Last year was my first for Aquaponics growing...I mostly grew lettuce in a flood and drain system with coconut coir in 3" baskets. They grew well so I thought I would expand to other plants this year....but am running into some germination problems.
For all my experiments, I prepared a set of pots with coir and another set with potting soil (since I still plant a regular garden). Everything is kept indoors at about 72 degrees. The coir isn't in the FD system yet...I just have them sitting in trays with my soil pots. All my seeds in the potting soil germinated. Here's my germination rate with the coir:
radish: 100%
green been: 100% no surprise here, you can practically spit on a bean and it will grow.
lettuce: 100%
spinach: 25%
tomato: 0% (nada)
The coir stays really wet. I just watered it once a week and I think it's still too wet. I'm assuming that the seeds are just rotting....?
I haven't tried it yet, but I may plant some seeds in 3/8" gravel....or maybe a mixture of both? It's expensive to buy river gravel, but I can get a pickup truck load of crushed granite for 12 bucks for a quarry near my house. It's very sharp...I"m hoping it doesn't damage anything. For your viewing pleasure, I've included photos of my coir and gravel!
Any suggestions would be appreciated. Thanks!
-Rob T.
