I'm new to the hobby outside of having a few aero gardens so would greatly appreciate anyone's insights!
We are redoing our kitchen and I'd LOVE to have a built in hydroponics system for growing herbs like basil, dill, mint, and cilantro.
I drew a picture of what I'm imagining. The space is 42 inches long by 12 inches deep (106cm x 30cm) That window doesn't get enough light on it's own so I'd want a movable LED light on a timer and then do a DWC system that would ideally hookup to the sink so it would automatically stay at a constant water level and of course run electrical up to the lights and for the aeration. Maybe even a way to drain the water directly down into the house pipes?
Is this an awful idea? Anything I should look out for?
by teejay09
6 Comments
Make sure you can get to it for cleaning.
Do you really want to reach over your sink all the time?
My only thought is that the space isn’t really big enough to have plants ready for picking and their replacement growing at the same time in the same setup. This probably isn’t an issue for mint but I know when I use cilantro or basil I take quite a bit of a bushier plant. I feel you may exhaust this system quite quickly so you may need to have a larger system elsewhere and use this as your convenience store 🙂
Be careful how integrated into the kitchen you design this.
IMO it’s better to have a space for this setup, and maybe space to hook up water and an outlet close by, than to hard wire everything.
What if you need to change the design? What if you get bored and don’t want it anymore in a year or 2? What if you want a bigger setup somewhere else?
Make it so you have the space for this setup, but you can remove it.
The drain to the sink is a good feature.
Auto top off is kindve eh. Youre just diluting your nutrients by adding freshwater and throwing off the pH with 7.5+ pH tap water, when your solution should probably be between 5.5-6.5 pH. So while the water level remains and you assuming things are good, it could be depleting micronutrients without proper changes.
From my experience w dwc/kratky, a drop in solution levels is fine. As long as theres a few inches of solution left most plants don’t care (unless the pH or EC are massively wrong at this point).
As to thr lighting situation – 2 things:
1) make it adjustable. As the plants grow you can keep the light closer. Its literally the most common mistake of new indoor growers is putting the light source too far. This will also help with a grow light from projecting an annoying amount of light in your eyes while your washing dishes.
2) go for proper wattage. I wouldnt settle for anything less than 30 watts of led lights in a 42″ cubby. Youll assumingly want about a 3′ light to cover the entire space. And then when you inevitably want to grow a microdwarf tomato you have enough PPFD for it. A dimmable grow light is often a super underconsidered feature.
Beautiful kitchen. 😍
If you just put a little planter there with all your herbs you’re gonna get a way better bang for your buck and avoid problems with leakage. Throw in a little fertilizer and an overhanging LED on a timer and you can get them to grow more quickly.