Growing vegetables year round inside!

Today we're going to talk about Kratkey Hydroponics and the system that I have set up right now. My system is designed to be small scale but I can grow lettuce, basil and I'm also growing micro tomatoes inside. So we're going to walk through what that setup actually looks like all the pieces all the steps that you need to set up something similar on your own So I've seen people take this system and completely make it their own and get very creative with what they're using as containers.

The biggest thing with Kratkey hydroponics is it is in a container of some sort. So let me back up a little bit further hydroponics is when your root system for a plant grows into water instead of dirt. Now most of the time you can't just grow it into regular water. It's got to be water with some type of fertilizer nutrient system of some sort because the plant does need nutrients to survive. So that's the basics behind hydroponics. There's a lot of different ways you can do hydroponics. I like the Kratkey method because it is a standalone container and in my case I use half gallon mason jars. And these standalone containers there's no requirement to be hooked up to electricity. There's no ebb and flow filtration system, there's none of that.

And that's why I like this system especially because I'm a canner and I always have jars on hand. So my basis is a half gallon mason jar without the top so without the ring without the lid just the mason jar itself. These are not cheap to buy but I liked these from the perspective of they will last a very long time compared to I've seen Kratkey hydroponic systems set up in big like plastic tubs things like that that eventually over time are going to break down. These Mason jars are going to last me as long as I don't drop them and break them maybe my whole lifetime. So that's how I looked at it when I was looking at the initial upfront cost. And to be honest to feed one person or a small family maybe three or four people you don't need 50 of these. You know you only need five six maybe 10 tops. So it's not the biggest investment and you'll use them forever for all different types of things.

I also love the ease of when I'm done growing in it I just put it in the dishwasher and let the dishwasher clean it for me which is really convenient. The net cup drops in the top of your mason jar. The net cup holds the baby plant and the root system. From there what I grow it into are clay pebbles. I liked the clay pebble idea because I can reuse them compared to growing it into dirt or some other kind of medium that once the lettuce is done I've got to dispose of it. Whether it has to be thrown away or composted whatever it might be I like these clay pebbles because I literally can once the lettuce is done growing or whatever it is I'm growing rinse them off, boil them to get rid of any kind of diseases that might be in there and then we're ready to use them again.

So fill the net cup with clay pebbles and drop that into your mason jar. I do have a cloth cover for my mason jars. And if you leave the water substrate mix, if you basically leave the water though exposed to a lot of sunlight it will start to grow algae. I did experiment with that to see if I could get away without it and it grew algae which ate the roots. So I have a lot of cloth covers pre-made ready to go that perfectly fit the mason jars I actually already had the fabric at my house so it was literally a matter of cutting them right size. Shout out to my mom for helping me hem them and how I have it attached in kind of maybe the lazy way I just put some Velcro on there, pretty cheap way to do it. So this way I could take it on and off easily and if I need to wash them just throw it in the washing machine. Not a big deal.

The only bad part I did not put any kind of like elastic around the top, so what I do now it's just a hair tie to really keep it up at the top so it doesn't slide down a little bit and let some light in there. So the next piece you're probably wondering is well you've got to fill this with the liquid right so to fill that with the liquid my the easiest system that I have found is I have a gallon jug right here that is only ever used for this specific instance which is Kratkey Hydroponics. The nutrients I bought them on Amazon. They came together in a pack so what my nutrients consist of is calcium nitrate, master blend fertilizer, and epsom salts. So the ratio to put it in a gallon jug like this is 2 g of calcium nitrate 2 g of fertilizer and 1 g of Epsom salt.

I use a kitchen scale I put a tiny little bowl on top and I hit the tare button so it zeros itself out and then I measure out one at a time. I've done it before where I put all three things of nutrients in the same bowl at the same time dump it right into here and shake it up. The issue I had sometimes the nutrients can like lock each other up in the water which is what you don't want for the plants So maybe I'm just overly cautious, but I do each separately and shake for about 30 seconds per. Once I've got all three we're ready to go to start putting it into those mason jars.

So I fill it up pretty much to the top because the little plants that I'm putting in here they're not very big, they normally have two true leaves at the most two to four true leaves. I want their roots to be able to kind of touch the water so they can start to grow and go from there. As the root systems get bigger they drink up more water, so the water level is going to go down at some point And if you're not careful and you let the water go all the way down to nothing at the bottom you'll kill your plants. Like your plants will die within hours if you don't catch it soon enough. So that is one of the benefits of having an ebb and flow system where it's easier to get in there and see where's my water level and let me top it off compared to this sometimes I've done it a few times where I kind of set it and forget it. Like I set this up put under the grow lights don't touch it again and then I don't realize how low the water level's gotten and the plants when I go in tomorrow are dead.

So I will say that's one of the drawbacks. What I find I do is if I am in there pulling some lettuce leaves or basil or whatever it might be I'll just pick it up a little bit and see how full it feels because you can feel when the water level is really getting down on the low end. If you are done with the plant and the water levels at the bottom you don't have to worry about trying to top it back off. So as the water level comes down what happens is these become what you call air roots, they've learned to survive in the air exposed to the air instead of the water. So if you were to do a system like this in a smallish container I wouldn't recommend going smaller than a half gallon mason jar I personally think that's a great size. When the water is almost gone I will fill it back up to about halfway, so this way the air roots can still breathe air but then we've got the nutrients down towards the bottom where the roots were used to having water anyway.

I do have a metal wire rack that I keep all of my hydroponics on and they are setup with grow lights and a mechanical timer to turn those lights on and off. Please see the YouTube video to see the full set up and go more into detail about all the types of grow lights that you can use. For about a $200 investment between the rack, mason jars, clay pebbles, net cups, cloth coverings, grow lights, timer, and nutrients I have grown thousands of dollars worth of food in my closet. The sky is the limit with what you can do with this system. Feel free to experiment and explore!