- Hi, thanks for joining us for The Family Plot: Gardening in the Mid-South.

I'm Chris Cooper.

Lettuce in January, cabbage in December?

It's hydroponics, and today we're going to build a system from scratch.

That's just ahead on The Family Plot: Gardening in the Mid-South.

- (female announcer) Production funding for The Family Plot: Gardening in the Mid-South is provided by: the WKNO Production Fund, the WKNO Endowment Fund, and by viewers like you, thank you.

[upbeat country music] Welcome to The Family Plot, I'm Chris Cooper.

Joining me today is Stephan Leonard.

Stephan is an extension master gardener right here in Shelby County, and Scott DeKarske is here.

Scott is our hydroponic expert.

Thanks for joining us.

- Thanks for having us.

- Now Stephan, you were on here before talking about hydroponics and hydroponic systems.

So why do hydroponics anyway?

- Let's just say you actually don't have the space to have a garden.

Hydroponics is a great thing that you can actually have in your home, set up your own climate, and start growing, even during the wintertime.

Winter months, during the fall, year round you can actually grow with hydroponics.

- Sounds good to me.

I think we could do that.

Now what about building the hydroponic system?

- It's fairly simple.

A few parts, inexpensive, and something you can actually assemble within an hour or two.

- All right, Scott, how do we got about setting up a hydroponic system?

Do you want to talk about some of the parts we have here?

- Yeah, absolutely.

The first step is to make sure we have all the parts and everything is in order.

First thing we're gonna need is some kind of a storage tote.

Preferably something a little bit more durable like this black and yellow tote, just so as you move around the hydroponic system, it doesn't go breaking over time and doesn't get worn down from the lights outside or what have you.

And also some of the smaller pieces, like some of the net cups and neoprene, things that actually house the plant.

Then of course, the PVC parts.

We have 10 feet of pipe that will roughly make a tote, usually a little bit more than 10 feet is needed.

A few elbows and some Ts.

And that's just to make the actual frame of the spray system inside of the tote.

- All right, so you want to get started on building the system for us?

- Yeah, absolutely, let's get it going, man.

- Let's get it going.

- Would you hand me the tape measure, Stephan?

All right, the first step is to open up the tote and get some measurements of the inside.

That way we can go ahead and start measuring and cutting our PVC.

- I'll take that.

- Thank you.

A good way to start is gonna be to get the width measurement.

And how you want to do this, you just want to go, what the PVC frame will do is actually sit down, recessed about two inches.

We're gonna come down about two inches.

Looks like we're gonna be right at about 16 1/2 on width.

We'll go ahead and get the length measurement as well.

Why don't you come to right there?

About 26 3/4 inches.

That'll be the good base.

What makes up the tote is the PVC.

How that frame works is we have elbows on each side, or each corner, then we will have Ts on the bottoms and then in the middle we have the downspout for our water pump.

Then that'll pretty much look just like that.

Then these few pieces will be for the pump and screw into the pump.

That's the basic layout of how this will work.

The first step is going to be to cut the pieces of PVC that will fit in between these Ts.

What we're gonna do, it looks like for 16 1/2 inches, we'll need about four and a quarter inch PVC pipe to fit in between each one of these.

And we will get cutting.

You want to do some cutting, Chris?

- I can try.

- Excellent.

What we'll do, go ahead and grab this piece of PVC, we'll start measuring.

We'll do four and looks like a quarter.

If you want to make a mark right about there, Chris.

Absolutely.

And we'll make six of these.

And that is the start of the tote.

What we want to do before we make all six is we'll make one side of the tote.

We'll go ahead and check it with the inside diameter just to make sure that we're on track.

Since we're not gonna be using any PVC glue, we're gonna go ahead and just smash these together real quick.

That way everything is nice and snug.

You want to check that, make sure it fits, Stephan?

You do want a little bit of a snug fit just because things aren't glued together.

That way it doesn't pop off.

I'll just go ahead and do that one more time.

Those are our ends done.

Next thing we're gonna do is measure the inside.

We're gonna do these 12 inch pieces, and we're gonna do four of these.

One big reason we're using these cutters like we are instead of a saw or what have you is when you go to cut PVC like that, it'll turn into a fine dust.

That's the bane of any hydroponic system.

And it's really just a few simple pieces and the tote starts coming together on its own.

Now we're gonna cut 2 25-inch sections for the outside.

Go ahead and put these on.

Then what we're gonna do now is we're gonna build the down stem for the pump.

That consists of a T, and this is gonna sit in the middle like this, and it's just gonna serve as a down stem.

And then we will cut a few pieces to hook all of this together.

We're gonna make one and three quarter inch pieces.

We're gonna do two of those to fit on the inside of this.

So it'll just snugly fit in there.

There's a bevel on the inside of each of the fittings and it's three quarters of an inch.

- So that way your pipe slides in and stops.

- Put that in there.

- Let's face it up.

- Now let's check it.

Looking like it's just a little bit long.

Like I said, each tote is gonna be just a tiny bit different.

Let's start with a half inch, just so we don't take too much off.

Look at that.

That is what we want.

You want it to fit in there a little snug, just so it doesn't move around or anything.

That is the basis of the spray frame.

Our next step is gonna be to mark our holes and then tap-and-die them.

- For our sprayers.

- We're gonna have three sprayers on each one of the end and then this long end is gonna have three.

Then we'll have two on each one of these.

We have two different kinds of sprayers that go into these totes.

We have 180 degrees, and you can see that they have a 180 degree plane of spray.

That way you're not hitting the back of the tote and causing any backsplash that would encourage it to leak.

- (Stephan) These will be placed on the outer... These will go on the outer end, spraying in.

- (Scott) We have a 330 degree.

It has two directions of spray instead of just the one from the 180.

That way you can get both sides.

Those will go on each one of these.

What we found in these that we can have such prolific root growth that the roots will get so dense, they'll create dry pockets on the inside.

So you have to have plenty of these, just to get around all those nooks and curves.

It doesn't have to be perfect.

All you really want to do is just try and center them as much as possible.

We'll put one there, one there.

We'll go ahead and just repeat this for all of them.

You can try to get them as straight as you can, but it's not too big of a deal.

These are going to be our tools for making the sprayers.

This is just a regular drill bit.

It's gonna be 10/24 tap and a die.

What we're gonna do is we're gonna take this and we're gonna drill out each one of these holes.

Once those are done, we'll gonna clear them all out and we're gonna go back with the die and that's how we're going to achieve the threading.

One thing I would like to caution people about is when you are drilling the holes, make sure you get it as straight up and down as possible because if you don't, sometimes the sprayers will have a tendency to leak.

- Right, now that we have all the holes, we can to putting the threads.

- When you do this, you want to put the drill on the lowest setting, just so you don't grind up the threads.

Turn it down a little bit.

Again, straight up and down as possible.

Just slow about it.

That is essentially how this works.

This drill bit, it'll be a tight fit at first but at the very tip of it, it will start to cut away at the hole, just to help increase that diameter a little bit, then the threads will start to take over after that.

When you do bring it back up, you just want to let the drill carry itself, because if you pull too much, you'll mess up your threads.

You don't have to go too much.

Just maybe a quarter of an inch in the PVC.

Just enough to get the threads.

Again, when you do come out, just slow.

Make sure you try and clear away all this little debris, because if you do get that in there, they tend to clog up these sprayers and then you'll have fun.

- (Chris) All right, that's the last hole?

- Last hole.

Now all we have to do is get it cleaned out and we can throw those sprayers in it, then we can get to cutting up the tote.

- Be forceful with it.

- Yeah.

Make sure we lay everything out so we don't get it mixed up.

You can see the debris on the inside.

All we want to do is take the bamboo and knock that off so it doesn't inhibit the system later on.

- (Stephan) A little bit came out of there.

- Good to go.

Yeah, cool.

- Now back to assemble it.

- Indeed.

- Let's install the sprinklers.

- We're gonna put these 180 degrees on the outside, just so we don't get any backsplash when we put them in the tote.

Most of these parts are fairly cheap at your local hydroponics store.

The sprayers are 30 cents.

The net cups and neoprenes, they're 25 to 30 cents each as well.

Now what we're gonna do is measure for the downspout that connects the pump to the sprayer manifold.

How we're gonna do that is we're just sit this in here how it would naturally lay.

About two inches down in there.

Then we will get the pump.

Stick that bad boy right there.

Want to come help us out, Chris?

- Yeah.

- Cool.

You want to measure it for me?

Measure from the bottom of this to the top of the pump.

- Just right there, okay.

- Seven and a quarter inches.

We got seven and a quarter inches, and we have to account for that three quarters of an inch difference on each one of these sides.

What we're gonna do to account for those differences, we're gonna take two and a quarter off of this.

What we're gonna do with this, let me see those one more time, we're just gonna cut them in two pieces, one a bit larger than the other.

What the smaller piece will serve as is the part that actually stays connected to the pump, which is why we have this half inch coupling right here.

Then we screw our half inch adapter to this, and this will actually be what connects to the pump.

That fits on there.

- That way, it's seamless when we have this sitting on top.

- And it makes disconnecting rather easy.

- That way you can take it out.

- We can set that inside and see where it stands.

- Indeed.

You can see it bulges up just a little bit so what we're gonna do is we're gonna take a half inch off of this down stem, just so we can go ahead and give a nice little even plane, because this is what the sprayer manifold doubles as is also support cups when you get big, mature plants and fruit.

And that is the completed sprayer manifold.

We have two different sized hole saws for the drain and the power plug hole.

The power plug hole gets the one inch.

Try and get it as close to the top of it as you can.

You can even come in here and tilt it up a little bit.

Get it started.

Then level it out.

What we're gonna do is we're gonna put a hole right here, as close to the bottom as we can.

We don't want to get too close to this lip, otherwise we won't have a good seal.

What we'll do is we'll come about halfway.

Then we want to make sure we clear up all these little frazzles.

- Yeah, little frazzles and stuff.

- And then sometimes these can be a little bit tricky to get in.

This is a half inch grommet, and what this does is it creates a watertight seal between the elbow and the actual body of the tote.

That way we don't get any leakage.

All right, that is gonna be your drain.

We're gonna hook our 10 inch drain up the elbow and then we're going to put the elbow into the grommet.

All right.

Bring it down a little bit.

And you bring it in until you get it set up against the barrier right there.

And that is your drain finished.

What we do with the drain is you turn it like this and just let it drain naturally.

So our next step is going to be to cut the holes in the top of the tote for housing our net cups.

If you would, would you hand me our cheat sheet?

- I will definitely do that.

I like cheat sheets.

- I do too.

As you can see, this specific tote has 12 net cups, or 12 sites for each one of the net cups.

Come in here and cut each one.

We only use those for guides.

Then we can start drilling our holes.

- It's a good idea to have someone hold it.

- All right, now that we've drilled our holes, the next thing we want to do is clear all the debris from the holes and then we'll be ready to put some water in it and make sure everything is watertight.

Now that we have everything done for the tote, we have the top of the tote cut, we have the PVC manifold built, and we've connected some PVC to the pump.

Now it's time to throw everything together.

Our first step right now is gonna be to fill the basin with some water.

Stephan, if you want to grab that other bucket.

- We do have water.

- How much do we need to fill it?

- You need about 10 gallons of water to get proper head pressure out of the sprayers.

All right.

You want to grab the pump, and let's load it in.

I'll let you.

Stick the cord out of the cord hole in the back.

Feed it on around.

Connect up the PVC manifold, should be good to go.

- Slide that in.

- (Chris) So now we have power.

Look at that.

- Looks like we need to turn it up a little bit.

With the diaphragm.

- (Chris) Nice.

- The tote is watertight.

As you can see, there's nothing coming out of the cord hole.

So everything is good to go.

All we do now is throw the top on and we can put some net cups and some plants in it.

That is a tote.

And our next step is gonna be to put the net cups in there.

They each take 12.

- (Chris) What do these do?

- These actually support the plant.

This is what we're gonna plant in, essentially.

These are gonna be our neoprene collars.

This is actually what holds the plant, instead of the alternative, like expanding clay media or vermiculite or perlite or whatever.

Now that we have everything set up, our next step is gonna be to put some plants in it.

- Let's get the plants in it.

- I actually brought some plants.

- Can you tell us what you brought?

- Absolutely.

Here on this end, we have some San Marzano tomatoes.

Right here we're gonna have cinnamon basil and then Thai basil.

And another San Marzano tomato.

Some Genovese basil.

Sugar Baby watermelon, a Purple Beauty bell pepper, and a cucumber.

The only thing we're gonna do to plant these is just set it down in there.

I might just take this off.

We'll set it down in the net cup.

- (Chris) Before you do this, can you tell us what you have here?

- Okay, yeah.

- At the bottom of your tomato plant.

- This is gonna be a rock wool.

It's a hydroponic planting material.

It's just molten rock spun like fiberglass.

It's nothing crazy, it's gonna be inert.

It won't have tendencies to raise or lower pH.

It's just a good material.

As you can see, our clones have some roots coming out of the bottom already.

These are already mature plants and they're ready to be transplanted.

Set the neoprene around the plant.

Neoprenes are a soft material, so they're not gonna harm the plant at all or pinch the stem.

And there you have it.

It is important to note that limitations with this system plant-wise are gonna be root vegetables like potatoes and onions and things like that.

Anything that will grow above the surface like tomatoes, cucumbers, pickles, bell peppers, anything like that will grow quite prolifically.

- How about that?

- That is the tote.

That's all it is, real simple, not a whole lot there.

- Definitely looks good.

Fellas, appreciate the demonstration.

- No problem, thanks for having us.

- Thanks for being here.

[upbeat country music] - Soilless mix.

- Yeah.

- We hear that term a lot, right?

- Yeah, we do.

We really do.

And, we throw that around a lot, but then what's even a misnomer more is people go and they say, "Well, I'm gonna go buy some potting soil."

[Chris laughs] You know, most of what they're buying nowadays is not soil, you know.

It doesn't have any field soil in it.

It's things like peat, and perlite and vermiculite.

Maybe even some sand or bark, you know.

So, it's not soil, you know, from the garden you dig up, it's not like that.

So, soilless mix are mixes, commercial mixes, that we buy for our pots and things like that that contains no soil.

You know, sometimes they'll have a fertilizer charge in them, you know, for a while.

And, they're really great because they've got all of the properties you want in a good soil.

[upbeat country music] Alright, here's our Q & A session.

Scott, if you have something to say, just jump in with us, all right?

Here's our first viewer email.

"Am I washing out the nutrients when I water my raised bed?"

This is from Dan in Horn Lake, Mississippi.

So Stephan, I know you do a lot of work with raised beds for the Shelby County School System.

What do you think about that question?

Are you actually washing out the nutrients from your raised beds?

- No, you're not.

Your plants will actually absorb the nutrients that it actually takes.

You'll be washing away all the nutrients that it does not need and also getting rid of the salt buildup, so it's actually a good thing to water those nutrients away.

- You're definitely right about the salt.

Some of your fertilizers are salts.

So they need to be flushed out of the system every once in a while.

So yeah, Mr.

Dan, don't worry about that.

You're not gonna be washing out your nutrients at all.

Here's our next viewer email.

This plant is growing in my lawn.

What is it and how do I kill it?

Good picture there.

Folks, that would be Virginia button weed.

It is a difficult, difficult weed to control.

As you can see, it grows pretty low.

Prostrate to the ground.

Produces by seed, root fragment, and it's a perennial, so it's a low growing perennial weed.

It's gonna come back year after year.

The thing about Virginia button weed is this.

It is an indicator of wet or moist soils.

Again, indicator of too wet or moist soils.

It forms a mat on the ground pretty much, and then those leaves are gonna go from green to yellow, and it's a virus that causes it to go from the green color leaves to the yellow color leaves.

Again, hard to control.

Since you do have it, I always like to talk about cultural practices.

Stephan, you know that.

About aerating, fertilizing according to your soil test and things like that.

But since you already have it there and you want to know how to kill it, post-emerge broadleaf weed killer is what you have to use for that.

Anything that contains 2,4-D, Dicamba, and MCPP.

All of those are broadleaf weed killers.

You will find those in products like Trimec or Weed-B-Gon Max.

Read and follow the label on that.

There's gonna be multiple applications.

Multiple applications.

Again, this is a very difficult weed to control.

It is Virginia button weed, and it has a beautiful white flower.

It's actually shaped like a star.

But when it gets the flower part-- - Into your yard.

Absolutely.

- Seeds.

- Then it spreads.

- Then it spreads.

So be careful.

Right, here's our next viewer email.

"What is this?

"It came on the first blossom on a cucumber.

"There are no other related plants nearby "unless something wild pollinated it.

Want a taste?"

This is from Phil of Shelby Forest.

I don't want to taste that, I'll tell you that Mr.

Phil.

- I don't want to either.

- I can say that now.

Stephan, what do you think?

Anything comes to mind when you see that?

- It could be a lot of things.

For it to be the first bloom, it could be a nutrient imbalance or it could be weather.

Weather conditions.

It could be a lot of factors that could affect it going forward.

- Couple of things come to mind for me.

Insufficient moisture.

Moisture stress is something I think about.

The second thing, too much fertilizer can actually do that to fruits.

Too much fertilizer.

But this is a cucumber, right?

So I'm thinking about cucumber mosaic virus, which is actually spread by aphids.

Because the fruit itself is deformed and it has different colors.

That's why I thought virus.

It would help if we could actually see the plant because you'll have a stunted plant, that plant might have some lesions on the stem or on the leaves.

But just looking at the cucumber itself, the different colors, possibly could be cucumber mosaic virus.

Here's another one I just thought about.

How about poor pollination?

- Absolutely.

- I can see that.

- Poor pollination, especially when you have hot and dry conditions, because you do have dead pollen and live pollen, right?

So you can actually get a fruit from the live pollen but the dead pollen won't let it produce all the way through.

So it could be a lot of different factors.

Look at your plant, inspect it for aphids.

Make sure you don't have a lot of weeds growing around your plants.

Get those out of there, because the aphids can hang around in those weeds as well.

That's what I think, that's what I think.

Scott, Stephan, we're out of time.

Thanks for being here today.

- Absolutely.

- Thanks for having us.

- No problem.

Remember, we love to hear from you.

Send us an email or letter.

The email address is questions@familyplotgarden.com.

And the mailing address is Family Plot, 7151 Cherry Farms Road, Cordova, Tennessee 38016.

Or you can go online to FamilyPlotGarden.com.

That's all we have time for today.

We have posted an equipment list for the hydroponics project on FamilyPlotGarden.com.

I'm Chris Cooper.

Be sure to join us next week for The Family Plot: Gardening in the Mid-South.

Be safe.

[upbeat country music] [acoustic guitar chords]