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What's going on Epic gardeners?
Kevin here and I am here to talk about the two liter bottle hydroponic garden.
Now I put out a pretty extensive guide for this on my website,
but if you're looking for the simplest way to get started in hydroponics,
on earth, this is it and it's really good for kids. Uh,
it's great if you want to do like a science fair project with your kid or if
you're just trying to get started in hydroponics and you want to do something
simple, this is the way to go. Now,
here's what you need. Very first thing.
Obviously you need a two liter bottle and the beauty of the two liter bottle -
you'll see why it's so perfect for this in just a little bit.
Then you need some sort of growing media.
Now I like to use either Hydroton, which are these clay pellets,
uh, you can also use coconut coir, which is super popular.
I've been using that a lot lately.
And what that is is it's ground up coconut husks that essentially just provide
space for your roots to grow and an area or a way for water to make it all the
way up to the roots. Uh, you know, if you want you could use soil,
but then again it wouldn't be a hydroponic garden. Uh, but you know,
that option is open to you. Obviously we're gonna need some water.
We're going to need some sort of wicking material.
And the wick material is essentially what's taking the water and nutrients from
the bottom of the two liter bottle and bringing it up to the top.
Next thing you might want, this is optional, is aluminum foil.
And that's because when light hits water that has nutrients in it,
typically something that you don't want will start to form there.
And that's something is called algae. Now,
algae is not super harmful to the plant,
but it does look a little bit gross and it can make, you know,
it can make your garden not look as aesthetic as you might want it to look.
Next you'll need some nutrients.
I'll talk about what kind of nutrients you'll want,
and then you'll also want some sort of seed or seedling. All right,
so you've got your bottle.
Now here's why the two liter bottle is so perfect for this experiment.
All you need to do is draw a line right across where the curve starts to end.
So it's as it curves it starts to get to a flat point.
And as long as you draw a line right around that curve,
you're going to have the perfect situation. And I'll show you exactly why.
It's because when you make that cut,
you're going to end up with something like this. Now you can see,
look at this empty space here.
It is absolutely perfect for the growing media and your plant.
It's the perfect little space for that to sit in.
And that's why the two liter bottle is so great because not only is it the
perfect space,
but it also gets the plant closer to the water.
So let's talk about the water for a second.
I have an entire video on how to properly add nutrients and pH to your water,
but I'm going to touch on it quickly here.
What you need to do is you need to first of all,
use as clean and pure a water as you can.
So tap water is good. My, unfortunately my tap water is very,
very hard up in the 400 parts per million range.
So that means there's a lot of calcium and other things in there. Uh,
so if you want, since this is so small,
you can use something like a Brita filter to quickly filter your water.
Make sure that you get it as pure as possible.
I also like to use General Hydroponic Flora Three Part Series,
which is probably one of the more popular hydroponic nutrients out there. Um,
so watch the video on how to properly pH and add nutrients to your water.
And this is the next step. So before we go any further,
you're gonna want to make sure that you've got the water properly pHed with
nutrients in there. And just to touch on nutrients a little bit further.
Remember,
we're going to be growing a plant that does not fruit or flower because this is
a small system. So you can't really grow cucumbers in this thing.
It's really good for something like basil,
something like lettuce or spinach or maybe a different type of herb.
So keep that in mind. That means that you're not going to be wanting to using,
wanting to use, sorry, as much of the bloom nutrients.
You'll be wanting to use more of the grow nutrients,
which is going to stimulate that vegetative phase of growth.
Okay, now our next step is we need to add our media and our plant.
Boom. Now,
I typically like to add a plant that I've already started.
So I'll add the media. Let's say this is coconut coir right here,
and then I'll take a plant that I've already started.
So I'd have seed started already and I'll dig out a little hole and I will place
that plant inside. Uh, you can start your,
your plant in the two liter bottle if you want to. That's totally fine. Uh,
it's just gonna take a little bit longer to get started. That's all. And again,
I have an entire video on how to start seeds for hydroponics on my channel as
well that you can take a look at. Um, okay.
So the final step is to add the wick and for wick I like to use a uh,
like a cotton rope. Um,
I try to avoid anything that's paper-based just because it's going to be sitting
in water. It's going to be wet all the time.
It's going to rot out or become like structurally unstable. So I like to use,
uh, some sort of cotton rope.
You can use like cloth or you can cut up a um,
a wash towel and use that if you want to. Uh, so here we go.
This is the final phase. Now you can see how this works.
Basically the wick is going to draw water and nutrients up into the growing
media and it's going to moisten the growing media and then your roots are going
to take up that water and nutrients.
And hopefully once the plant is strong enough it's the roots are actually going
to make its way down and out into this bottom area.
So you won't actually need to use the wick as much.
The wick kind of helps during that early phase of the plants growth that where
it really needs moisture and it doesn't have the root structure to be sitting
down in this nutrient already.
And you know that's more or less it for the two liter bottle garden.
It's very, very simple guys.
Now the only other thing you might want to do is add some sort of opaque coating
around the entire two liter bottle. So maybe something like aluminum foil.
You could do cardboard paper, um, poster paper, something like that.
Whatever you want. I mean, I guess you could like duct tape it too if you want,
but I like to use something that I can remove so I can check the water level and
make sure that nothing's going wrong. All right guys,
that is it for the two liter bottle hydroponic garden. As always,
visit epicgardening.com if you want more tutorials, more how-to's.
You can check me out on Facebook and Twitter.
You can shoot me an email if you have any questions or you can join the forums.
That is it. This is Kevin from epicgardening.com.
Keep growing.
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