Hydroponic Strawberries, Part 1 - First 33 days!
Our first hydroponic adventure, starting with strawberries! My sons were adamant that they wanted to grow strawberries, and they wanted to grow them NOW! At the time it was February, so I used this as justification to purchase a bundle of hydroponic systems from Aerogarden. I purchased a Aerogarden Grow Bowl and Strawberry Kit for the Aerogarden Bounty, which when delivered, comes with live strawberry crowns!
Day 1: February 26th, 2018
I planted all of the best looking crowns, knowing that I would have to reduce the number to 6 crowns in a couple weeks. It was kinda fun to set-up the Aerogarden Bounty, and already have little plants to watch grow!
Day 6: March 3rd, 2018
The set-up instructions were pretty straight forward. Use the quick plant settings for flowers, set the pump for 2 minutes on, and 238 minutes off. I have the light on from 5am to 8:30pm, and over the first week, I added more and more of the coconut husk till all the husk was in the growbowl.
Day 10: March 7th, 2018
The instructions state that the strawberry plants need 4 ml of the liquid plant fertilizer every 14 days, but I have found that around day 12 the new leaves are a bit yellow, so I’ve been adding the 4 ml fertilizer a bit earlier.
Day 13: March 10th, 2018
Within the first 2 weeks, most of the crowns had perfect little blossoms, and it was heartbreaking to have to clip them. As per the article on WikiHow:
By removing the first flowers that appear, you will give the strawberry plant a chance to grow more vigorously and produce a stronger root system.
No more blossoms have grown since those first couple, but the plants seems to be growing vigorously since I clipped them back.
Day 28: March 25th, 2018
The next dose of fertilizer that I give, I will use 6 ml. I suspect that I need to provide more nutrients to stimulate more blossoms to appear, and if that doesn’t work, then I will look into getting a special formula to promote blossoms.
Day 33: April 1st, 2018
I will provide regular updates to this system, so give me a follow and I will keep you in the loop!
Hey, welcome to Steemit :)
I love your little setup. How many strawberries and how often are you expecting to get from it?
I know from family members' gardens that strawberries pretty much grow like weeds if you let them. So good :)
It's pretty experimental! There is no estimate production in the documentation anywhere for the AeroGarden strawberry kit. I think some people have even struggled to get any strawberries, let alone a regular harvest of strawberries from this system. However, I have spotted a couple buds this morning!
My outdoor garden aspirations are limited this year. My septic system will be replaced, so I'm not sure how much of the backyard needs to be dug up. The space in my raised garden bed that I installed last weekend is spoken for by my vegetable plans! I plan on posting about that project later :)
I would grow some hydroponic weed with that :-)
Ha! The mainstream grow ops all use hydroponics to grow their weed! A huge facility is being established close to where I live! See article.
I'm more concerned about feeding my family healthy, home grown food. No need to grow weed in my house :)