Hydronama

23/01/2020

My second video is up on YouTube with subtitles. It's taking a little time to build my channel but once all the backlog videos are live, i'll proceed with newer updates.
https://youtu.be/VslEz2Gga4w

This is update of third day of the start of my experiment. I mistook Cherry Tomato seedling for chili. Unfortunately none of my chili seeds germinated in rea...

17/01/2020

An important read

https://educateinspirechange.org/nature/forest-garden-with-500-edible-plants-requires-only-a-few-hours-of-work-per-month/?fbclid=IwAR0iUWvZjEUPcs_VN0InhC5iRM9AxXSMXOo2SOEYuyyHfIzt8IZAQc38uXQ

You can now support EIC on PATREON Mother Nature has been growing plants for 460 million years and trees for 370 million years. According to fossil records, humans appeared in Africa around 195 thousand years ago and thrived on nature’s bounty. Fast forward to the early 1900s, which saw the beginn...

16/01/2020

Hydronama is now on YouTube. Please subscribe my channel to get updates of new videos. Here's my first video that marks beginning of the channel:
https://youtu.be/qQqy0uDDUWY

I have experimented with soil grow in the past and recently I have become interested in Urban Farming. As my first experiment, I am starting out with Hydropo...

09/01/2020

New grow light for indoor hydroponics

08/01/2020

First update of 2020, I returned to Karachi after 6 days of vacation in Larkana and found two Cherry Tomatoes still surviving. They now have true leaves and should be ready to transplant soon.

02/01/2020

01/01/2020

This is an interesting observation regarding tree growth, a square dig gives better results than round.

Here's why planting round trees in square holes makes the trees stronger and thrive faster than if you plant them in round holes.

31/12/2019

The desperation is real, these locusts don't let any grain behind. Use of diesel as insecticide is new though, never heard of that before.

Swarms of locusts are currently eating away standing crops causing resentment and unrest among farmers.

29/12/2019

Last night I transplanted one of the Cherry Tomato seedlings in hydroponics setup (called Kratky Method) and let it soak overnight, but today I found that the plant limp ... which means it's nearly dead.

- Cut a Gatorade bottle in half and washed it properly
- Filled it with Nestle water right up 1 cm below net cup bottom
- Added NPK fertilizer to the water (TDS 538, pH 5.8)

I didn't make a transplant video as I wanted to see if the transplantation works or not. Seeing the result, it appears something went wrong with the experiment.

There could be several possibilities:

- The fertilizer was wrong for this stage
- Too much/little fertilizer
- Something went wrong while transplanting

For now I have shifted the seedling to plain water and hoping that it revives.

26/12/2019

More peppermints coming out. 4 seeds in each box, one has 100% generation and the other has 25%. Also, they came out really late and slow as compared to Cherry Tomatoes.

Turns out Cherry Tomatoes grows fast in search of light, and seeds germinate within couple of days under suitable conditions. But Peppermint or any mint plant seeds takes 10 to 15 days to germinate, need room temperature and lots of light. Some say it's better not to cover the seeds. Now that's another learning, just drop peppermint seeds over rather than under soil or cocopeat layer.

23/12/2019

The trouble with corporations is that they were preserve seeds that are profitable. If margins do not justify the cost, they won't preserve the seed. Thus, this leads to extinction of rarer varieties of vegetables and fruits

Saving seed is a way of protecting the world's vegetable varieties, saving money, and increasingly, a political statement too.

21/12/2019

Update on my Hydroponics after 11 days, it's now in my room.

Only Cherry Tomato and Peppermint seeds germinated. All others failed 😥

19/12/2019

Life finds a way. Got two really tiny seedlings poking their heads out, one is barely visible in the pictures.

The helmet head seedling I ... ehm ... beheaded while trying to remove the sack, seems to be on its way to recovery. The first leaves have grown enough that plant may survive to sprout true leaves.

And one helmet head got rid of the helmet itself. That's the one with flash, the empty sac lying beside it.

Bravo little one!

18/12/2019

Finally acquired a full spectrum, 10W, LED bulb. Testing it out by setting it in the corner of my room.

Funny how I discovered it. Looked a lot on Daraz app, eventually noticing that on one product page it gave the option of delivery "Fulfilled by Daraz" for its E27 (moti choori) version. The remaining versions needed overseas delivery.

So immediately ordered it for same day and received it without a hitch. Still waiting for my AliExpress delivery but this is great for start.

I may have set it up too high. Will adjust it based on feedback.

17/12/2019

Apparently all new seedlings are 'Helmet Heads'. I made a mistake with one, so that seedling will most probably die.

To remove the seed covering, you drop some water on the seedling head and let the cover absorb it.

After 30 minutes, when the seed cover is softened, you pick up a pair of tweezers and gently prod it out.

I managed to remove two sacks successfully, both seedlings are have healthy first leaves. I got a little overconfident with the third one and ended up breaking the trapped leaves. The sack wasn't soft enough. Without those leaves, the seedling is likely to die 😥

16/12/2019

Learning keeps on happening. This is what is called 'Helmet Head' seedling ... a seedling whose first leaves fail to get rid of seed cover.

The reasons could be many, but the common denominator is that the conditions were less than ideal for germination and growth (which I accepted in the video reviews).

It can happen because the seeds weren't planted deep enough (true, because when cocopeat got moist, they pushed the seeds more to the top, which is why it is important to moist the soil/cocopeat well before planting the seed) or because of lack of moisture in the soil and air to soften the seed casing (not really in my case, plenty of moisture here at seaview).

It's delicate process to remove the casing. Any damage to the trapped leaves and the seedling will die.

Either I have to cut the casing with very delicate but sharp tool, or soften the casing with water or spit. Will post result whatever I end up doing.

15/12/2019

Seedlings update after 3 days. My mistakes so far:

1- Keep the cocopeat moist
2- Fill the socket up the brim (with seed) to give roots enough room to grow
3- Label them properly
4- Make sure they get light directly from above

13/12/2019

This is a net cup. The basic purpose is to grow plant/vegetable once it's a seedling.

From the seed tray you take out the seedling, remove it from cocopeat/rockwool or whichever medium you used (even soil), place it inside a holding medium (like foam) and place it inside this cup.

The net cup is balanced atop a bottle/jar filled with water with some dissolve fertilizer (NPK+trace elements). The plant roots should be long enough to dip into water and that's it. Leave it to grow on its own and just keep track of water. If it runs out, refill the bottle.

Once I reach to that stage, I will demonstrate how to shift the seedling from the tray to the net cups.

13/12/2019

This is the seed that started sprouting roots within 24 hours of adding water in the bottom tray. If I hadn't forgotten about that, most of my seeds would now be at transplant stage.

13/12/2019

I waited for over 2 weeks for seeds to germinate but that didn't happen ... all because of water.

13/12/2019

December 3 Update:

It's been a week since I prepared the first tray (black bottom) and 5 days since the new tray (white bottom). For the new tray I used the seeds I tried germinating using paper towel and ziplock bag method.

So far no signs of seedlings. Although it usually takes between 1 to 3 weeks for seeds to germinate, I feel my experiments may fail due to cold wave in Karachi.

As per my knowledge, seeds germinate best between 18 to 24 degrees temperature, however in Karachi the temperatures have gone as low as 11.9 degrees since I planted and may fall more in December.

This means it may not only slow down germination process, it is quite possible the seeds would not germinate at all.

Another possibility is that I am keeping the boxes just inside the window, restricting sun heat for most of the daytime. While that is true, keeping them outside would also make them vulnerable for really cold breeze coming from the sea (I live at seaview and the shore is right across our home).

It's quite a dilemma here for me how to manage it. Might end up starting over after week 3, because the conditions don't appear to help with germination much.

13/12/2019

November 26 Update:

My Hydroponics experiment begins. Got 6 different seeds that I planted in the seed tray with 12 boxes (two for each seed type).

Seeds:
- Lemon
- Peppermint
- Red Cabbage
- Chilli
- White Strawberry
- Cherry Tomato

Used Coco peat and planted seeds.

A few seeds are in a cup of water in dark cabinet, will try germinating them in wet tissue and plant them if they sprout.

These are all local seeds. I ordered everything from MTS Gardening and different vendors on Daraz. Placed orders on Sunday, everything delivered by Tuesday.

Just one tray remains, it's in transit from Lahore. Should get it by tomorrow, will use it for the seeds I am germinating in the cabinet.

13/12/2019

13/12/2019