Hydroponics

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greenhouseevie MacCleary, WA Jan 27, 2014

What are your experiences with hydroponics? Does it work for you?

Post #9756678
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CountryGardens Lewisville, MN(Zone 4a) Jan 27, 2014

As long as you are new here, Welcome.

I don't raise tomatoes hydroponically. But I do raise them in greenhouse/high tunnels.
I have been doing this nearly 20 years. I visited a hydroponic operation near me at the beginning.
Because I was raising tomatoes outdoors, I wanted to get the jump on the market.
We had been using T-Tape in our garden. When I saw his operation, I thought why can't I do this without all the expense.
I laid out 5 rows in my 30ft x 96ft house & planted tomatoes. Each row was a double row of plants. Rows 6" apart & plants 24" apart in each row. So a double row had plants 12" apart. Tilled the ground, applied some 10-10-10 fertilizer, tilled again & planted my plants. Ran a length of T-Tape down between the rows.
Watering is simple & takes very little water. We run it every 4 days when plants are small, to almost daily when production gets heavy. Tomatoes are picked 3 or 4 times a week.
About every 2 weeks clipping & pruning are done. Plants are pruned to one stem.

We have a injector to put liquid fertilizer on the plants during the growing season.

We started with 450 plants in that house. Snow took it down 4 years ago. Now we have 4 high tunnels, 1 can be heated for early tomatoes. Around 600 plants now as these are smaller houses.

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Post #9756702
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Indoorfarmboy Osler, SK(Zone 3b) May 18, 2014

My experience with growing hydroponically is that its simple to do for fun and very technical when trying to get enough production to make it pay. I, personally, love that learning curve which is why I started a career in it.

I included two pictures from my greenhouse. One is of me clipping up melon plants (drip irrigation in coconut coir), and one of DWC (float culture) basil.

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Post #9842211
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weeding Peachtree City, GA(Zone 8a) Jun 04, 2014

I grow tomatoes hydroponically in DWC type buckets.
Here are some links to youtube videos
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nXy32Dr4Z4A
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b_ZZmYNKbfU

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Post #9858938
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