What's going on Epic Gardeners? Kevin here with this Thursday's video,
we've got the Kratky method.
Now the Kratky Method is a hydroponic method for growing plants that is probably
the simplest way you can grow.
And the reason I say that is because it requires no pumps, no wicks,
no electricity and honestly, once you set it up,
it can be practically hands-free.
So here's an example of what Kratky looks like in practice.
Here we have some simple five gallon buckets that have no air pumps in them,
no air stones. All they have is hydroponic nutrients,
water and plants,and a growing medium.
And we'll talk about why this works in a second.
But first let's talk about what we need. First of all,
obviously you're going to need a reservoir.
If you've seen my two liter bottle garden experiment,
you'll know that you can use something as simple as that.
But of course if you're growing something that requires a little bit more space,
like let's say cherry tomatoes,
you may want to use something a little bit bigger.
A five gallon bucket from Home Depot works perfectly.
You'll need some net pots and I'll put a link in the video description for
those, as well as hydroponic nutrients.
I usually recommend General Hydroponics three-part. You'll need some water.
I have a couple videos and a couple of articles on how to deal with water as
well, and you'll need a seedling of some kind. Now if you're just starting out,
I would recommend growing with lettuce or some sort of leafy green.
Basically anything that doesn't flower is a good idea for starting out in
Kratky.
Now the first thing that you need to do is set up your reservoir.
So here we have your nutrient reservoir filled effectively to the brim with
nutrients that your plant's going to need over the entirety of its life cycle.
So this is one thing that differentiates Kratky from a lot of different methods
is that you don't change the reservoir once you've set it up.
It contains everything that the plant needs throughout its entire life cycle.
So for lettuce and hydroponics,
typically you're looking at something like 30 to 40 days.
So this nutrient reservoir needs to have everything. Now you might be thinking,
okay, well other hydroponics systems,
usually you have to change that reservoir and adjust the nutrients.
And what about oxygenation? There's no air stone.
Well the beauty of the Kratky Method is that time solves these problems.
So with the addition of time,
we get to the final state of a Kratky system and it looks something like this.
Head of lettuce.
The roots have developed and drank down the reservoir,
which effectively oxygenates by creating a pocket of moist air.
So the first half has air and roots,
the second half has nutrients and roots.
And that is the beauty of the system.
It effectively uses the plant's desire for water and nutrition to help oxygenate
the air and oxygenate the roots. So Kratky is a really,
really good and really effective method if you're just starting out in
hydroponics. It is great if you are trying to teach your kid about it.
Maybe you're a teacher and you want to do a science experiment.
There's so many different applications of this. But not only that, there are,
are hydroponic gardeners and hydroponic commercial scale gardeners that use a
variation upon Kratky to grow tons and tons of lettuce or cucumbers or,
or, or tomatoes. I mean the the applications are honestly endless. And again,
there'll be a ton of links in the video description about Kratky.
So go ahead and take a look at those. And remember,
I do videos every Monday and Thursday now on gardening, hydroponics,
sustainability, all sorts of stuff like this. So please hit that Like.
Please hit that Subscribe if this is something that you want to see more of.
And of course, questions in the Comments and suggestions on new videos,
always appreciated. Once again, this has been Kevin from Epic Gardening.
Keep growing guys.