So I really want to grow tomatoes hydroponically indoors and I really want to try it with the Kratky method (no pumps, no aerators).
Problem is, you would need to provide the full amount of water needed and tomatoes take a lot of water, 50 to 80 gallons, depending.
I'm not going to have a 50 gallon water drum just to grow a single tomato plants. It takes up too much space AND its heavy (and can break things).
So I'm going to try a 5-gallon grow bucket, with a separate 5-gallon reservoir that is situated above the grow bucket. I'll connect the two with a tube so the water from the reservoir is gravity-fed into the grow bucket. I'll use a passive float-valve to ensure the grow bucket always maintains 2.5 gallons of water in it.
@tinker I spent yesterday going down a rabbit hole of meat substitutes and ended up checking out using grow tents for soya, forgetting that two years ago me wasn't quite that stupid and the seeds I bought were suitable for outdoor growing (ad I'd get 400g of protein from a harvest with my three tents, if I was very lucky).
@tinker By the way, I don't know if you know George Monbiot, but his latest book covers the problems with modem agriculture and its imminent collapse, looking at ways to improve it without falling into the "bucolic smallholder" trap that some people do. There's nothing wrong with doing that sort of thing for personal or local resilience, but some psychopaths are suggesting it as a global panacea, knowing full well that it would feed them and the devil take the hindmost.
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