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Growing salad in wine bottles (lemmy.zip)
submitted 1 month ago by to c/hydroponics@slrpnk.net
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Hey guys.. I put my food hyperfixation on growing some hydroponic plants in my livingroom for a couple of weeks and most of the experminents are thriving, which is absolutely amazing. One of the experiments is growing salad in old eine bottles. I printed some fitting cups for the bottles, raised some seedlings and out them in rockwoolinto the netcups. It kinda works but waterlevel is dropping faster than the roots are developing and I need to fill uo some water/nutrients every couple of days.

Is there anything I am doing wrong or that I can optimize to help them develop the roots faster? How big should the roots already been to put them in the bottle? Maxbe it eas just to early?

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[–] 10 points 1 month ago (1 child)

I know nothing about this so I can't help. I just stumbled upon your post and wanted to tell you that I think it's cool!

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    • [–] 6 points 1 month ago (4 children)

    Imo the wine bottles may just be too narrow compared to how long the roots take to start? Not sure there's any thing you can do besides more time.

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  • [–] [S] 2 points 1 month ago (3 children)

    That sounds right.. so I just need to grow the seedlings larger and then it should work?

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  • [–] 3 points 1 month ago (1 child)

    I wonder if a glass cutter to take the neck down to ~1" could be helpful? Or just a different bottle in general. Again, idk how most of this works do I'm just throwing shit out there lol.

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    • [–] 3 points 1 month ago (1 child)

    Others already touched on it, but yeah. Wine bottle is not really the ideal shape for this, very cute though! Wide and shallow means water level won't change so much with volume, a 10x12x2" paper organizer tote with very similar cups to yours set in the lid is what I usually recommend for a little beginner window garden. You aren't doing anything wrong so much as tricky/ambitious. It'll naturally get easier as roots come in, and next time you could try waiting until roots reach past the neck of the bottle. Still won't be ideal conditions, but should work fine with tough stuff like lettuce :)

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    • [–] [S] 1 point 3 weeks ago

    Soo for anyone who is interested.. I added a wick to the bottle and it works great! The plant is thriving and it is easy to refill the bottle every couple of days (in the beginning it was weeks but it is getting hungry). It went from slowly dIng to really growing into a full salad. Very happy to share this.. it is just exiting what plants can grow in!

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