Hydroponics

I am a notoriously incompetent gardener. I am a member of the Casino Forest Garden group but all I do is follow instructions and assemble the odd wood structure like compost bins and the pergola in the middle of it all.

And yet there was a year in my life when I grew and harvested about 100kg of edible stuff for 27 hungry people, some of them vegetarian. Where? At the Macquarie Island station (Australian Antarctic Division). How? Running a small hydroponic system.

Hydroponic is not exactly gardening, it is engineering which is right in my comfort zone. The Macquarie Island hydroponic “garden” is a very well insulated room, about 20m². All plants grow in pots filled with clay pellets and immersed into water enriched with the right amount of nutrients. All this worked fantastically well, even with me as head gardener. It can’t be that hard!

I used to start lettuce seeds in a tray full of vermiculite half immersed in water. When the young plants appeared, I just put each one in a small plastic pot full of clay pellets. The pots were then placed in holes drilled in horizontally laid storm water pipes half full of fertilised water. That water was kept in a small tank located under the pipes and pumped up there with a small fish-tank pump. Daily maintenance? Check the water level in the tank and the nutrient level in the water (I used a conductivity meter for that).

Why not have a go?