Home

I like growing things- plants, flowers, fruits and vegetables and since there seems to be a shortage of produce in this country all of a sudden, why rely on others when you can do it yourself?

We only recently set this up so that the plants could be moved outdoors without getting too big indoors or dying outdoors in the frost.

As you will know, the UK has very unpredictable weather and this year has been no different, with frosts still happening as late as April, so it makes growing anything hard. So for Christmas we bought Bruffin a Hydroponic Growing System.

We are very new at this and thankfully the setup was really simple – The main unit is a 4.5l water tank with a fan, pump system and LED lights that change depending on what setting you apply (Fruit and Flowers or Vegetables). The lights are adjustable height-wise, so the taller your plants get, the higher you can raise it before potting it on.

After you plug it into the mains, attach the fan and lights the whole system starts up. The whole unit is somewhat reminiscent of a fish tank with funky lights.

So to start, you have to put your 4 liters of water with a mix of your bottle nutrients and let the water infuse; whilst this is settling, you can get to work on the sponges.

There are 12 holes to put the soil sponges with baskets so you can grow 12 independent plants. You have to let the sponges get damp before adding 3 seeds per sponge.

So after waiting for the sponge, we selected a couple of vegetables we wanted to try and we got to growing. 3 seeds dropped in each sponge.

We started with 3 Lettuce, 3 Broccoli, 3 tomatoes, and 3 peppers. We popped them in and then put the little pod lid on to keep the environment nice and moist.

The fan is almost always on, but the lights are set on a cycle. The vegetable setting means you have a funky purple light for almost half the day. The fruit makes a reddish-white light

After a couple of days, we saw growth and within 2 weeks the seeds were about 5inches tall, meaning the Lettuce, Broccoli and Tomatoes were ready to be repotted. You could see all of the roots through the water line, which is really encouraging.

We have repotted them in soil, but just as a note – because they were grown in water, they have to have a special nutrient put in the water you feed them with.

It has been about 3 weeks and the vegetables are still going strong! So here’s to hoping they will produce a crop this year.

Since then, we have started to grow some Strawberries, Peppers, parsley, and basil, so let’s see what happens.

So far, I have been impressed and it seems fairly easy to maintain – the most you have to do is fill the water up and make sure the correct measurement of the nutrients is added.