Anyone Fancy Joining Me?.............If I Remember.

[Bigmallly]

I remember Bob Flowerdew grew lettuces just in water. They were in polystyrene seed trays, and he floated them in a water butt. and left them to get on with it. No slug damage at all

That was my initial plan only using flower buckets.

[Muppet194]

My 17 year old son and myself had a little lettuce competition this summer, mine the traditional way and his using a home made hydroponics type system. He got tubs with lids the biggish storage ones for the water/feed, he cut holes in the lids to fit plastic cups, the cups he cut the bottoms off and attatched mesh circles with I believe his hot glue gun. The mesh was from the pound shop actually meant for cooking oven chips on. Genius little set up really, and his lettuces were far better than mine, bigger, tastier and no slug damage at all. Huge root systems going right down into the water in the tub. So yeah I'm in!

[Bigmallly]

Cheers Muppet, that gives me confidence.

[rary]

BM. the photos shows a bit of a trailing petunia that had broken off from my basket I shoved it into a plastic tumbler and just kept topping it up with water, so as this grows ok I will join you and give it a go. PLEASE REMIND ME... regularly

[rary]

I know you said winter BM, but the weather is poor enough here to be winter, so I have made a start this evening The photos show how I am setting the trial up, I am using a trough that I have plugged, a polystyrene platform to float in the trough and holes cut in the tray, the cabbage plants with compost ,then washed I added two cola bottle tops of comfry, seaweed,worm juice tea as a feed put the cabbage roots through the holes into the water and placed the lot in the greenhouse I have also planted some cabbages in the garden to give a comparison.
I will keep you updated,,,,,if I remember

[rary]

After setting up the cabbage up as above seven weeks ago the ones in the water kept in the greenhouse are not moving much, the same type planted in the garden have grown about eight inches these were kept under fleece, and now micromesh, I have just placed seaweed around the outside cabbages to keep the slugs and snails off them. Now who can tell me how to get the ones in the water growing?

[Scarlet]

Some feed in the water?

[Bigmallly]

Mine in the water are the same rary, throwing out lots of roots but no growth to talk about.

[veggiechicken]

I started some old onion sets in modules floating in water, instead of in compost.







It was very easy to remove the sets from the modules, no soil to disturb or intertwined roots. In fact, it was so effective I'm always going to start onion sets this way.
Thanks BM for the inspiration

[Bill HH]

I might try a different no soil approach, producing food on discarded incontinence pads, these are available free from most care homes.

[veggiechicken]

Wouldn't they be soiled incontinence pads, Bill?

[mothhawk]

After setting up the cabbage up as above seven weeks ago the ones in the water kept in the greenhouse are not moving much, the same type planted in the garden have grown about eight inches these were kept under fleece, and now micromesh, I have just placed seaweed around the outside cabbages to keep the slugs and snails off them. Now who can tell me how to get the ones in the water growing?

Since cabbages like very firm ground, perhaps they are just not happy with their roots free floating?

[bramble]

After reading all these threads i am going to have a go with my onion sets and some lettuce. I will post some pics wgen i have it set up.

[Bill HH]

So how do we feed these plants? I have tomorite but no idea what amount to use.

[Bigmallly]

So how do we feed these plants? I have tomorite but no idea what amount to use.

A dollop should do Bill.