think different? I couldn't possibly imagine where i would apply this method in my part of the country i grow for exhibition and i use soil heating artificial high pressure lighting and red and blue spectrum lighting to help my plants in the early stages but my garden and allotment are for pleasure and part of growing for showing is being able to show the judges that you have the ability to grow various plants/vegetables etc i just think hydroponics is more a laboratory than a garden you could if you feel strongly about the subject approach the RHS and see if they have an opinion about it but i've never seen a hydroponic show garden at chelsea??
digger 
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26/07/2006 09:03 AM
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- miranda
- Oxfordshire
- 17 Nov 2004
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2,977
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Sigh...not hydroponics again.
At least they could vary the posts a bit. A bit samey aren't they?
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26/07/2006 10:09 AM
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- Digger
- Northern UK
- 18 Jul 2005
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4,743
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Hi Miranda, we are getting repetition a lot , It's about now that Lleylandii are due to rear their ugly heads.(again)
digger
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26/07/2006 10:21 AM
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- miranda
- Oxfordshire
- 17 Nov 2004
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2,977
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How will the Lleylandii rear their heads again, digger? Is there Lleyandii-related spam?
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26/07/2006 10:28 AM
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- sue1002
- Ipswich, Suffolk
- 06 Sep 2005
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5,200
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Quite agree with you both Miranda and digger. When I was looking up some info regarding the honey fungus post I found out that Lleyandii is susceptable to it, so anyone wanting to get rid of the Lleylandii problem the answer is there, ooh slap my hand!
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08/08/2006 02:01 PM
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Most of the tomatoes, cucumbers and peppers grown commercially in Britain use a form of hydroponics, so it is quite feasible to do this: [url=http://www.solufeed.com/Solufeed_technical_information_bulletin.pdf]http://www.solufeed.com/Solufeed_technical_information_bulletin.pdf[/url]
But hydroponics are an awful lot of trouble and generates much landfill waste and greenhouse gases compared with good old, renewable self-sustaining soil where crops pretty much look after themselves.
I rather think hydroponics is an idea whose time has passed.
[Edited on 08/08/2006]
Beware the bat-eared bogweevil
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17/11/2007 05:18 PM
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- tim34446
- 17 Nov 2007
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Bogweevil I grow many types of vegitables hydroponically and it is nowhere the trouble dirt farming is and the part about landfill waste and greenhouse gasses is totally absurd.
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17/11/2007 06:14 PM
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- Phot's-Moll
- The sunny South coast.
- 06 Jan 2007
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3,347
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Hydroponics just doesn't seem like gardening to me. I'm sure it has its uses, but it's not for me.
Lettuce in 35 days? That doesn't seem a massive advantage. I eat all my thinnings - they're ready earlier than that and by repeat sowing, I can have a variety of salad leaves available 365 days of the year. (I never eat salad on 29yh Feb ;-) )
Whether you think you can do a thing, or think you cannot, you are right.
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18/11/2007 11:18 AM
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- miranda
- Oxfordshire
- 17 Nov 2004
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2,977
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We tried hydroponics in a smallish way this summer when we used an automatic set up for our greenhouse tomatoes and I have to say it worked extremely well. The toms were in pots of coir compost, which were part of a gravity-fed drip system from a larger reservoir, so the plants took what they needed (if that makes sense).
We found that we could leave the plants to get on with it for a couple of weeks at a time, which meant we could go away and not fret about them. The main snag we ran up against was that the roots can block the system and stop water getting through. Other than that, it worked well as an alternative to grow bags and was easy to set up. This wasn't a good year for tomatoes, but since ours were in the greenhouse we still had a decent crop. The equipment is reusable and the coir compost can be recycled so we haven't had any landfill waste. I'm not sure if this is strictly hydroponic, but we did buy the equipment from a company who deal in such things.
As for growing lettuce that way, I don't see the attraction. I grow it under fleece in a raised bed and it's fine.
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18/11/2007 11:35 AM
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But how can that be? Soil sustains plants and looks after itself, hydroponics requires careful setting up of equipment and materials.
As for the landfill waste - it is a matter of public record that horticultural rockwool substrates and plastic accessories are a major waste material in Western Europe, and many system run spent solution to waste polluting groundwater.
The use of plastic string precludes composting of commercial crops so they have to be landfilled from whence methane arises due to anaerobic decay.
I would add that the manufacture of the chemicals, plastrics and rockwool for commercial hydroponics is much more damaging to the environment than using soil based systems.
On an amateur scale with careful use of reusable substrates, recirculating nutrient solutions, disposing of excess solution as garden fertiliser, composting of spent crops and other debris, the lack of sustainability is not a big issue. After all the growing bags in which most domestic greenhouse tomatoes,can hardly be considered the last word in sustainable horticulture, although peat-free ones help.
Boggy
[Edited on 18/11/2007]
Beware the bat-eared bogweevil
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18/11/2007 12:11 PM
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- Digger
- Northern UK
- 18 Jul 2005
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4,743
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Ha ha ha , Boggy I knew what would happen when you read the post from tim :-) that's why i kept out of it. Brilliant fun though. I think that hydroponics is a lot of hard work or so it seems where as with soil you just stick the plant in and away it goes.
digger
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18/11/2007 12:12 PM
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- miranda
- Oxfordshire
- 17 Nov 2004
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2,977
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I agree with you, Boggy, that hydroponic growing can be extremely wasteful. We only used three pots in the system and deliberately stayed away from rockwool. I don't use plastic string either. We will be able use this system again, though, hopefully for many years.
I don't know how to add up the amount of plastic in the system we bought compared to the amount of plastic in however many grow bags we'd use in the years to come, but I hope it might even out somewhere along the line. There is, of course, the manufacture of all the bits and pieces to be taken into account. But if we care for our toys well, I hope they will last a bit longer.
I'm also not happy with the idea of using coir compost, which has to be transported. I don't see why we can't use our own stuff, as long as it's clean.
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28/04/2009 08:05 PM
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- Jackie Major
- Algarve, Portugal
- 28 Apr 2009
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5
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Have just joined you all today. I have been hydro growing for years. Grow toms, peppers and assort veg easily. It is important to keep the water temp constant, and here in the Algarve we stop for winter as it's too cold! I make my own kits, as I love bodging. if you need help that is not on the web, call me; but i do recommend you look at the 'pot' sites as all the chemistry is the same etc etc.
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