The lettuce is looking good, and continues to grow. I added some pH down to the water to keep our water dropping to our goal pH. The system is still going strong and as soon as our seedlings’ roots are long enough, we can switch over to the nutrient film technique.
Month: March 2013
Sprouts!
After being unattended during spring break, I was unsure of what I would find in our system. I was delightfully surprised to find that our seeds have sprouted! We have 3 healthy looking lettuce plants. They range from about a 1/4″ to almost 1″ tall. I took a pH reading, I was not surprised to find it high since it had not been monitored over the break. Since it was about 7.8, I applied pH down and will check on the reading tomorrow. I also removed a gallon of water and replaced it with a gallon with the liquid grow to replenish our nutrients to keep the seedlings healthy!
Up and Running!
Our “little gem” lettuce seeds are planted and our system is up and running!
We created our system to function on ebb and flow during germination and then we will change over to the nutrient film technique once the sprouts are large enough. The ebb and flow system consists of a lower reservoir to hold the water and nutrients, a drain and overflow pipe, a pump to fill up PVC pipe, and 3 cups to hold the rock wool and seedlings. Once the seeds germinate, we will change the incline of the PVC pipe and start the nutrient film technique.
To keep the plants healthy, we are using the liquid plant food; it contains almost all of the recommended values of nutrients for lettuce we researched. Our pH is a little high at this time, but we are carefully monitoring and slowly lowering it to a range of 5.5 to 5.8 to best suit the lettuce. The lighting is set on a timer, providing an “outdoors” timeframe for their light exposure with the fluroescent lamps.
Construction Time!
Our project during the initial construction.
