Background

When I was a kid, my entire extended family had huge traditional vegetable gardens in the backyards of their homes. The kids were all encouraged to choose a “crop” and plant and tend their own bit of vegetable patch. It made lifelong gardeners out of some of us.

No matter where I have lived, I’ve tried to grow some of my own food.  Some years, in some locations, I’ve had full-scale backyard gardens. Sometimes my gardening has just consisted of a pot of basil on the kitchen windowsill of a tiny apartment, or pots of cherry tomatoes on the front porch.

Since relocating to Arizona, I’ve completely changed my tactics. We are currently renting a home and there is no place I can put in a garden outside, nor would it flourish without much soil amendment and much intensive ongoing attention. Not to mention, the growing seasons here are still a bit of a mystery to me.

Still wanting to grow food, I started with inside container gardening.  However, that quickly became untenable. It just takes too much space to produce a worthwhile amount of food. Also, the fruit fly infestation we suffered with pots of soil was annoying as all get out.

Next I experimented with microgreens. Now, this worked, but it is very limiting. Even though one can grow a wide variety of plants this way, one is still only eating…microgreens. I already grow many kinds of sprouts for food, and this just seemed redundant in many ways.

So I moved on to small scale hydroponics. And this was finally a winning strategy!

What I Grow

At the moment this is what I have going.

Herbs, in 1-gallon pails

Lemon basil; Thai basil; Italian large leaf basil (2); dark opal basil; sweet Genovese basil; flat leaf parsley (2); oregano; thyme; chives; rosemary; mint.

Salad greens, in trays

Arugula (2 trays of 18 plants each); mesclun mix. I treat these all as cut-and-come-again plants, harvesting some of the plant for use while leaving the growing crowns intact.

Tomatoes

Sweet 100 cherry tomato (5-gallon bucket on the back porch).

1-gallon pails inside: Yellow micro dwarf; Lille Lise micro dwarf (red); Orange Hat micro dwarf; Bonsai micro dwarf (red); Tiny Tim micro dwarf (red). I have seeds for another 15 or so varieties of micro dwarf tomatoes that will be cycled in.

This spring I plan to start some chile peppers in 5 gallon buckets, and I am about to take out the Sweet 100 tomato (as it’s reached the end of its life cycle) and start some peas in that container.

How I Grow It

It couldn’t be simpler.

The cherry tomato in the 5-gallon bucket is being grown with a very basic deep water culture system, consisting of the bucket, the plant in a net pot, the nutrients, and a small, cheap aquarium air pump. On the porch in natural light. That’s it. And that’s the most complicated set-up I have.

All the rest of my plants are being grown with a modified Kratky method.  (I’m not using a true Kratky method because I continue to add nutrients after the initial application to extend the plant’s productivity.) These plants are all under some grow lights on two metal shelving units which are 35″ wide by 14″ deep by 54″ high, with a few of the taller plants on the floor between the shelving units.

The Containers I Use

As I said above, I use a combination of 1-gallon plastic pails, a 5-gallon bucket, and some 3.5″-deep trays.

The gallon pails are from U-Line, the 5-gallon bucket is from (I think) Ace Hardware, and the trays I have are actually meant to be drawers in an Elfa shelving system, but they were on close-out at The Container Store when I was looking for something else, so I grabbed them for $4 each. The trays are 17″ x 20″.

BUT, and this is important, you can use ANY container that will hold the nutrient solution and give your plant’s roots room to grow. Now, I wouldn’t use something that chemicals or paint or what have you has been stored in, but anything else is fair game.

I’ve used canning jars, recycled jars from applesauce or spaghetti sauce, plastic milk jugs or 2-liter soda bottles with the tops cut off, orange juice containers, and plastic food storage containers. They all work. You can even use yogurt containers for starting seeds and/or making your own “net pots” to house your growing plants. (More on that next week.)

For her birthday, I sent WebDom a basic set-up with some trays, LED lights, rockwool seed starting cubes, expanded clay pebbles, net pots, styrofoam sheets, and the nutrients to get started. Because I am familiar with her living space, I knew what she needed to start growing her own salad greens. What you need will vary depending on your particular situation. For example, if you have a good, bright south- or west-facing window, you might not need the lights.

Up Next: How You Can Do This Too

Next week I’ll take you through the details of how to start the seeds, what nutrients to use and how to mix them, how to install your seedlings, and how to take care of your plants going forward.