Hydroponic: Experiments

Most people like to have some indoor plants. I also have some houseplants. Easy growing plants are my favourites. Pothos and Snake plants can grow without much care. 

There are some videos from Planterina showing plant propagation in water. Following her methods, I propagated some of my plants in water. 

I learned to propagate even a tomato plant from cutting! It was planted a little late in the soil after rooting in the water. So, I didn't get any tomatoes from that particular plant. 

One day I stumbled on an easy hydroponic method called the Kratki method. It uses only a container of water and some nutrients. 

There is a history of me killing my plants by forgetting to water them. So, my family was teasing me when I started with hydroponics. In summer, my indoor plants in containers were attracting fungus gnats. One more thing to irritate them, right?

Kratki hydroponics will not bring any fungus gnats. I wanted to try it.

Of course, Youtube is the go-to place to learn DIY methods. I watched few videos and decided to recycle some containers at home.

I found that the lids of yoghurt containers are easy to cut. The plastic containers of the rice pudding can serve as net pots if I can put holes in them. I learned that expanding clay pebbles can be used to keep my plants steady in the makeshift net pots. I used the water-soluble fertiliser at home for my first plant. It was growing new roots. So I am happy.

That is my polka dot plant. I was having trouble with keeping it alive for two years in a row. This is a cutting I got rooted in late summer. Since she started growing nicely, I bought Rockwool and net pots from amazon along with hydroponic fertilizer. This last weekend, I placed some plant babies I got from my relative in my new containers. I am all into using what I have right now. So, most things are re-purposed for the project.

Now, I have rosemary starting to grow. It is a cutting from my summer herb container. It got a tiny root by keeping in a glass of water. Hopefully, it will develop more roots in the Kratki system.

This one has net pot and Rockwool. The lid is from a disposable food container. I used only a knife and scissors to make a hole in the lid. Hoping to make the herb alive till next spring. 

Have you ever tried hydroponics at home? How do you care for the indoor plants?

Hibiscus plant

 

Bindu