IT DECIDED TO BLOOM!

Spoiler, sad news

In dirt. Outside. Not in hydro.

What did I learn? Saffron crocus (Crocus sativus) seems to need a cold shock and/ or short days to get the signal to bloom.

This means, that I probably (hopefully) just need to wait until the days get shorter. Optimistically. Or, worse, it needs cold temperatures, which means, that I have to place every pot with the bulbs inside onto my balcony, making the indoor plant aspect obsolete.

Also, I accidentally dropped a pot, so I had to repot the already germinated bulbs.

I noticed that the skin of them peeled off and started rotting. I really hope that this won't attract too many fungus gnats, or I'll get mad. This means, that I have to flush the pots now regularily to get off any dead plant matter. This fucking sucks man.

I really really hope that I even like the taste of saffron. This is such a fucking pain. If it also tastes like grandpas' arse, like the only time I tried commercial saffron, I'm gonna cry man.

Cheers.

IT DECIDED TO BLOOM!

Spoiler, sad news

In dirt. Outside. Not in hydro.

What did I learn? Saffron crocus (Crocus sativus) seems to need a cold shock and/ or short days to get the signal to bloom.

This means, that I probably (hopefully) just need to wait until the days get shorter. Optimistically. Or, worse, it needs cold temperatures, which means, that I have to place every pot with the bulbs inside onto my balcony, making the indoor plant aspect obsolete.

Also, I accidentally dropped a pot, so I had to repot the already germinated bulbs.

I noticed that the skin of them peeled off and started rotting. I really hope that this won't attract too many fungus gnats, or I'll get mad. This means, that I have to flush the pots now regularily to get off any dead plant matter. This fucking sucks man.

I really really hope that I even like the taste of saffron. This is such a fucking pain. If it also tastes like grandpas' arse, like the only time I tried commercial saffron, I'm gonna cry man.

Cheers.

A month ago I made my first post about the hydroponic saffron (Crocus sativus).
Here's the post if you haven't seen it.

First, I'll start with the bad news: No saffron for me this year :(
It hasn't flowered yet, and probably won't do that for the next months.

Crocus sativus is very boring. It looks absolutely unremarkable, similar to grass, is mostly passive/ hibernates most of the year, and only blooms in late fall for a few days, and then goes back into stasis for the rest of the year.

Also, I had a few fungus gnats here and there, because the bulbs had some kind of skin around them, which is decomposing now. But I don't see this as a big problem. I already added some beneficial microbes when I planted it, and those do their job pretty well. I just flush the container every few weeks to get out all organic stuff.

The good news is, that most of them look very healthy!
The roots already expanded quite a bit, in a few cases, they already colonized the whole substrate. Especially those in LECA look the best. My biggest one is already ~15 cm tall.

Some things I learned:

• The plants grow very slow, and therefore, don't like too much fertilizer. I try to keep my EC around 0,5 mS for the winter, and experimentally increase it on one test plant to see how much they tolerate and how they react to it.
• They are boring and passive. I will keep them in pots until I can split the bulbs next year, and then either plant them as co-plants somewhere, or just place them outdoors to save some space and pots.
• You'll have to be very patient. The amount of bulbs I bought (about 40 pcs) isn't enough. You need about 100-150 flowers to get one gram of saffron. And those need some space. Growing them indoors feels a bit like waste when I think about what else I could grow instead.

Pictures

My pot with a citrus tree sapling in it:

Here's a picture from Wikipedia how it might look like when it blooms.

I've always had struggled with mold in my cat's grass.

Now, I tried growing it in straight tab water, without nutrients. I might add some fertilizer down the road if it lives long enough. But normally this shouldn't be needed, since it only lives for a few days or two weeks max, and the nutrients included in the grains should be enough for that.

I germinated it in a sprout glass, and when the first roots formed, I transferred it into my custom net cup and added some LECA on top.

One thing that always gets told is "Hydroponics is very clean and doesn't need microbes".

Sure, mycorrhiza shouldn't play as much of a role in hydro as it does for soil. The plants get all their nutrients directly from the fertilizer, and waste products should get flushed out regularly.

But, especially in the beginning, I always had trouble with root rot. Besides leftover organic matter and insufficient aeration as possible culprits, I think not having well established beneficial bacteria/ fungi was one reason the pathogenic microbes took over and killed almost everything in the container.

To counteract this, I recently bought water soluble microbes (a mix of dozens different fungi and bacteria) and tested them, especially in semi-hydro.

I'm not sure if it had any effects. For the already established plants, the effects were way less significant than for new ones.

One thing I definitely noticed is the very pleasant "earthy" smell, similar to a rainfall in the summer, when I stick my nose into the substrate.

And, those plants, where the roots got damaged (e.g. my ginger where I continually harvest, or recently transitioned plants with leftover soil) got some fungus gnats. Really not a lot, just here and there one or two, but there are some! They also disappeared a few days later and didn't multiply.

The thing is, many hydro growers put A LOT of effort into keeping everything very clean. Some even proposed to include the ORP value (oxygen reduction potential) just as much as pH and EC, because it tells you how hostile the environment is to microbes and/ or how well stuff can decompose.

I just don't know how I should keep my setup THAT clean outside. It's just normal for me that small insects, leafes and other stuff fall into my reservoir.

And this litter needs to decompose somehow. And I'd rather have it decomposed by a well established microbial culture than some pathogenic stuff that lands on there.

Am I just messy, and I should take hygiene more seriously, or is this totally fine? What's your point of view on this topic?

cross-posted from: https://slrpnk.net/post/15197450

This is another appreciation-post on how awesome semi-hydro/ LECA can be.

Today, I want to show you how my propagator dome works and how to build one for yourself very easily!

TL;DR

• It uses inorganic media like expanded clay pebbles, Seramis, pon, perlite, or whatever you choose.
• You fill small modified cups with the media and then place your seeds or cuttings in them.
• The media is completely inert and can be sterilized, so you don't have to worry about mold, fungus gnats, or whatever!
• You can't over- or underwater it, it's always moist, but very well aerated.
• This is my personal aerocloner-killer!

Why I build it (backstory)

I've always had trouble getting seeds started, especially for soil plants. They almost always got moldy and the success rate was low, especially due to waterlogging. And because I didn't want to mix soil with hydroponics, I had to search for an alternative.

Some people use rock wool for that, but I always found it too expensive and impractical.

Propagation via cuttings has also been hard for me. Like most people, I started with just a glass of water, but this very often caused rotting due to a lack of oxygen.

So, I built an aerocloner this year. This is basically an aeroponic cloning unit, where cuttings are placed in, which get sprayed with small droplets all the time. It worked really great, but my main issue with it was the noise. It needs an air pump running 24/7, which I found annoying.

I also needed a separate dome just for seeds, which feels redundant.

Many people also just place their cuttings into peat or coco, and they root very well too, as long as they get enough oxygen.

How it works

All semi-hydro substrates have some intrinsic wicking capabilities due to capillary action. This means, that if they stand in water, it gets drawn up all to the top, making the whole medium moist.

In between (and IN) the beads is a lot of empty space. Media like those can only store 30% water or so in their pores, and the rest is air. Air the roots need to breathe!

This means, that the LECA is always wet, but never water logged or compacted like coco, soil or other organic media can be!

Advantages

• Inorganic media are inert, they don't decompose or get eaten by mold or bugs
• As long as you refill the water in the tray once a week or so, you don't have to worry about too dry conditions, both the substrate and the air humidity. And even if you forget to water, it will stay moist for more than a few days after it has run dry.
• No waterlogging (anaerobic conditions due to overwatering) possible.
• Roots are already adapted for both soil AND hydro environments.
• No fungus gnats or other bugs, because they can't eat or live in the hostile substrate.
• Added stabillity for cuttings.
• No spillage, no mess.
• The LECA beads are very easy to remove without harming the roots.

How to build it yourself and use it

What you'll need

• A humidity dome/ seedling starter (available everywhere)
• A bright spot, e.g. your grow tent or windowsill
• (Optional: heating mat)
• A few small cups with lids, optimally made out of HDPE or PP
• A nail, lighter and something for holding
• Destilled water
• LECA or another medium. I like LECA with a small size (4-8 mm) the most for this use case, especially for cuttings.

Preparing the cups

• Separate the lid from the bottom
• Heat a nail and melt a few holes into the bottom. They can be very small, and 4 are sufficient. Try to make the edges as smooth as possible. Too many holes can make removing the roots harder. https://slrpnk.net/pictrs/image/72fc6f2a-56b0-4f69-afe2-368fb6abf0cc.jpeg
• Burn a hole into the lid and but a section off. Otherwise, it will be hard to remove.
• Fill it up with your medium
• Turn it around, take your cutting and push it into the hole while shaking lightly. That way, the stem will just slide into it without effort. Turn it again and give it another small shake. The medium is now locked up and the cutting can't move.

How to use

• Moisten the LECA with a spray bottle. If they are dry, the wicking won't work as great or will take longer.
• Try to water the tray, not the top of the substrate at first. Fine seeds might get washed out otherwise.
• You can just sow the seeds directly onto the substrate and put the lid on it. As soon as they germinate, the roots will "burrow" themselves very lightly into the pores of the hydroton and be fixed there.
• Some heating from below with a heating mat is beneficial

Here are some pictures of a cactus (right after germination) and some cuttings (Tradescantia, hops, Ctenanthe) I made just a few days before:

cross-posted from: https://slrpnk.net/post/15197450

This is another appreciation-post on how awesome semi-hydro/ LECA can be.

Today, I want to show you how my propagator dome works and how to build one for yourself very easily!

TL;DR

• It uses inorganic media like expanded clay pebbles, Seramis, pon, perlite, or whatever you choose.
• You fill small modified cups with the media and then place your seeds or cuttings in them.
• The media is completely inert and can be sterilized, so you don't have to worry about mold, fungus gnats, or whatever!
• You can't over- or underwater it, it's always moist, but very well aerated.
• This is my personal aerocloner-killer!

Why I build it (backstory)

I've always had trouble getting seeds started, especially for soil plants. They almost always got moldy and the success rate was low, especially due to waterlogging. And because I didn't want to mix soil with hydroponics, I had to search for an alternative.

Some people use rock wool for that, but I always found it too expensive and impractical.

Propagation via cuttings has also been hard for me. Like most people, I started with just a glass of water, but this very often caused rotting due to a lack of oxygen.

So, I built an aerocloner this year. This is basically an aeroponic cloning unit, where cuttings are placed in, which get sprayed with small droplets all the time. It worked really great, but my main issue with it was the noise. It needs an air pump running 24/7, which I found annoying.

I also needed a separate dome just for seeds, which feels redundant.

Many people also just place their cuttings into peat or coco, and they root very well too, as long as they get enough oxygen.

How it works

All semi-hydro substrates have some intrinsic wicking capabilities due to capillary action. This means, that if they stand in water, it gets drawn up all to the top, making the whole medium moist.

In between (and IN) the beads is a lot of empty space. Media like those can only store 30% water or so in their pores, and the rest is air. Air the roots need to breathe!

This means, that the LECA is always wet, but never water logged or compacted like coco, soil or other organic media can be!

Advantages

• Inorganic media are inert, they don't decompose or get eaten by mold or bugs
• As long as you refill the water in the tray once a week or so, you don't have to worry about too dry conditions, both the substrate and the air humidity. And even if you forget to water, it will stay moist for more than a few days after it has run dry.
• No waterlogging (anaerobic conditions due to overwatering) possible.
• Roots are already adapted for both soil AND hydro environments.
• No fungus gnats or other bugs, because they can't eat or live in the hostile substrate.
• Added stabillity for cuttings.
• No spillage, no mess.
• The LECA beads are very easy to remove without harming the roots.

How to build it yourself and use it

What you'll need

• A humidity dome/ seedling starter (available everywhere)
• A bright spot, e.g. your grow tent or windowsill
• (Optional: heating mat)
• A few small cups with lids, optimally made out of HDPE or PP
• A nail, lighter and something for holding
• Destilled water
• LECA or another medium. I like LECA with a small size (4-8 mm) the most for this use case, especially for cuttings.

Preparing the cups

• Separate the lid from the bottom
• Heat a nail and melt a few holes into the bottom. They can be very small, and 4 are sufficient. Try to make the edges as smooth as possible. Too many holes can make removing the roots harder. https://slrpnk.net/pictrs/image/72fc6f2a-56b0-4f69-afe2-368fb6abf0cc.jpeg
• Burn a hole into the lid and but a section off. Otherwise, it will be hard to remove.
• Fill it up with your medium
• Turn it around, take your cutting and push it into the hole while shaking lightly. That way, the stem will just slide into it without effort. Turn it again and give it another small shake. The medium is now locked up and the cutting can't move.

How to use

• Moisten the LECA with a spray bottle. If they are dry, the wicking won't work as great or will take longer.
• Try to water the tray, not the top of the substrate at first. Fine seeds might get washed out otherwise.
• You can just sow the seeds directly onto the substrate and put the lid on it. As soon as they germinate, the roots will "burrow" themselves very lightly into the pores of the hydroton and be fixed there.
• Some heating from below with a heating mat is beneficial

Here are some pictures of a cactus (right after germination) and some cuttings (Tradescantia, hops, Ctenanthe) I made just a few days before:

This is another appreciation-post on how awesome semi-hydro/ LECA can be.

Today, I want to show you how my propagator dome works and how to build one for yourself very easily!

TL;DR

• It uses inorganic media like expanded clay pebbles, Seramis, pon, perlite, or whatever you choose.
• You fill small modified cups with the media and then place your seeds or cuttings in them.
• The media is completely inert and can be sterilized, so you don't have to worry about mold, fungus gnats, or whatever!
• You can't over- or underwater it, it's always moist, but very well aerated.
• This is my personal aerocloner-killer!

Why I build it (backstory)

I've always had trouble getting seeds started, especially for soil plants. They almost always got moldy and the success rate was low, especially due to waterlogging. And because I didn't want to mix soil with hydroponics, I had to search for an alternative.

Some people use rock wool for that, but I always found it too expensive and impractical.

Propagation via cuttings has also been hard for me. Like most people, I started with just a glass of water, but this very often caused rotting due to a lack of oxygen.

So, I built an aerocloner this year. This is basically an aeroponic cloning unit, where cuttings are placed in, which get sprayed with small droplets all the time. It worked really great, but my main issue with it was the noise. It needs an air pump running 24/7, which I found annoying.

I also needed a separate dome just for seeds, which feels redundant.

Many people also just place their cuttings into peat or coco, and they root very well too, as long as they get enough oxygen.

How it works

All semi-hydro substrates have some intrinsic wicking capabilities due to capillary action. This means, that if they stand in water, it gets drawn up all to the top, making the whole medium moist.

In between (and IN) the beads is a lot of empty space. Media like those can only store 30% water or so in their pores, and the rest is air. Air the roots need to breathe!

This means, that the LECA is always wet, but never water logged or compacted like coco, soil or other organic media can be!

Advantages

• Inorganic media are inert, they don't decompose or get eaten by mold or bugs
• As long as you refill the water in the tray once a week or so, you don't have to worry about too dry conditions, both the substrate and the air humidity. And even if you forget to water, it will stay moist for more than a few days after it has run dry.
• No waterlogging (anaerobic conditions due to overwatering) possible.
• Roots are already adapted for both soil AND hydro environments.
• No fungus gnats or other bugs, because they can't eat or live in the hostile substrate.
• Added stabillity for cuttings.
• No spillage, no mess.
• The LECA beads are very easy to remove without harming the roots.

How to build it yourself and use it

What you'll need

• A humidity dome/ seedling starter (available everywhere)
• A bright spot, e.g. your grow tent or windowsill
• (Optional: heating mat)
• A few small cups with lids, optimally made out of HDPE or PP
• A nail, lighter and something for holding
• Destilled water
• LECA or another medium. I like LECA with a small size (4-8 mm) the most for this use case, especially for cuttings.

Preparing the cups

• Separate the lid from the bottom
• Heat a nail and melt a few holes into the bottom. They can be very small, and 4 are sufficient. Try to make the edges as smooth as possible. Too many holes can make removing the roots harder.

• Burn a hole into the lid and but a section off. Otherwise, it will be hard to remove.

• Fill it up with your medium
• Turn it around, take your cutting and push it into the hole while shaking lightly. That way, the stem will just slide into it without effort. Turn it again and give it another small shake. The medium is now locked up and the cutting can't move.

How to use

• Moisten the LECA with a spray bottle. If they are dry, the wicking won't work as great or will take longer.
• Try to water the tray, not the top of the substrate at first. Fine seeds might get washed out otherwise.
• You can just sow the seeds directly onto the substrate and put the lid on it. As soon as they germinate, the roots will "burrow" themselves very lightly into the pores of the hydroton and be fixed there.
• Some heating from below with a heating mat is beneficial

Here are some pictures of a cactus (right after germination) and some cuttings (Tradescantia, hops, Ctenanthe) I made just a few days before:

Ich habe mein Experiment "Kann ich im Spätherbst/ Winter noch eine Autoflower auf der Fensterbank anbauen?" jetzt abgebrochen.
Die Pflanze lebt noch, befindet sich jetzt aber in meinem "Growzelt".

Ich habe meinen Blumentopf vor ca. einem Monat an die Südwest-Fensterfront gestellt, wo er den ganzen Tag über 100% Tageslicht abkriegt.

Anfangs sah der Sämling recht gut aus. Er hätte bestimmt mehr Licht vertragen können, aber es hat ausgereicht. (Siehe letztes Update)

Leider hat der Sämling in den letzten Tagen so krass gespargelt, dass er beim Lüften von selbst abgeknickt ist. Das wäre, wenn es so weitergeht, sein Todesurteil.

Daher habe ich den Topf jetzt unter ein paar Glühbirnen gesetzt und den Ventilator davorgestellt. Denkt ihr, das Pflänzchen erholt sich davon? Kann der Stiel noch stabiler werden?

I've become a huge fan of semi-hydro over the past year.

I've planted all of my 50 house plants into LECA (expanded clay pellets) or pon (special gravel mix consisting of lava rock, pumice, and zeolithe), and they're doing absolutely great. (Too great if you ask me. They've become a weed in my apartment 😁)

Recently, I got into carnivorous plants.

Literally everyone is growing them in turf/peat or moss based substrates, and nothing else. As we all might know, those substrates not only attract pests (fungus gnats, etc.), but are not that great for the environment.

This is why I came up with the idea of using hydroponics.

As soon as I began researching, I've come to the conclusion, that there's sadly pretty much no overlap between the hydroponics community and carnivorous plants community.

So, I started an experiment.

I've put my just-bought Sarracenia, previous in soil, into pon with a very small grain diameter. This keeps the plants very moist, way moister than LECA would, at least the big marbles.

I soaked the granules with distilled water a few times, and then added a drop of diluted phosphoric acid to a pH of 4,5 and EC of 0,1 mS.

This is how the roots look after not only one week:

And the plant itself:

Pretty good if you ask me!

Sadly, Sarracenias need to hibernate, and this one started going crispy even in the store, which is apparently normal, so I've put it into my cold garage for a month or two.

I also started growing Drosera and Sarracenia from seed, but they didn't germinate yet. I got a lot of different seeds from a hobbyist, but growing CPs from seeds is a huge pain from what I've read.

Here's a picture of my seedling/ cutting station: I will make a post about the station soon!

I also sew a few of them directly into the pot and covered it with foil.

In theory, the combination of fine substrate with high water level should provide the plants with enough moisture, while also letting the roots get exposed to a lot of oxygen, which keeps them very healthy.

But swamp plants are just different maybe, I don't know. Let's see...

And, last but not least, I bought two Nepenthes a few days ago. I already placed one of them into LECA (8-16 mm).

They apparently grow similar to orchids, and not like swamp growing plants like venus fly traps or Drosera. So, they rather need a airy substrate, normal pH (about 6) and even tolerate fertilizer.

They looked like this when I bought them:

I will keep you all updated!

Tags for search engines: LECA, hydroponics, hydro, semi hydro, carnivorous plants, VFT, Sarracenia, Drosera, Dionaea, Nepenthes, fertilizer, experiment, inorganic media, peat alternative, pumice, Seramis, pon

Knapp 30 Tage ist es nun her, dass ich einen Samen einer Autoflower in mein passives Hydrosystem geworfen habe.

Das steht an der Fensterfront an einer Südwestseite, alles ohne zusätzliche Beleuchtung.

Leider muss ich, weil meine Katzen eine Vorliebe für Hanf haben, mir noch was einfallen lassen, was ich anstatt der Haube verwenden kann.

Der Stiel ist sehr dünn und knickt bald ab, weil kaum Luftzirkulation herrscht.

Die Nährlösung hat aktuell einen EC von 400 mS.

Ich will einfach nur wissen, ob das um die Jahreszeit noch ohne Growlights klappt. Bisher war es ja leider meistens super dunkel, kalt und bewölkt.

Vielleicht muss bald ein kleiner USB-Ventilator und Schreibtischlampe her.

I bought a few bulbs two weeks ago and planted most of them into LECA (indoors) or soil (on my balcony), but also one into a Kratky pot.

I don't think I can harvest this year yet, but we'll see.

In this one also grows garlic and strawberries. It's meant to hibernate this winter, and then in the early spring, I'll place it outside.