I have recently started playing with hydroponics in my balcony. I had success with jalapeños in a simple bubbler setup. Also tomatoes worked great in an ebb and flow system. Basil works, coriander is a bit iffy, dill does not grow. How do you know what will work and which plants need what kind of nutrients?

  • @Death_Equity
    5•1 month ago

    Thanks to farmers, you can find out the nutrients profiles with a tiny bit of research.

    When it comes to if it will grow hydroponically, the answer is yes, but the question is which method is best. You may not be able to get a certain plant to handle DWC, but it loves NFT or F&D. Research into how best to grow a certain plant may be hard to find because there are small companies that are trying to get everything to grow with hydroponic systems and they aren’t always open about their discoveries. So if you can’t find information from hobbiest forums or public information, you will just have to fuck around and find out.

    I can tell you that watermelon does ok in DWC. I suspect that they would shine in F&D but I never got around to trying it out.

  • @Brainsploosh
    2•1 month ago

    I’ve had basil in DWC with bubbler and couldn’t eat or give away enough of it, it just grew so much (and was so potent). The rest match your experience.

    As for nutrients, I do a trial run in a separate system and try to watch how the plant reacts. I’m amateur anyway, so losing a plant is expected. Question is just how much harvest I can get before then. With huge or automated systems you probably need precision and data, for my 10-30 plants I can just look at them :P

    Other varieties that have worked well for me in DWC w/ bubbler: cucumber, flowering flax, every kind of lettuce, bok choi, cherry tomatoes, oregano, marjoram, thyme, shiso/red mint, microgreens, radish.

    I’ve heard rumor of strawberries, wild strawberries, aubergine, even pumpkins to be good in DWC, and of course almost all types of chili.

    I haven’t had any luck yet with lemongrass, rosemary, as you with coriander, fennel, strawberries, wild strawberries, among others.

    Did a test run with flowering plants that had growth but no flowers, so that’s promising for a bit of fiddling with nutrients and lighting schedules.