The Beginning

The Beginning

Alright, so after some very thoughtful, somewhat impaired research, my husband and I decided to grow hydroponic watermelons. For some reason, watermelons just won't grow in our red, Carolina clay. I'm assuming that it is due to a drainage problem, they all just rot on the vine. 

We scoured eBay and Google for supplies and methodology, eventually settling on the Kratky Method of hydroponic growing. Simply put, the Kratky method seems to be the simplest, cheapest way of growing hydroponically. It really only requires a container (buckets, coffee cans, storage totes, anything!), a net pot (purchased or created), a growing medium (you can use almost anything: aquarium gravel, perlite, hydroton, lava rock, etc.), and nutrients. I am all about simplicity and cheapness, I couldn't imagine creating some of the expensive systems that are described online! 

We ordered nutrients, Dyna-Gro Liquid Grow Plant Food 7-9-5, and a lot of 3" net pots from eBay. I sent Zack to Wal-Mart for watermelon seeds and a Jiffy Greenhouse, he returned with TWO Jiffy Greenhouses, two varieties of watermelon seed, pumpkin seed, cayenne seed, habanero seed, and carrot seed. How in the heck did, "We are going to grow hydroponic watermelons," turn into all that!? We started the seeds in our Jiffy Greenhouses, then it happened. We got bit by the Hydroponic Bug. HARD. We couldn't wait to get started!

We toddled off to Wal-Mart again (you can find some really strange people at Wal-Mart at midnight!) and purchased four strawberry plants, two All Star and two Quinalt. Oops, our first boo-boo! All Star is a June-bearing strawberry plant and Quinalt is everbearing. June-bearing strawberry plants produce fruit for two to three weeks in spring. Everbearing strawberries produce fruit three times: spring, summer and fall. Oh well, you only live once!

We were still waiting on the supplies that we ordered on eBay to be shipped to us, but we wanted to get started immediately! Wal-Mart was unable to supply two of our other most immediate needs, a growing medium (we had decided on hydroton) and nutrients. After much more exhaustive Googling, we happened upon our local hydroponics shop, The Green Thumb. 

The Green Thumb was a hydroponic growers dream! They had all sorts of goodies that shocked our hydro-virgin brains. The array of nutrients that they stocked was dazzling! I didn't bother to read any of that dry stuff on nutrient percentages and contents. It just really didn't sound very fun! We ended up with a product called B'Cuzz Root, a product specifically for young plants, cuttings, or seedlings. It probably wasn't all that we needed to get started, but it seems to have worked. The Green Thumb carries hydroton, but it was a little pricey at $11.95 for a giant zipper bag. We picked up a few 3" net pots and continued on our quest.

We picked up a bag of red lava rock at Home Depot and sped home, eager to get started!