A Basic, Small, Cheap, Hydroponic Salad Raft

A Basic, Small, Salad Raft
by: Nature Steve.

Hydroponics is quite a snazzy improvement on the age old art of horticulture. This project is very compact and offers all the benefits of those picturesque coffin-sized systems, but smaller and much cheaper. Enough room easily for 9 pots of lettuce or any other water-loving botanical.

Step 1 Materials and Tools:

Materials:
9 Party Cups                          - (Box of 1000 for $133 at OfficeMax.com)
3/4" Thick White Styrofoam - ($7 at Home Depot for 6 2'x4' pieces)
Perlite                                      - ($6 on Amazon or cheaper at Home Depot)
Aquarium Air Pump              - ($8 at walmart or amazon, cheap will do)
Air Hose                                  - ($2, make sure size is correct for air pump, e.g. 1/4")
10" Air Stone                          - ($3, make sure stone fits in container you use)
5 Gal. Storage Container    - ($4, buy opaque! clear will hinder root growth)
Seeds or plants

~Paraffin Wax (to coat razor blade)
~Net Cups (alternative to chopped up party cups, they cost money)
~Water (this may be a concern in urban areas, use purified water for hydroponics)

Tools:
Razor Blade (rub with paraffin wax to make your life easier, cuts styrofoam very clean)
Hole Saw - goes on a drill, makes a huge mess with styrofoam, use the razor blade instead.
Permanent Marker - for drawin circles and stuff.

~Vacuum (styrofoam makes a mess, you can't avoid it)

Comments

[xfirexstarzx]

This is basically the same system I have, except I haven't used hydroton at all. Eventually I'll give it a shot though. Is that an Adenium in the third picture of the intro? I had a cutting in my raft, but I couldn't get it to root.

[steveoondyou]

hydroton is great, nothing works better that I've tried. if you were crafty I suppose it might pay to sprout in rockwool then put the whole cube in the hydroton netpot. it's a neat little experiment with satisfying results, I got a sizeable quantity of lettuce quite quickly. the third picture is actually a Madagascar palm tree, sort of irrelevant to this project but hey it's cool yo. thanks for commenting!