Hey All!
I’m a normal soil gardener who is considering hydro just for bell peppers (or capsicums for my Aussies).
I know you are probs sick of the same questions but would love some feedback on the following:
1) have many people had good success with kratky for bell peppers? I was thinking of just drilling holes for net cups in some 10L buckets, and putting them on a sunny balcony.
2) can I use seedlings that were started in soil or should I start from scratch with seeds in rockwool?
3) NUTRIENTS
I’m assuming an EC and pH meter are non-negotiable, I live the home of growth technology so was going to use their chilli focus+rootzone+silica….but my knowledge of hydro nutrients is not great….is that the right setup? Do I need to add an A/B and calmag situation? (I don’t actually fully understand what those things mean but I see them mentioned a lot)
Thanks in advance for sharing your knowledge legends. I have included a current pic of my winter veg at my community garden plot just for attention.
by dinal88
2 Comments
Forgot to mention second pic is my spring seedlings 🙂
Kratky is fine for peppers but do note that they use a lot of nutrients later on. That 10l is not much, especially considering that you should not refill it all the way up (maybe just 2/3). I would use bigger containers, essentially the bigger the better. 10l is also kinda small for roots. I’d go at least 20l.
Other things you might want to think about: how to refill (float valve maybe), container transparency (algae issue possible), and nutrient temperature. At full sunlight the nutrients will warm up which is bad, tends to increase possibility of root rot. Can be also mitigated with hypochlorous acid or hydrogen peroxide or by running beneficial bacteria in the system.
You can use seedlings from soil just fine, shake off or wash most of the dirt away and you’re good.
I don’t know about silica and root zone w/e but generally you use two or three part nutrients, one of which is calmag. Liquid or dry nutes, but dry is generally cheaper. Lots of talk about them in this sub.
Ec meter is not really necessary, you can just go with recommended nutrient amounts and you’re good to go. Later you can get an ec meter to know a bit more. But i would get ph drops or strips (or a pen) because you might need to use ph up/down with your nutrients depending on the water you use (and nutrients).