I use the kratky method to grow lettuce and it works great! I have a 5 shelf metal stand, 2 lights per shelf, i use the plastic shoe boxes with 3 holes drilled in each. On each shelf i grow lettuce, mustard, beet, and what ever other green i feel like. As i use up a shelf I germinate and plant using the plant that takes the longest to germinate and grow. Beet is longest, mustard is next, and lettuce is last. I tip my lights down on the new plantings! This system is great for a salad system for a family! I dont limit myself to one system, I use different systems for different plants!
You can move the net pots from shallow shelf containers to deeper containers as they get bigger (especially with longer lived plants). Big commercial hydroponic farms do this regardless (the water trays are enormous but shallow, and the grow cells are in foam or rockwool, which get moved from tray to tray as they get bigger). This solves the spacing issue under your lights as well as the depth issue for rotational harvest planting. Your deep trays for the really large plants can be at the bottom of your rack systems while the shallow seedling trays go on top. Making sure to use water tubs that are wider than they are deep solves the potential for spillage because you can't knock them over. And you can do floating trays for your net pot supports if you just give them appropriate spacers underneath (higher styrofoam floats) for air roots. In other words, kratky doesn't have to be static with the plants starting in the same containers they finish in. Shift them through the racks as their roots allow and leaf area demand. Shallow trays won't have the weight issue you worry about, so the top racks can hold very densely spaced seedlings and young plants in an inch or so of water (depending on the species grown and the size of net pot). They graduate down the rack into deeper containers with taller floats. Deep tubs sit directly on the floor at the bottom of the system. Continuous harvest, efficient use of light, no weight problems, no wasted space, totally adaptable to the size of plants grown. AND no pumps, bubblers or plumbing required.
As others have noted, many of these issues can be addressed by using the right size and shape container. For lettuce I like to use a 6-7 inch deep tote, with the footprint being such that 2 of them fills a 4' rack shelf perfectly (which is $10 at the Home Depot). This setup can hold approx 2/3 the water needed to grow to maturity, so you're only looking at 1 refill per tote. That's pretty simple. Additionally, you do not need the reservoir on the bottom, so you recover that vertical space (can use an extra row). For the seedling issue, the multiple totes setup pretty much takes care of it. Just simply reserve 1 tote for seedlings, and the other totes can be progressively more spaced out. You can get 4 rows like this (8 totes = $80) on an 80" tall rack. That's a lot of lettuce for $80 and no setup required, other than drilling holes! Overall I love SGH's setup. It is possibly the best out there for growing this type of crop in a small space! But, Kratky is pretty hard to beat if you think thru it! Perhaps I'll make a vid showing my kratky setup for ahead to head? Hehe we'll see.
i dreamt of the system you've build years ago but there were two problems: 1) cheap LED lighting wasn't a thing aside from LED strips which didn't make the output needed, and 2) square PVC posts were WAY less popular than they are nowadays. Really excited to build the system you've got laid out here, and glad it's been working out well for you! I'm excited to have a constant supply using staged crops. Love it!
This is all very valid. Where Kratkey really shines is outdoor hydro gardening. 5 gallon buckets, one big plant, to take advantage of some place that has sun but no soil and not add much to my workload. At least for me thats its niche, at the periphery of my main outdoor garden.
As someone looking to get into hydroponics, I definitely noticed the space issue. With a tower approach, you can have one reservoir feed 20 plants or more. If you use one of those square buckets you get from a big box store, at most, you're putting five plants in there. And as he said, if you want to do successive planting, you'll need a new reservoir. With a tower garden, you can plant ten items, then use the other ten to rotate new plants in.
I agree with you. Kratky is good for small setups and short term plants. I've had many issues with long term kratky plants mainly issues with dead roots and mold. I've converted my kratky peppers to dwc and they are super happy. They produce peppers year round for my family. Our next experiment is strawberries. Kratky is still amazing and like the gateway drug to flourishing hydroponic systems
Great video! I think the big argument here is efficiency with lights. If you are bothering to invest in artificial lights and pay every month for it, it better yield a lot of plants. I think kratky might be good for outdoors where you don't need artificial light and have more space. I am impressed with the efficiency of your setup and I will try it as soon as I move in my new flat. For now I will keep the kratky on the balcony.
This is fantastic, thank you! I'm just getting started and live in an apartment, so being able to grow that much fresh produce all year round is perfect! Even though multiple heads of greens seems like a lot, they'll be perfect for green smoothies, too.
I'm a krattky user I used snap hydroponics here in the Philippines and it's doing well for me I don't experience pump failures and I can add a pump and a grow lite if needed and can be move outside if needed
Thank you for this video. I think many people (including me) learned about hydroponics from the Kratky method so it's important to know the cons vs the pros in each situation. Thank you again b
My active systems certainly require more supervision and do more with the available space... hence keeping them in the dining room! I've got (qty 4) 8 foot NFT rails in the window bay and a 40 gal spray cloner. I want to do Kratky outdoors to keep the risk of pump failure down (we have a hot, dry climate). Hoping to use some float valves to keep things topped up from a gravity feed reservoir, might hook into rain barrel system too. I guess what I'm saying is that I'm glad there are so many different types of hydroponics for every use case!
Even cheap Walmart wire shelving units can hold 350 lb per shelf that's 40 gallons of water and would be way more than enough for hydroponics. (It works fine I've put two 20 gallon fish tanks on one shelf before with no issues it's close to the weight limit but almost every consumer product with a weight limit has a safety factor and this is probably something like 1.5x)
I have struggled with Kratky indoors for several years now! Your reasons are super sound and well thought out, I'm a convert! DWC is basically the same, which is where I was going, but not anymore. 😊
It is possible to stack 20litre buckets for the Kratky method when it’s outside, you need dark buckets preferably & you need to cut holes at the right height. You are right though, difficult to stagger growth unless you do each bucket every two weeks or however long it takes for the crop to grow, plus, not great if you have kids about as you say 😂 I grow hydroponic indoors during winter & will be trying it outside this summer, I would like to try your method though, so will pop over to website.
Great Info! You cover five of the six reasons I stopped using Kratky . I wish I had seen this video about two years ago, it would have saved me a lot of wasted time.
Some things here he's got COMPLETELY wrong. Like the mason jar is FAR too small, it's meant to be a DARK container and there's no mention of the FLOAT system where you can whack in plants any size. Post people use a ton of buckets, harvest the lettuce and wash the bucket or give it a blast with a pressure sprayer, then installing refill with nutrient and put the seedlings in.
NGL, this is the first time I'm seeing you and going off your voice before I thought you were a teenager 😂. Regardless, thank you for your videos and the information you provide
Funny thing is that one of the kratky growers pretty much has this exact setup, but kratky. He just tops up the containers when they need it. Personally, I'm experimenting with kratky and seeing how it works. Choosing the right container helps a lot. I also am not going to go for the full kratky method. I'm not getting a 55 gallon container for a tomato plant. But maybe a 5 gallon bucket or a larger tote
@@OffGridInvestor it's true. You will just need a large container. For example, a 55 gallon drum for a determinate tomato. You could also use a large reservoir to feed into smaller containers, but that takes a lot of setup and costs more.
None of the reaons you don't use Kratky are really valid. You can easily use smaller containers if you use some ingenuity and set up a self leveling system. I had 14 peppers each in 2 gallon containers that grew to 3-4 foot tall plants all connected by flexible tubing to a single bucket with a float valve, with that bucket fed from a large reservoir. For lettuce, I use shallow, 2 inch deep containers, with each being 10 x 14 inches that fit 6-8 plants each, depending on how you harvest, and I start one new tray every 7-14 days so succession planting is super easy. And if you elevate the reservoir, gravity will feed plants, and if you elevate enough, you can use vertical space. As far as scaling, I could have had 50-60-100-200 separate containers fed off the one reservoir. And if you are willing to use a small pump to fill the elevated reservoir, it only needs to hold maybe a few gallons, so doesn't need support. If stacking grow spaces on shelves, The weight of a 10 x 14 tray full of water isn't enough to worry about, and with a large reservoir pumping only as needed into the elevated feed reservoir with a float switch, and a passive float valve at each level, you can stack as high as you want. All your pipes could pretty easily be converted. Main point is that you do not need to have the entire life time supply of water at the start in kratky. In a large outside area, with all plants on the same level, it is really simple,to have unlimited number of plants using no pumps or electricity, and scale up or down as simply as connecting a hoseWith flexible tubing, you can alter spacing as plants grow, making it MORE scalable than fixed planting sites allow. For a vertical system with multiple levels, if using a pump anyway to avoid a large high reservoir that needs support, there is absolutely nothing wrong with what you are doing, but advising people that krakty isn't scalable, or that it just weighs too much, or that you can't easily do succession planting is just flat out wrong.
I tought you were gonna mention the mold, bacteria and algea problem, because in Kratky there is no circulation. To solve the lighting problem, I have 7 shelfs, small tall containers and regular containers, so i can easily move them around as they grow. But definetly right about the vertical spacing, i can only do 2 shelfs in the same space where you put 3. And Kratky is probably more work as you have to refil and clean every container seperatly.
Much better method is adding 25% of the required nutrients into the water and doing 4 water changes throughout the grow, each time this replenishes the oxygen for the plant.
i think that you just came to a 3 foot wall and stopped. i fel like multple of your issues could be solved with some brainstorming. i used kratky to grow potatos.
Very well stated reasons. However, the only point you missed is the cost. Hydroponic systems are too costly and that is a major problem with it. Lots of people will just stay away from hydroponics just because of this reason. I totally agree that for bigger plants like tomatoes, it is just an overkill to set up and forget like system. I personally use "Double cup" method with a much larger nutrient solution reservoir.
Hydroponics expensive? I was spending a lot of money for soil comparatively, at $30-45 for 1 or 2 cubic foot approx. Now with hydro, i bought the nutrients for $20-30 and literally have enough to make 100s of gallons of nutrient solution, replacing an equal amount of soil i now no longer have to buy or continue buying indefinitely, that now free water replaces the expensive soil i previously had to buy, its been a huge a money saver for me personally. At Home Depot, a 27 gallon tote is $12, more than enough for 6 large plants (tomato, squash, cannabis, cucumber) and now that container can be used over and over again. So yes, i agree there are a few additional purchases required with hydro, however, they are relatively small one time fixed costs, and with all the money saved just on soil alone, soil = $$$ (a bag of soil, $30-40 a bag, about 6 plants, over and over again, whereas water is mostly free (collect rain or use water from water fish tank). i switched to hydro because of the money savings first and foremost plus all the well known benefits like increased yield for example. What is the "double cup" method you are referring to?
@@deltaprimetechnologiesllc3265 Thanks for your reply. You are absolutely correct that readymade soil mixes are just too costly. I was referring to the commercial hydroponic systems with circulating nutrients solutions which is way too costly and complex. I live in India and here we get vermicompost at around 3$ for 5 kg pack. And I get 1 kg cocopeat dry block at 2$. Even further, I make compost tea which reduces need for buying vermicompost even further. "Double cup method, I was referring to was a simple non circulating hydroponic system".
The only problem I would have with your system is toxins seeping into the water from whatever material those fence posts are made of. I like Kratky in dark glass jars but one more negative for Kratky is that you need to monitor the water and refill as needed-this can become an almost daily process for a large plant in a lone jar but not so often with a large reservoir.
Fence posts??? They're 90mm RAINWATER pipe used for drinking water in Australia. You pointed out his obvious failure with showing a mason jar used for kratky. They're MEANT TO be dark containers with no light getting in. Also a mason jar is MILES too small.
He made a good video about the water quality! He had a couple tests done and there wasn't anything of note in the water. Of course, those results only apply to him; maybe he just lucked out and found a fence post company which happened to not have lead in the supply chain.
I believe it’s because he did all the research to figure out why it works as well as 1. ‘perfecting’ the method. 2. Publishing the research It’s also not the official name for the method it’s just the most popular name.
