First plant

Now is time to put in the plants. I had one Jalapeño plant that was on death's door, so I decided it would make a good first candidate for the system.

I will be using a type of deep water culture (DWC) system, which means the roots of the plant are suspended in a nutrient solution. This usually consists of a reservoir of nutrient solution with an air supply. Due to frequent power outages, such a system that depends on 24/7 electricity is not an option, so I'm doing an experiment, the roots will be suspended in the air, but just touching the surface of the water. Hopefully they will get enough air while still being able to reach the nutrient solution. I've seen this demonstrated before and apparently it does work. we will see.

First I cut open a 1.25 liter soda bottle to serve as the reservoir, and put a Styrofoam cup with holes poked in it to serve as a net pot. For a growing medium I am using cotton balls and coral chunks that behave much like hydroton, which i found washed up on the beach.

Hydroponic nutrients are not available here, So I bought some 20-20-20 in the capital which was sold by kilogram. Standard fertilizers like this lack something called micronutrients, which is what sets hydroponic fertilizers apart. However, if you look closely on the bag to see what its made up of it is possible to find regular household fertilizers that do in fact have micronutrients. One of the keys is magnesium, this one's got it.

Next, I take the plant out of the soil and wash all the dirt off of the roots, then wrap whats left in wet cotton. Afterwards, center it in the grow medium.

And we're ready to grow! I started spray painting the bottle so as to keep algae from growing inside, but ran out of spray paint. So later on I wrapped the bottles in foil and it seems to be a good solution. I even put in a bluetooth speaker to play music for the plants. Might sound crazy, but its been proven on many occasions that music aids plant growth. The same with talking to them.

 Finally, here are the foil wrapped reservoirs, with some newly added Oregano plants.