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How To Use Root Farm Hydroponic Fertilizer. A Step-By-Step Guide To Root Farm Liquid Fertilizer Kit.
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Apr 25, 2022
How To Use Root Farm Hydroponic Fertilizer. A Step-By-Step Guide To Root Farm Liquid Fertilizer Kit. Join our monthly newsletter! newsletter.gardeningincanada.net Website/Blog & FREE printables: https://gardeningincanada.net Leave Me A Voice Message To Be Included In The Podcast: https://memo.fm/gardeningincanada/ —————— 👩🔬 Grab A Planner! Paperback Houseplant Planner: https://geni.us/NFTrl2 Paperback Garden Planner: https://geni.us/s9zc Digital Download Planners https://www.etsy.com/ca/shop/GardeningInCanada Seed Purchasing: Zappa Seeds:
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0:00
Hello plant people how are you guys doing? So if you're new to this series that we're doing with
0:04
Connected to the Land and PV Mart my name is Ashley and I'm a soil scientist with a plant
0:09
science miner and we're doing literally indoor growing because we're Canadian and or Northern
0:16
American whatever you may be and I'm not gonna lie but the cold us gardeners house plant people
0:21
we don't like it we don't like it very much so we're gonna turn that around and we're gonna start
0:25
growing indoors and so we're specifically growing hydroponically which you may be intimidated by but
0:31
if you've followed this entire series start to finish so far you have to give this video a thumbs
0:37
up let me know in the comments what stage you're at or what video you're on and whether or not
0:42
you've grabbed your hydro system whether it's the jiffy hydro or the root farm system from pv mart
0:48
yet because i would love to know and if you're following along or not so we are taking this slow
0:54
this is for absolute beginners and i can promise you i can guarantee you i'm going to completely
0:59
change your mind when it comes to hydroponically growing and growing indoors so it's really common
1:05
that we get intimidated by hydroponics and i don't think it's because of the system itself
1:10
i think it actually comes down to this and then ph we're going to talk about fertilizer here we went
1:16
to pv mart in the first video and i showed you a ton of fertilizer and some of you may have been
1:21
overwhelms but I can promise you you do not need to be because we're literally
1:24
gonna talk about exactly what you need today PV Mart's made it really really nice and easy for us they have everything laid
1:31
out perfectly in a row based on what you need now whether you're using the Jiffy
1:36
Hydro if you're using the root farm method it does not matter you can use the
1:41
same products in both systems so with the root farm products we have a base
1:46
which is part one and then we have three bottles that are labeled with part two
1:51
so the bottles labeled with part two there are three options the first one is
1:55
all-purpose the second option is veggies and fruits and the third option is a
2:01
bloom formula so for those of us that are growing leafy greens such as herbs
2:06
lettuce that sort of thing we just need the all-purpose bottle which is what I
2:11
have here today because the last video we did we planted herbaceous plants so
2:16
the all-purpose looks like this it says part two on it and it says root farm and
2:20
this bottle is gonna run you I think nine dollars and maybe overestimating
2:24
that but it's pretty cheap and this is gonna last you a very long time and the
2:28
other two options the bloom formula has a pretty little flower on the front I'll
2:33
insert some images of what that looks like that product would be used for those
2:37
of you who are trying to grow maybe flowers indoors or for those cannabis
2:42
growers out there you would be using the bloom part 2 formula for those of you
2:48
that are growing pepper plants tomato plants something that has a fruit on it
2:53
with seeds in it cucumbers you name it then you would be using that veggie
2:59
formula which is the red bottle so it's red pink and green so in this case we're
3:04
using green now when it comes to the base which is part one all of us need it
3:11
regardless of what you're growing and so this says a base part one and it is
3:15
pink in it so all the the part twos have like this light gray and the dark gray
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is the base formula here so I actually went to PB Mart today to grab these but
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I also wanted to physically look at like what the the packaging looked like
3:29
before I made this video so I could really give you a visual what what we're
3:33
looking for at the store we don't actually have to fertilize until we start to see some development
3:39
once we notice we can see some plant action then we can go ahead and add the part one and then the part two this is really simple You guys the root farm brand has made it really nice and gentle on us
3:53
So on the back, it actually has three. That's a beautiful little graph
3:57
And I'll insert some closer imagery of that up on the screen
4:01
So it has the three options and it will tell you if you're using part two all
4:06
purpose, if you're using fruit and flour, or if you're using the part two tomato and veggie then all you need to do is
4:13
move your concentration over based on what you are using so if you're in the
4:19
seedling stage meaning you have one true leaf and we'll look at what that looks
4:25
like when we get some action on our plants so seedling stage with two or
4:30
with one leaf we would do the five milliliters and five milliliters early
4:35
growth stage would be when we're getting to the three to four leaf age on our
4:39
plant then we would do 7.5 milliliters by 7.5 milliliters and then for the
4:45
mature growth stage we would do 10 milliliters by 10 milliliters so the
4:50
second stage is the one that holds all the secrets and that actually speaks to
4:55
more so how often you're actually going to reapply those levels of nutrients
5:01
because obviously your plants are going to use this up and you need to replenish it as needed so you'll actually only need to fertilize once every two weeks so
5:09
mark it on the calendar every two weeks you're just going to add a little bit more solution into the actual feed itself so one thing that's really
5:18
important about fertilizer and hydroponic is pH so I have the root farm
5:25
pH test kit here with me but we're actually gonna go to the root farm system
5:30
the Jiffy Hydro system I'm going to show you how we test or what exactly is going on inside of that
5:37
system and how we fertilize with these two products so we're here in front of the root farm and it's
5:42
been a week not even I don't think it's been awake I think it's been about five days and we have some
5:47
action and actually surprised by this so I actually am going to fertilize today I'm just going to show
5:52
you guys real quick what it looks like you can see some little babies in there um so I believe
5:57
that's oregano too like the two oregano's have come up and I can see some of the basil coming
6:05
through too so you have some action my water indicator is nice and high but I'm just going to
6:11
quickly show you guys in here what the water level is at and I do need to open this up actually to
6:17
fertilize anyways so I'm just gonna pop these out cuz I don't think I showed them in the initial setup
6:23
video so it's gonna get loud here for a second but you can see the water actually coming through
6:28
on these pipes and then flashing onto these grow containers here so i'm gonna shut this off so it's
6:34
nice and quiet while i'm talking and then we'll hop into the fertilizing all that fun stuff now
6:40
i'm going to put in part one and part two at the same time and i'm going to follow the instructions
6:46
on the back as they pertain to seedling stage specifically. So if we look here on part one
6:53
it says five milliliters and five milliliters. And I have a handy dandy measuring cup here
6:59
and it's one tablespoon or one teaspoon is five milliliters. So just go to the Dollar Round or
7:05
wherever you need to go to and grab some of, buy a fertilizer specific one. Or if you're a gardener
7:14
You likely already have some sort of a measuring cup out there. So I'm going to do one of the part two and then I'm going to do one of the part one
7:24
And then I going to let it run for about 10 or so minutes before I do the next step And we show you what that looks like as well So when it comes to the actual pH of the water it is very important And you will notice that they have these wonderful pH test kits at PV
7:42
Mart and you do need to grab one. And it's kind of funny because in hydroponics, we really obsess
7:49
about pH and we're all about it because we deem it very important to the actual plant's growth
7:54
But in the gardening community, we never really talk about soil pH, but it's equally just as
7:59
important. So fun fact about plants, they have a very specific pH range they need to be in
8:05
in order to capture nutrients. If we're outside of that pH range, our plants can't grab the
8:11
nutrients from the water or from the soil. So whether you're an outdoor gardener or an indoor
8:17
gardener, you should be testing your soil pH. The good news is hydroponic pH soil testing. It's
8:23
really easy to do. So this kit makes it super simple, stupid
8:29
And if you're a fish tank owner, you already know this game. So it is simply a vial with some drops in it
8:36
And I'm going to show you exactly how to use this little kit. The kits really cheap to purchase. And again
8:42
a little bit is going to go a long way only buy one kit. It's going to last you a really long time
8:47
We have a vial here with a white cap. All we're going to do is simply dunk the vial into the water after some of the
8:53
fertilizer has mixed in and we're going to fill it to about halfway with the
8:59
water from our actual vessel so you can see here that's what it looks like it's
9:04
just the water out of the actual grow container itself next step we're gonna
9:08
grab our root farm pH tester and we're gonna give it a little tiny shake here
9:13
also I guess if you're a pool a pool person I was just my dog if you're a
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pool person as well you test pH on a pretty regular basis sauna owners hot
9:23
tub people out there and you're gonna put three to five drops into this
9:27
container so I'm gonna go with four because I'm a scientist and that's just
9:31
the way my brain works we're gonna do four drops and half of one of these
9:34
vials so once that's in there we're gonna put the cap back on we're gonna
9:38
give it a little tiny shake and then we're gonna see what our pH is is there
9:42
any 90s babies out there what was the Gene Simmons I think was the one that
9:47
our mothers used to exercise to like shake shake shake anyways bad joke okay
9:52
So inside this vial we have color now we have a wonderful color
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And so we have a nice dark green here and on the back of this actual container
10:02
We have numbers with colors And so all we have to do is actually match the color of this tube up to the color on this bottle
10:10
So we can see here based on the bottle and the color of this vial that we're sitting actually about an eight
10:15
Which is outside of the scope of what we need for our plants to grow in
10:20
So the colors that we do want to see is actually the yellow or kind of like this brownish color
10:26
That's actually our really ideal range. But this is good news because now that my pH is off, I can actually show you how to change it
10:33
So that is where these two products come in. Now, you probably won't have to buy both bottles
10:38
You most likely are just going to have to buy one. And the one you do purchase is going to be completely based on what that pH has turned out to
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your water that you use in this vessel is almost always going to show the same pH
10:51
unless you move or you change your water source that you're filling this vessel with
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So my home water is clearly at a pH of 8 and I kind of already knew that because I do have a fish tank
11:02
and my fish tank usually reads around a pH of 8 as well
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So I'm going to use pH down in this case to get it to a 6.5 ideally
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So the pH down is the orange bottle. Now if you reading below a 6 say a 5 or a 4 then you going to want to get the blue bottle which is pH up Now if you read the facts of these bottles it is going to tell you that it doesn know how much
11:29
you need. And it's because they quite honestly do not know how much of this product you need for
11:35
the vessel, because it's going to completely depend on your pH, the volume of water, a whole
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bunch of different factors. So what we want to do is we want to slowly add some of this product
11:47
and continually test over and over again so I'm gonna start off with a capful at a time I'm going
11:54
to mix it up into the solution I'm going to retest and then we'll see where we're at you don't want
11:59
to get this on your skin because it is an acid or a base so glasses or safety goggles of some sort
12:05
and preferably gloves if you're dealing with children if you're an adult and you get to a
12:10
sink fast enough you can just use the cap so let's start with that one capful give it a little mix
12:16
and then see where we're at so this will actually work pretty quickly when it comes to actually
12:21
changing the ph in and of itself all it's doing is it's actually grabbing or releasing hydrogen ions
12:28
that's what ph is it's counting the number of hydrogens within our our solution i was gonna say
12:34
soil solution we're not doing this well in our water solution so that's all we're looking at
12:39
here so it works pretty quickly it's a relatively fast chemical reaction so
12:44
yeah okay let's retest this and see where we're at so again vile we fill it
12:51
about halfway and we're going to do four drops of the pH tester we have some
13:01
color change like I said it's pretty pretty quick so give it a little shake
13:07
and i think we're i think we're dead on the money now so we'll line it up against on here and we can
13:13
see that i'm at a i'm gonna fix oh well you can see i'm between probably a six and a 6.5 what i
13:22
could do is i could add a little bit of ph up now if i wanted to but honestly that's that's probably
13:28
quite all right i'm pretty happy with that i'm confident that that will do much better than the
13:33
ant we initially had and we are done. So the key to all this is that you would fertilize with your
13:40
part one and your part two first and then you're going to test for your pH after. And this process
13:46
you are going to do every single time you fertilize. So every single time you fertilize
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you get to be a soil scientist. You get to be an Ashley for a couple of moments. I hope this
13:56
didn't intimidate you. I hope this kind of shone a little bit of light how easy hydroponics is
14:01
And honestly, you saw how quick the turnaround was, even for the seeds themselves sprouting
14:07
and getting that first couple leaves on the actual plant. And you can see how quickly hydroponics does work
14:14
I do quite honestly think that the tediousness, if you call it even that
14:19
of testing the pH and really balancing the pH with nutrients is crucial
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And it has a big effect, a big effect on how quickly the plant grows
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and how fast you can get produce off of it. The hydroponic systems generally produce much faster and have much higher yields than that of the outdoors
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So if you're an outdoor gardener, though, pH is important. So something else to just keep in mind, but we just can't focus on it as often in an outdoor scenario
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Or we just simply forget quite often as well. So I want to thank you guys so much for watching
14:51
If you enjoyed this video, be sure to give it a thumbs up. You have to let me know if you're following along with this series, what videos you want to see next
14:58
any specific questions you may have about hydroponics or just growing indoors in general
15:04
The next video is going to be on lighting. Yes lighting and I will talk to you guys next time. Bye
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