Kratky

Today I moved several cherry tomato plants from The Farm to jars with water under lights. Not a speck of soil to be found! Some of the roots inside the jars are exposed to air in a growing method known as “kratky”, after the guy who promoted it. It’s passive hydroponics, where my plug-in Aerogarden units are active hydroponics, with the water actively spraying from the top over the roots regularly. 

The plants are micro-dwarf varieties. They are expected to not grow more than 24” tall, but produce many clusters of cherry tomatoes as they spread horizontally . They might survive and continue yielding for a year or so, with proper tending. That’s basically to keep water levels right, feed them liquid fertilizer from time to time, inspect the water for slime and algae (the amber jars should prevent that) and make sure they get enough light. 

I left four plants in The Farm, the maximum recommended number. I’m anxious to try dwarf varieties of salad tomatoes, bigger than cherry but smaller than huge slicers. I belong to several Facebook groups where I pick up all this info.

I had cherry tomatoes last year in one of my little active units, lasting about six months. I transplanted some extras last year to dirt pots, but the yield was small. 

The Law of the Farm

Tomatoes on the left, lettuce and herbs on the right
The lights adjust upward as the crops grow up
This is in my basement

Many years ago I read what may have been my very first self-help book ever. It was written by the guy who invented the Franklin Planner, a looseleaf little notebook with pages for calendar and to-do lists, with a system and expensive training classes for how to use it to be more productive, that was all the rage in the 1980s. 

So one of the nuggets of wisdom in the book I read (instead of attending a class) was the Law of the Farm. Basically, the point is, some things have to be done at a certain time (planting, for example) and some things just take time to happen (crops ripening, for example). No matter what you do, you can't break those laws. Therefore, sometimes you have to plan ahead, and if you fail to start at the right time, you will not succeed no matter how hard you try or what you do. This is one of the two nuggets from that book that I remember.

So now, as an indoor farmer myself, I have to respect those laws. 

My kids surprised me at Christmas with a giant indoor hydroponic growing system, called The Farm! It has an electronic control system that turns the lights on and off at the right time, adjusts how often the internal water is circulated depending on whether you are in the germination phase or the growing phase, and an app to alert you about water levels. It came with seeds for cherry tomatoes, lettuce and herbs, which I got started on New Years Day. Soon I'll be moving some of the cherry tomatoes into other containers, and starting some other kinds of larger tomatoes. I'll harvest or move the lettuce and herbs to other containers in a while, and will start (mostly flower) seeds for the outdoor garden in it. Once I transplant the outdoor seedlings, I'll start eggplants and peppers in The Farm. 

Kale, two varieties. I continually snip off the largest leaves
and shred them into my salads.
I also like the extra light at the dark end of my kitchen counter.

I've decided I don't want to try lettuce and greens outside, because I don't like the slugs. I have my four little hydroponic units from last year (same company as The Farm) and I've got lettuce and kale and herbs going there. I'll try to keep an indoor crop going all summer - last year, I planted everything out and didn't start the countertop garden again until Thanksgiving. I've been eating lettuce and kale and dill and thyme (SO MUCH THYME) and basil and thai basil since Christmas. 

The seed catalogues start coming in December now, and according to the Law of the Farm (and limited supply and increasing demand) I have to buy seeds now. So I've got more varieties of lettuce and other greens to grow. Often, my trips to the supermarket are driven by needing salad makings, and much of the lettuce I get seems to slime up quickly. So I much prefer my own, seconds from counter to bowl, but I'm not quite self sufficient yet.