Water is useless to grow things!

in gardening •  5 years ago 

Reading the title, you're probably thinking "WTF is he on about?!"

Well, water is fucking useless, to grow things, when used on it's own.

All of my life I have heard from people about how you can sprout sweet potatoes in water, and regrow onion bottoms in water, and sprout various seeds in water.

Well, after years of trying to do this various times, and just sticking them in the ground other times, I can tell you, that without a doubt, trying to grow shit with water alone is fucking stupid and useless and likely just to end up rotten.

The problem is that there is fungus of all types on EVERYTHING, and there's a good chance that it's gonna grow on whatever you try to sprout, even if you try to sterilize everything. You can try to sterilize whatever you're growing and giving it a better chance, but you know what's even easier? Just use dirt.

If I were to try to grow something in liquid, I would not do so in water. I would either use hydroponic fertilizer, or boil some dirt or compost in some water, to make sterilized compost tea.

If I were to grow sprouts, I would then add a bit of lemon or vinegar to that, to discourage anything else from growing in it. Probably best to take a PH reading for that as well.

Things just grow better with nutrients.

Sweet potatoes absolutely will grow in just water, but they grow a lot better in dirt. Same with seeds. Many seeds will grow in water. But you know what else grows in water? All sorts of foul shit that will make it stinky and fuzzy. That shit grows in dirt too, but it seems to be more of a problem when the only thing for it to grow on is what you're actually wanting to grow.

So, if you want to not throw away some onion roots, because you wanna grow some onions, or some lettuce, or some cabbage, or whatever, just stick it in some dirt in a pot and water it.

If you want to give seeds a head start, figure out something to make some little plant starters. Maybe some newspaper starter pots. I hear they're pretty easy, but haven't tried them myself.

After years and years of growing shit in just water, and dealing with losing more than half of them, I can tell you, it's just plain stupid. Don't do it.

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Image by elletakesphotos (source)
Used under the Pixabay License

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Oh damn you werent kidding about letting them get a few feet long. I cut mine off around 3-6 inches but many failed. Maybe I need to grow them longer like you are doing.

Yeah, 3 to 6 inches seems pretty short. It might work alright with some rooting formula. I personally wouldn't go any shorter than maybe about 8 or 9 inches though.

Really short ones did seem to fail a bit more in the past for me, but I'd probably have to do an experiment to know for sure what the optimum length is.

About a foot just seems about right, since it gives you space to cut, remove a few leaves, and still have a few at the end, then stick it in the ground.

Sweet potatoes are pretty easy to grow though. You can actually just work the vines back into the soil with a hoe and quite a few will pop back up. They'll also pop up out of your compost after harvest for a few weeks or months.

I tried the same thing. I was regrowing scraps. But now I don't let green onions or basil cuttings stay too long in the water. As soon as I see some roots, I plant them in the soil.

Thanks for sharing your creative and inspirational post!



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