Growing Kale…In A Pond?

For some reason which I’m sure was perfectly logical at the time, but which I can’t remember for the life of me now, I started a kale plant in a two-inch net cup about a month ago.

In case you don’t know, net cups are plastic pots with a lot of holes in them that are used for hydroponic gardening.

net cups upside down

First of all, the only reason I would plant something in a net cup is if I was going to grow it using the Kratky method; that is, suspend it from the top of a large container full of nutrient solution (water with hydroponic fertilizer dissolved into it) and let the roots grow down into the water. Second, a two-inch pot is too small for a kale plant. If I wanted to experiment with growing a kale using the Kratky method, why didn’t I plant it in a larger net cup?

I. Don’t. Remember.

While scratching my head trying to figure out what to do with the thing – it already has a lot of roots growing out the sides of the net cup – I wondered…could I float a kale plant in water? I know you can do that with lettuce.

I decided to try. If it works, it would be a great way to grow some extra plants in the summer. I’m already planning on growing lettuce in the summer this way.

I’ve saved up some Styrofoam packing blocks for this very purpose, and so I finally cut one apart.

I had to cut the height down some, because the bottom of the net cup is supposed to be in the water. Then I cut a two-inch hole in the Styrofoam block.

Finally, I was ready! I put the net cup with the small kale plant inside the hole.

Then, the whole operation went into a plastic pond that Jerry and I bought back when we were still living in the suburbs and thought we wanted a backyard fish pond. Until we killed all the poor goldfish.

The pond is where it is now – near our largest rain tank – because a year ago our son thought he wanted a fish pond. By the time Jerry went through all the time and work of building a hole for the pond, our son had lost all interest in the project.

Good for me. I have somewhere to grow a floating garden! I figure the slowly decomposing leaves that fall into the water will provide enough fertilizer.

The only problem I may have is that the pond is in a shady spot, so as to keep the fish that never were there from boiling in the summer. Will the plants get enough light?

It remains to be seen. But it’s worth a shot. Homesteading is all about experimentation, right?

Now, if we could only not have a late Canadian cold front blow down and bring twenty-degree weather…