Our first hydroponic adventure, starting with strawberries! My sons were adamant that they wanted to grow strawberries, and they wanted to grow them NOW! At the time it was February, so I used this as justification to purchase a bundle of hydroponic systems from Aerogarden. I purchased a Aerogarden Grow Bowl and Strawberry Kit for the Aerogarden Bounty, which when delivered, comes with live strawberry crowns!
Day 1: February 26th, 2018
I planted all of the best looking crowns, knowing that I would have to reduce the number to 6 crowns in a couple weeks. It was kinda fun to set-up the Aerogarden Bounty, and already have little plants to watch grow!
Day 6: March 3rd, 2018
The set-up instructions were pretty straight forward. Use the quick plant settings for flowers, set the pump for 2 minutes on, and 238 minutes off. I have the light on from 5am to 8:30pm, and over the first week, I added more and more of the coconut husk till all the husk was in the growbowl.
Day 10: March 7th, 2018
The instructions state that the strawberry plants need 4 ml of the liquid plant fertilizer every 14 days, but I have found that around day 12 the new leaves are a bit yellow, so I鈥檝e been adding the 4 ml fertilizer a bit earlier.
Day 13: March 10th, 2018
Within the first 2 weeks, most of the crowns had perfect little blossoms, and it was heartbreaking to have to clip them. As per the article on WikiHow:
By removing the first flowers that appear, you will give the strawberry plant a chance to grow more vigorously and produce a stronger root system.
No more blossoms have grown since those first couple, but the plants seems to be growing vigorously since I clipped them back.
Day 28: March 25th, 2018
The next dose of fertilizer that I give, I will use 6 ml. I suspect that I need to provide more nutrients to stimulate more blossoms to appear, and if that doesn鈥檛 work, then I will look into getting a special formula to promote blossoms.
Day 33: April 1st, 2018
I will provide regular updates to this system, so give me a follow and I will keep you in the loop!