In addition to doing my normal, yearly garden on my balcony, I’ve decided to try some hydroponic plants as well. I chose to use romaine lettuce in my hydroponic garden because it’s the lettuce I use most in salads and for making chicken wraps. I don’t have a professional hydroponics growing kit so I am going to make some of the items myself using things from the hardware store. Since I’m planting everything on a fairly small balcony, I have decided to grow early maturing tomato varieties so I can harvest the plants a few times before the season is over. Growing a garden on a balcony doesn’t get as much sun as it would normally in the middle of a yard so it seems the tomatoes that take 70-80 days to harvest don’t so as well. I got a variety of tomato called “Early Treat” and it is supposed to be ready to harvest in about 55 days, so much shorter time period than the “Best Boy” variety I also have. I’m curious to see how the “Best Boy” do this year as I have changed the structure of my garden this year after learning what I did wrong last year that stunted the growth of my tomatoes and peppers.
I’ll be posting garden update photos as the plants I have started indoors using peat pots and plant bulbs. I just use a 9 watt bulbs that are LED and made for plants. Since the LED light isn’t as strong as typical, larger growing lights, I placed the light closer to the peat pots for maximum effect. Keep in mind, my garden is not very large so everything I’m growing fits on a steel wired shelving unit I got from Menards. There’s plenty of room for all my peat pots, salad containers and hydroponic jars. The nice thing about having the steel wire shelving unit is that the plant lights can shine through the wires and the plants on the bottom shelves also get enough light. When the plants get a little bigger, I will be adding another 9 watt plant bulb to another one of the shelves to make sure I am giving the plants as much light as possible.
At night I partially cover my homemade indoor greenhouse with a silver shield that so the light from the 9 watt bulb is intensified and reflected as much as possible. I also occasionally, carefully mist the plants to make sure the humidity level they would normally have is simulated as close as possible.
Hopefully this year I will be able to harvest and freeze more tomatoes than last year for tomato sauce, salsa and chili. Follow for updates on the garden growth and for photos to come.
Thanks for reading!
Coffee & a Playlist 