We have another long thread going about kratky hydroponics, and I didn't want to clog it up with my stuff. So I am going to try to document my latest round of hydroponic lettuce in a new thread.

I have been doing this form of hydroponics for about 8 months, with great success. I have grown mostly lettuce, but have done several tomato plants as well.

This is Parris Island Cos Romaine lettuce. I started the seeds in potting mix about 10 days, or maybe 2 weeks ago. Sorry, I didn't pay very good attention to when that was. Then I removed the seedlings from the soil, cleaned the roots in a bowl of water, and set up my kratky box.

The pictures below should be pretty self explanatory.

In the past I have wrapped my boxes in newspaper, but I am trying a black trash bag this time.

There is a gallon jug next to the box in one of the pictures, to give you an idea of the box size.
The measurements are roughly 16 inches long, 11 in wide, and 7 in deep.

I used 3 gallons of nutrient solution.

The box is under a florescent grow light fixture indoors, in a closet, with no natural sunshine.

In a few weeks I should have some nice large heads of lettuce.

My disclaimer.... I have been very successful with this in the past. Now that I am going public, with my luck, it will probably fail. 🤣. Hopefully not.

I will try to keep posting updated pictures as time goes by.

If you haven't done Kratky before, it's a lot of fun. You should give it a try. I have done it cheaply without buying any actual hydroponic equipment or parts (except for the nutrient solution, of course). The orange foam rings are just pieces of a pool noodle. I used a regular plastic tote, and red solo cups. There is also an applesauce cup in there.

Please let me know any questions you have.

Happy gardening everyone!

Our other discussion thread on hydroponics...

https://garden.org/thread/view...

I will give an update on the lettuce in a couple more days. But for now, I took some pictures to give an update on my indoor tomato plant . It's a Husky Cherry. I bought it as a young small plant at Home Depot, and it went straight into a kratky hydroponic container. It's under grow lights in a closet with no natural sunshine or other ambient light.

It's about 42 or 43 inches at its highest point from the top of the container.

Today I counted 26 tomatoes total, currently on the plant, at various stages of development, including the red ready-to-pick ones.

I've got a picture of the roots included. They look HORRIBLE! And the box is pretty nasty. But I am afraid to do too much in the way of trying to clean the box out or something. I actually had to upsize the container a while back, and that almost killed it. Thought it was dead, but it slowly came back. So for now I will just keep putting enough nutrient solution in the box to cover the very bottom of the roots every couple of days.
It's still growing well and putting on lots of healthy looking blooms, so I will just see how long it goes for now.

There is a fluorescent grow light above it and another fluorescent fixture hanging next to it.

It's has been a fun plant to watch grow!