Water spinach, also known as Morning Glory or Kangkong, is a staple vegetable where I was from. While there's a different variety of spinach available in Austria, I prefer the taste of water spinach. It's mild, crunchy, and has a bit of a nutty taste. I decided to order some seeds online, soaked them in water for 24 hours, and placed them in net cups together with some hydroton or clay pebbles. I bought a sieve tray that fits my buckets well, placed the net cups there, and submerged the bottom of the net cups in water. After a few days, leaves started sprouting from the seeds.
Below are the products I used:
I started adding a little bit of nutrients into the water, very diluted. For example, if the instructions said that for 5 ml of nutrients, add 1.5 litres of water, I added 3 litres instead. My idea was to feed those that already grew leaves while not causing nutrient burn and also harming the seeds that haven't sprouted yet. I placed a small oxygen stone in the bucket to add aeration. I checked the water level every few days to make sure that it's still hitting the base of the net cup. After a few weeks, the plants were all grown, some of them climbed up to one of the LED cables. I have these plants under a computer table that was given to me by someone who doesn't use it anymore.
It's normal for some seeds not to germinate so I had some net cups that didn't have anything growing in them. When this happened, I took cuttings from the ones that already grew tall or had about six leaves on them. I made sure that the cutting and the plant I'm cutting from both had two-three leaves so they could still absorb light and grow. I left the cuttings in a cup of water and waited a few days for them to grow roots. I then placed the plants with roots into the net cups to join the rest of the plants in the bucket. Soon, each net cup had 1-3 plants growing in them.
My pak choi plants didn't do as well as the water spinach indoors but after a few weeks out in the sun, they were thriving. I was able to harvest them at the same time and added them to a soup dish. Nothing beats the taste of a dish cooked with vegetables that you've just harvested! Knowing that you grew them yourself adds more satisfaction to it.
Preparation for Outdoor Growing
Around May, when the weather was getting warmer, I started getting the plants ready to be put outside. I decided to transfer them from hydroponics to soil just because it's easier - I don't have to deal with sealing my containers in case it rains and dilutes the nutrients inside.
- I cut up some plastic milk containers and drilled holes at the bottom for drainage.
- I filled it halfway up with my soil mix (coco coir, soil, perlite, and rice hull).
- I transferred the plants that have grown roots from the cup of water to the container.
- I filled it all the way up with more soil mix.
- I kept the plants indoors and waited a week to see if they will grow or die.
The plants had no problem adjusting from hydroponics to soil. At the moment, some of my pak choi plants are being ravaged by whiteflies and I'm trying to cure them so I decided not to put the water spinach outside. It's really nice to have some plants outside in the summer and I want to learn how to deal with pests and diseases but this is the clear upside of growing plants indoors hydroponically. I never had to deal with pests until now.
What's next?
- I will figure out a better setup so my room can accommodate growing more greens like water spinach and pak choi.
- I will try to learn how to deal with pests outside.
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