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I have a couple of questions on raising plants with hydro in soda bottles. Is it better to grow your leafy veg in a water solution or is the wick/soil approach better? I'm trying to get a little bit of an urban farming project going were I currently live, as a little bit of a side hustle, I'm just curious as to how exactly you go about raising plants in soda bottles.

I guess you would have to raise them from seeds in rock-wool, but afterwards when you transplant them in the soda bottles, that is when i'm not sure how to go about things. Is it as easy as just filling the bottle with nutrient solution and letting the seedlings roots hang in the water, or is it a bit more complicated than that?

Neil Meyer
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2 Answers2

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Sure you can grow things in a soda bottle. The method is known as kratky method and it is as simple as filling up a soda bottle with nutrient rich water and grow things in it.

The idea is, as the plant grows, it will consume the nutrients and hence will create some open space for aeration. Part of the roots will be exposed to air while part will be submerged in the nutrients. The bottle needs to be topped up or replaced depending on the type of plant.

I have been growing FenuGreek and Cilantro using this method and I've got very good results. Here are some of the pics.

Fenugreek plant

Fenugreek Plant

Let me know if you have further questions.

Murtuza Kabul
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Hydroponics require a lot of sophistication and maintenance:

  • Aeration
  • re-circulation pumps
  • nutrient measurement
  • filtering

if you aren't looking at that level of involvement, you might be able to get by on a more limited, kitchen tools only sort of approach (after 2 weeks you toss out fluid A，rinse roots and refill with fluid B) for some short season things like lettuce, but I don't that it would be sustainable long term...

For my money it is hard to beat dirt.

Grady Player
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