Week 4: Pull the Switch!

Now that my hydroponic system is working (finally) I can start growing real plants in my system (yay!). To be honest with you here for a second, my luck with growing plants thus far in my life has no been the best, so I will need a lot of luck to get this to work. To start the plants from seeds, because you can't buy plants in the middle of the winter apparently. The way that I will do this is by first planting the seeds in rock wool starter plugs. These will act a place for the seeds to be held in the clay media so they don't get swept away, as well as allowing them to have a place to grow there roots through until they are strong enough grip/wrap around the clay media and keep themselves upright on their own. Of course there are other way that someone can start seeds in a hydroponic system (dirt to the hydroponic system) for starting seeds, as far as my research goes, this was the fastest and most effective way to grow these plants. The first three days after I planted my seeds were very traumatic. Unlike in Frankenstein (although the top of my blog post might be confusing) it takes more than a couple of days for the plants to sprout. I spent these three days worrying that all of my work setting up the system was going to be for nothing because my plants weren't going to sprout. Then, three days later, the mustard seeds of all things decide to actually sprout. A couple days later all of my seeds are staring to show signs of life (except for the peppermint). Now, all that I am waiting for is the peppermint to sprout. I find the peppermint seeds very sketchy, however, because they are this small
--->   .

No joke. But this got me wondering...exactly how do seeds work? Seems like a stupid question at first, but think about it. Seeds contain plant food (in the simplest sense) surrounding the plant embryo. This plant then begins to grow inside the seed, forming leaves inside the seed coat while roots begin to extend outside of the seed and into the ground. After the roots are in the ground and the nutrients provided by the seed is no longer needs, the plant sprouts, becoming larger then the seed itself. After this the time that it takes for the plants to mature vary, for most of my plants, it is about 80 days.

So now that my plants of sprouted, its up to the hydroponic system to give them the proper amount of nutrients! This is where it's important that I set up the water at the end of last week. I'll post pictures of the system in a little bit. Wish me luck!