7 Years Of Hydroponic Strawberries, Here's What I Know
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- Опубліковано 8 чер 2024
- I've been playing around with a great strawberry method for hydroponics for years to be able to get some strawberries indoors. I'll share the story and help you get your own berry harvest indoors. It's easier than you think. The best variety of strawberries for hydroponics so far has been seascape for both flavor and growth.
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Chapters
0:00 - Intro
0:34 - Seed Starting
1:26 - When to Transplant
1:44 - Runners
2:42 - When To Cut Runners
3:26 - Planting Runners
4:00 - Growth Update
5:36 - Sterile vs Beneficial Microbes
6:40 - Lighting and General Tips - Навчання та стиль
Awesome video. Huge level of info. I accidentally grew strawberries in a shade area of my yard. I want to grow them in containers indoors and you helped me. Thanks!
I'm glad you found the video helpful, good luck with your plants.
Thanks for sharing your grow experience! Excellent info. I hear a lot of ppl say it takes 2-3 years to get fruit from seeds but it seems that may be due to outdoor climatic changes but growing hydroponically eliminates this pause.
Here I was thinking this took a long time to get fruit from seeds. Clearly I didn't do enough research. Glad you liked the video, thanks so much for taking the time to leave a comment.
i have just subscribed,great content! hope to see more hydroponic strawberry content
Welcome to the channel and thanks for the sub. Nice to see you like the strawberry content. I'll keep that in mind.
If you're using the same nutrients for your strawberries and tomatoes, you're probably starving the tomatoes. Strawberries need about 500-600 ppm while tomatoes need more like 1200 ppm.
I didn't realize tomatoes were such big feeders.... hmmm maybe this is the problem I've had with tomato plants indoors.
Would this work with masterblend ?? Does it have enough nitrogen, potassium, phosphorus, calcium and magnesium for strawberries ??
Oh Geez! I actually started diluting the amount of Master Blend, Espom Salt & Ca.
I'm about to give up on tomatoes!
Thank you for the information! 🙏🏽
You're welcome Mike, thanks for letting me know you like what you see!
nice looking strawberry plants. Just planted my first ones to coco coir. they seem to like it so far
Good luck with your grow. I've had good luck in coir as well.
Good info
Thanks for the info. I just started growing hydroponic stuff strawberries included. I got dormant crowns from a vendor on amazon though and almost every since one of mine has taken off and is doing great. I feel like they have hit a wall though and dont seem to be getting much bigger or getting to that next stage. They look healthy they just have slowed down. Im trying a few options to find out what works best for me and my set up but i am enjoying the process and appreciate people like you posting and sharing their experience with all of this
You are welcome, it means a lot when people take the time to comment. Hopefully you will get you berries to take off again. Some varieties do have a week or 2 of dormancy after the fruit. That might be where you are.
TDS pen and check it keep at 1000max
Thank you.
You're welcome, thanks for taking the time to leave the comment!
I don't think I've ever seen a person with two different color eyes. Pretty cool, I must say! Thanks for the strawberry tips. I have a couple dozen plants growing indoors. I skinned some store-bought berries, dried them, scraped the seeds of a few days later, then planted them with a humidity dome and a month later, had my first sprouts. One plant has grown quite large since I converted it to hydroponics and I think it's almost ready to produce fruit. Your seven years experience grabbed my attention. Thank you!
Thanks for taking the time to comment. If you run into any trouble with the strawberries, the seascape variety will likely solve your problems. For whatever reason they just seem to put out the best fruit. Hopefully you learnt something useful in the video other than my eye color!
@@HouseDadLife I certainly did learn something. Turns out, that bigger plant I mentioned isn't a strawberry plant! LOL! I'm not sure what it is now. Maybe beans or peas. The smaller ones look just like your plants though. I guess time will tell. The mystery plant. :)
My wife ordered some heirloom seeds which I use next time around. I'm having a good time learning. Thank you!
That's good to hear you are enjoying it. They do take a long time from seed to fruit but it is a bunch faster with hydronics. Good luck with your grow!
@@HouseDadLife Thank you, brother. I'm enjoying this very much! Have a good weekend.
He has 2 different eye colors because he is a terminator sent down from skynet working undercover to take over the world. #YouHaveBeenWarned
Introduce neem oil to your garden. It illuminates mold and mildew and stuff like that. Also cover your buckets or get black ones to prevent light from growing algae
I've thought about neem oil for potato bugs, I'm always a bit concerned to add anything because I don't want to accidently kill any beneficial insects. Black pails would be better, I could also put the watering tube in the ground a couple of inches as well.
Does anyone know if hydroponic strawberries would have the same fisetin content as dirt grown?
Thankw a lot for this informative video. I lost you are BENEFICIAL MICROBES - it's new for me. Please explain about them. Thanks again.
It just makes hydroponics more like soil to the plant.
Oh I gotta try this, haven’t done soilless since the organic aeroponic sludge incident but this looks good lol
Great video
strawberry seedlings are around 3-5 $/piece so starting from seed is essential for economic efficiency
I wonder how’d you’d check for active microbiology, is there a test? Or just constantly replenish?
Great vid!
I give everything a dose about every 2 weeks, there might be a test or better way, this seems to work well for me. All I know is I've had zero root issues or sludge and I don't feel great white is too expensive because of the results. Something like 1/2 tsp every 2 weeks top watered every 2 weeks and still on the first container.
I don't know if there is any method for the home guy to check microbiology, so I'm no help there. Thanks for the comment and good luck with your future grows.
@@HouseDadLife thanks for the Info
@@HouseDadLife your technique looks like it works, every couple weeks it is 😀
Let me know how it goes for you.
@@HouseDadLife try a microscope 🔬
The reason starting from seeds is better is because as they grow they are adapted to your environment where the already grown plants will not do as well because they were grown in completely different environment from the start. I have lots of house plants and I have witnessed them not doing well especially hard to grow varieties like alocasia. The original growth grown not in my home usually will die but then the brand new growth does amazing as it is adapted as it grows from new.
I'll have to keep that in mind, thanks for sharing!
I wish someone would tell my tomatoes (Amish Paste), that i grew from seed via hydroponics that they're suppose to be accustomed to their environment.
That's not holding true in my experience.
Looking very nice, my friend. So far I harvested 2 strawberries, both from my Kratky setup, my DWC's make lots of great leaves. I'm thinking I'm lacking sufficient lighting and I have them in 2" net pots which I'm realizing was a very very very very bad idea (way too cramped). My plan is to transplant them to dirt in about 4 weeks. I did get one runner to root... so I got that going for me, which is nice. I decided to smash it because I dig your crazy strawberry harvest. Oh, I'm glad you finally caught the little thief. Pfft, kids, they're awful ;-)
What size pots did you end up putting them in. I was surprised the first time I did then in hydroponics. They grow much bigger than anything I had ever seen grown in soil. Still working on trying to make it better but this is pretty cool. Pollination tips?
@@HouseDadLife 5 gallon buckets with 2" net pots. Pollination? Ummmm... lol, for pollination I thought they kind of miracled themselves.
Lol I could take that so many ways, I wonder if a fan would do the trick.
@@HydroHavenGrow What fertilizer do you use ….. ?
@@blessisrael6455 For this I think I used MasterBlend with a reduced amount of Calcium Nitrate and a little CalMag. I wasn't very happy with the results, but the problem may have been the strawberry variety I selected. If I were to do it over again, I'd choose a different method and a different variety... but that is unlikely, I wasn't a fan of growing these inside (not a good return on investment imho).
Thank you for your video. I have grown strawberries from seed and I was able to get them to flower 🌸 and fruit. I tried growing bare root, was not successful. I bought strawberry plants, had flowers and fruit. I’m going try growing my strawberries in one of my hydroponic system. You also mentioned beneficial microbes, what make did you use? I also grown tomatoes inside my house and it grew very well, got lots of fruit. I grew the tomatoes in pots,started them on a window sill.
I've had very good success with great white for microbes, dynomyco also looks like it's a good microbe from my testing. There are some grow tests on this channel that can help you compare for yourself if you like. Thanks for taking the time to leave a comment and happy growing.
@@HouseDadLife Thank you so much.
I'm just an Aerogarden consumer b/c my own was unsuccessful and Aero has secret sauce. But I nute every 2 weeks as recommended and swap out and clean everything when I do it so it's all balanced, clean, and new. The only trouble I have is starting seeds so I put them in a moist dark baggie then dump them into the Aero when they sprout roots.
I've never tried the aerogarden, I sometimes start seeds in a similar method. The paper towel method works well in really tough to germinate seeds for me.
@@HouseDadLife Yeah, the paper towel is the only way to keep those huge seeds (chard) moist but not soaked.
@@HouseDadLife It has secret sauce. You can see the nutes have antifungals because when I'm late (over 2 weeks exactly to the day) then some algae develops which dissipates as soon as I clean and start with new water and nutes. But the plant is fine.
Did you have a issue with pollination? How did you address that? Also, what is your typical yield per plant? I've done the NFT version before but had too many issues come up when outdoors. Thank you!
Me or the wife will pollinate them in we are in the room, but for the most part we just really on self pollination. Seascape is the variety that works well indoors in hydroponics. Sometimes it's a few key elements to unlock the puzzle. I'm not sure what yield is, anyone in the family sees red berries and we eat them, they are so good fresh.
Hello sir!!! Masterblend is not available in my country, so can I use another fertilizers like 20-20-20+te or 19-19-19 with micronutrient????
Thank you for sharing huge knowledge and experience 🙏
Any balanced nutrient should work out just fine. Multi part fertilizers tend to work better in my experience. Good Luck!
I moved to Alaska, and brought with me 2 big aerogardens. The first year was so dissappointing - tomatoes, peppers, but this year, I put in strawberries (mara something french)-OMGoodness they are awesome! and it is much more worth my time. I was wondering what type would be better for an ongoing supply: day neutral, ever-bearing, or june? How long does it take the june bearers to fruit up again? I had no clue how much fertilizer - so mix up a gal of high quality and pour about 1/4 of the gal in each tank - everything seems ok. When you mention microbes for the roots, what do you mean? thank you!
700 to 900 ppm for a strawberry nutrient target, masterblend tomato mixed at half or 3/4 strength is my favorite, variety I've found works best for the plants is seascape, and for the microbes, check out any of the great white videos on the channels. Good luck, that's a tough climate. Ohh and ph of 6 plus or minus .2.
I'm wanting to start about 50 plants..... would love to know where to start.....
How is your water being fed from each bucket to the next, etc? Ive seen a few ways to do these...Im not sure which one to start. I am really most intrigued by vertical farming...
I use rainbird drippers amzn.to/3FA7un6 and hydroponics pumps amzn.to/3FyWEhm to get the nutrient solution up to the plants. I've tried a bunch of different methods, but this just ends up working the best for me. The only thing you need to watch for is to have a pump that will be able to push the nutrient up when vertical farming.
I am planning on putting 6 strawberry plants in coco coir dutch bucket outdoors. How do you prevent rain from getting into the container which will throw off the EC? Do you use plastic or some kind of foam cover with each plant sticking out?
I use no covers and just let the rain in. Once you've added as much water back that's in the reservoir, do a complete flush and change out the solution and you're gtg.
My goal is using Hydroponics without coco coir, peat or anything the fungus gnats would be a problem.
I'm a newbie at starting my own seedlings indoors, and got infested with those critters from my Start Coco Coir mix!!
I tried Neem Oil, I tried boiling water over the starter soil before using, and I have those sticky shape inserts. And tried watering with inverted cut bottles stuck deep into the soil to water, to avoid the top 2 inches getting moist. Still got gnats!!! So I'm done with any type of soil mix!
I think you're tomatoes are too wet....perhaps allow the top roots more exposure to air & only allow the longer roots in the water.
I over-winterized 5 different types of peppers last year, so I'm got to try converting them to Hydroponics this winter.
Peppers have been one of my favorite hydroponic plants. They do really well. Ph of 6 ppm between 600 and 800 has works well for me.
for tomatoes it seems to be that transpiration is limited. if you have not found a solution, could adding a ventilator to increase air flow, potentially help?
It may, this room does have 2 vents moving air in and 1 vent pulling air out, but a direct breeze over the plants might be a good idea..
I’ve got some bare roots growing hydroponically, multiple plants leaves are turning brown at the tips. Any tips?
That could be a multitude of things, check ppm and ph first, that's typically my first goto.
My bare root strawberry plants did great at first when I put them in DWC but after about a month all but 2 or 3 are starting to wilt and dry out and I see no new growth on the roots. How much of the beneficial microbes do you use in the water?
About 1/4 the recommended amount 1or 2 times a reservoir change, typically only once.
After they start producing strawberries, how long do they keep making fruit? Continuously?
The everbearing varieties just keep going, although there does seem to be times they do produce more, spring and fall.
Hi , wanted to ask that will DFT be good for strawberry or grow bag system?
I have tried several methods for strawberries and have yet to find a bad one, I think you'll be fine good luck.
started last year, but had no success because i did a few mistake. so this year i give it another chance. waiting for results.
Good luck!
About ur tomatoes it may be the ph of the water or soil they like 4-4.5 ph check in the net
That seems way too low for ph, wouldn't that be in nutrient lockout range?
@@HouseDadLife toes?
Yes u are right i didnt remember correctly
I got this down below from google about tomato soil
6.2 to 6.8
Tomato plants will grow well in well-drained sites that receive full sun for most of the day. The soil pH should be slightly acidic (6.2 to 6.8). Excess nitrogen can result in plants with lush, vigorous foliage but little fruit production
Is it better to mix coco peat with perlite or just use perlite?
My best results have been with just perlite.
You stated you use Great White Microbes.. Are you mixing that at half a tbsp per gallon of nutrients? 4 oz container is $31 and that's only good for 8 gallons? I must be missing something. I go through about 10 gallons of nutrients every 7-10 days... Please clarify for me, thanks!
I use it but you need way less than the package suggests. Plus I am now only using it on reservoir water changes. I add about a 1/4 tsp per 20 gallons and immediately water or 1/4 tsp in a gallon of hydroponic nutrients then direct water.
hello, may i know the specific nutrient for growing season, and for fruit season?
I have been keeping the same for both, masterblend mixed at half what they recommended. Full strength seems to be too strong, I was having ph dropping issues.
@@HouseDadLife thank you for kind reply
@@HouseDadLife I’m so glad you said that ! I like masterblend and had no idea what to do for strawberries ….. glad to know it works !! Thanks !
So the 5 gallon buckets are filled with a mixture of perlite and water?
They are just perlite with a drain in the bottom so excess water drains out quickly.
got it thanks. @@HouseDadLife
I heard that strawberries need to rest/overwinthering and therefore not suitible growing indoors or overwinther indoors. How does it work when growing them indoors? 😊
In my Dutch Bucket, I've had the same plant producing consistently for the last 2 years, it also stopped producing runners.
It may be that the light source/kind for cucumbers and tomatoes is supposed to be stronger, it produces from flower. Strawberries and lettuce (Kale) thrive with the blue spectrum and some red. Tomatoes thrive with more red than blue when it fruits or flowers.
Thanks for taking the time to share your wisdom, I'll have to think about how to apply it here.
@@HouseDadLife HLG horticulture lighting group is having a 25% off lights sale till monday. Ask to talk to Brock-he’s the one there into gardening. He helped me much.
how much water does a plant consume per week or per day??
Very tough for me to say exactly because I usually water a few things with it. A gallon a week for 9 plants would be a rough guess.
how to pollute the strawberry flowers indoor ?
A small fan blowing over the plants or a tiny paint brush works well. The for 30 or so minutes a day has worked well for me in the past.
get a TDS pen and keep it under 1000 also add botanicare cal mag everything looks either too strong or mag. diffecncey. also check ph something is off.
You've got a good eye. I am growing other things in this grow at the same time so I try and run middle of the road for ppm but it's not ideal for some plants. The ppm is too high in this case for what the strawberries really like. I'm doing an exclusive strawberry grow this summer. Then I can give them exactly what they want.
So I've got several types of tomatoes growing & flowering. However, just like yours, they are wilted. I've changed out the solution, I've tried diluting the solution and now I even have an Amish Paste in just plain water.
The 2 cherry tomatoes I grew from seed are doing the best, tons of blooms but still not as strong as they should be.
I did trim the most wilted leaves off, hoping to help the plants energy. But I still don't know why they're not strong.
So were you able to figure out the issue with your tomatoes?
My strawberries did really well at first but now they're dying. I didn't grow them from seed, I actually just snipped off runnings from my outdoor garden. And i did a stupid thing though, I didn't rinse the outdoors strawberries in insect soap, so I found teeny tiny spider eggs. Gave them all a bath in it yesterday, now I wait & watch to see if they'll grow or did I kill them. Lol
Definitely the danger of outdoor plants. I've haven't done tomatoes in a while. I think it might have been an insect problem. If I do ever find the perfect combination for them I will share it. I'll start generic and go from there, I suspect 2 things in my case insect or nutrient deficiency.
I've brought in 4 strawberry runners so far and two mothers today because the critters keep stealing my boys fruit. With three old mothers from before I didn't have bug problems with. But I'm using compost potting soil mixture. I get few Flys but manure and all. We've gotten a dozen some berries so far
@@paulcahala4598 Good luck with future production, I've had some critters thrash a pepper plant. Open the window 1 night.... and the bug plague started.
putting a fan in there oslolating will correct that leaf burn issue you have going on.
That's really good to know, I'll have to give this a try, thanks for the tip!
Have you tried growing them aeroponically?
That is not something I've tried yet, maybe in the future.
Tomatoes need much more light, heat and dryness. They're suffering from disease from the moisture.
That's entirely possible I'm just in the process of restarting my main grow, maybe I'll modify a section to take that into account.
I tried growing strawberries in soil indoors, but they all dies of mold.
Soil indoors is much tougher to get the moisture quantity right. Seascape variety in perlite with Masterblend nutrients should get you good results.
@@HouseDadLife Wow, thanks
Tomatoes and strawberries should not be grown side by side, as they easily transmit diseases to and from each other. Also if your running it from the same reservoir tomatoes and strawberries require completely different nutrients and PH.