Growing Cucumbers in a 5 Gallon Bucket without Soil

I was almost attacked by a bird, well what's up guys? I'm Daniel from the Arms Family Farm and in today's video we're going to talk about

growing

cucumbers

and a five

gallon

bucket

, so a couple of weeks ago I showed you how I planted. these

cucumbers

in 55

gallon

barrels and look at these things, they're exploding. I'm not even trying to pull out the roots anymore. There's no way, but look at these huge cucumbers. These things are loaded with cucumbers. Now I didn't buy this one. on a trellis, at least not yet, but it grows cucumbers and when I posted that video on how to grow these cucumbers in 55 gallon barrels with no

soil

and just a water and fertilizer solution, I probably had 500 questions like, e.g. could you put more? than a plant in a barrel, well yeah, you drill two holes and put them in there, it will use water about twice as fast, so I don't know if that barrel would last the whole season.

Now many people said that if they use all the water they can. just fill it back up good, if the water goes down and the roots are really low here and you fill that barrel all the way to the top, you're going to absolutely drown those roots, so I think it would be good to add a little bit of water, but you definitely don't want to fill it all the way back up because those roots have to get oxygen and you would drown them, so if the water level goes down and you fill it back up, let's say halfway you would probably be fine, then.

I had a lot of questions, well we see you can do that in a 55 gallon barrel, but can you do it in a five gallon

bucket

? Well, here's the thing: it's a 55-gallon barrel and we're moving it closer. 50 gallons of water probably because we didn't fill it completely, a bucket will only give you five gallons. I think it could be done, but you'll run out of water pretty quickly. I haven't tried it. yet, so today we're going to basically build a five gallon bucket cucumber barrel and my thought process is that if we do this right, we could hang it from the handle of one of the rafters and let the cucumbers rain down from the ceiling of it. greenhouse so let's get started so this is what I'm going to use to start my cucumber plant and see if this is going to work now.

It does not match. I'm using a black bucket because I think black would prevent algae growth. I'm afraid if I just used a white bucket the algae would build up in there pretty quickly because we're not putting anything in here to prevent algae growth and all I had lying around was a white lid so it doesn't match and you have a cup of net and you don't have to use a net cup, you can use like a small Net Solo cup and make holes around the bottom, anything that will hold the cucumber plant in the place where you make a hole in the lid.

You can drop it in there and it sits in the water, so I'm just going to put a plant in there. I'm going to use that pot. I'm going to draw a circle here and make a hole. I don't have a perfect hole saw so knee a knife but it will be ugly but it will work so let's make a hole to put our net pot in there and then the fertilizer. I'm going to use the dizer master mix again. and I used a little online calculator, it's not perfect but for five gallons of water you will use about a tablespoon.

I don't have, I don't have a scale that measures in grams or we would get exactly one tablespoon of the master mix for 1838 about one tablespoon of 1500 calcium nitrate and half a tablespoon of Epsom salt and we'll mix it together when we get the water ready to go. Yes, it fits perfectly, so this is what we are looking for. on the lid drop the cup into the camera focus and that's what you're left with here is where our roots will hang inside the bucket like this so we have our bucket ready and I said like I said "I'm using master mix fertilizer." I bought this on Amazon guys if you didn't see the video on how I made them I talked all about this master mix fertilizer It's not something I came up with I borrowed this idea from almost every hydroponic grower there is probably the fertilizer. most popular hydroponic out there so Master mixes a three way mix and you can buy this on Amazon in small quantities so I'll leave a link in the description box below if you're looking for something like that to get you started like I said, I used a conversion table, a little online calculator, I found a website and it calls for and this is not exact but about 1 tablespoon of 1500 calcium nitrate, about 1 tablespoon of the master mix for 1838 and 1/2 tablespoon of salt of Epsom, let's get this out of the way, we don't want it to get water on it.

I'm going to mix this really well before I put it in look at that slimy green stuff that takes the Epsom salt. a little more mix, right? It doesn't mix as easily as the first ingredient. It's important that when we stick our necks in there we don't want to drown the cucumber plants or we're just going to fill this up to where and when. It is level and barely touches the water. I don't know if you can see this in this bucket, but this is what I'm talking about, so I'm not filling the bucket completely, you guys might not be.

I can see this, but when I drop my net in there, the water barely has maybe an eighth of an inch of water in the bottom of the net. I hear small steps. Someone joins me. What are you talking about? I am? I see, oh yeah, our little watermelon plant, we didn't plant it this morning, but there are flowers, so we'll have some watermelons soon, you think, and Leon and I's challenge has already started and I guess we're winning. Until now, this was just a random watermelon. I guess a seed fell out or a watermelon rotted and landed on the ground last year and they just took it away, so I have my bucket ready to go, I sealed the lid here. it just clips on, so the black bucket will hopefully prevent algae growth.

We have our net pot ready to use. I have a little cucumber plant that I started on a little block of

soil

and we're just going to put that little cucumber here and pack up what I bought. I just bought them on Amazon. They are also clay pebbles. If you're familiar with any type of hydroponic

growing

, everyone uses these little guys, they're just little clay pebbles and they're very light and they retain moisture, so we're going to put those little guys in there and cut up our little cucumber plant, pack this all up. around our little cucumber plant, oh, they're a gun in the bucket, that's right, so this is what you're left with the lawn. cucumber plant packed there in its new little house and when we put it here it will barely touch the water in that soil and those clay pebbles will just absorb the water into the roots and like I said, we don't want to drown. the plant, so if we fill this too much we will drown the roots the first day.

This will be a dead cucumber plant so I hope it works like I said. I have not grown cucumbers in a five gallon bucket. I have some concerns, but it's an experiment for you and you never know this might work out perfectly, so there you have it. I'm not hanging this guy from the rafters just yet. I'll leave it here. I'll just place it. On top of this other barrel that's loaded with a giant cucumber that's already growing, but I'm going to put it here so I can check it and make sure the roots are okay and actually reaching the water.

I'll be out here in a couple. times throughout the day for the next few days and make sure it doesn't dry out, but it's a cool little experiment, just something to try because a lot of you have asked, can you do this on this? And I think so, but there are a couple of concerns I have. One of them is that this is such a small container that there is not much water and it is summer in Oklahoma and the temperature approaches 100 degrees on a regular basis, plus we are barely inside the high tunnel. I'm afraid the water is going to get very hot here.

I don't know what that will do to the roots of that cucumber plant, where unlike the big barrel, it would take a long time to heat this water compared to the amount of time. This water would need to be heated, especially if it is in a black bucket which will absorb more heat, but I feared that the white bucket would promote too much algae growth and receive too much sunlight. I don't know. I'll see what you guys think, let me know in the comments section below. I am demonstrating that you can grow cucumbers in barrels. I mean, that guy is reaching the ceiling of my high tunnel and he's freshly loaded.

I also have cucumbers. on a trellis in the raised bed they are also producing cucumbers. Now many people said yes, you can grow such a cucumber, but will it have any taste? According to my personal results, this right here tastes a lot. better than a grocery store cucumber and there is a good chance that most of the cucumbers you are eating at the supermarket are grown hydroponically maybe not all, but I bet you that most of the year most of the cucumbers you buy us We are growing a hydroponic solution in a greenhouse in some other country, maybe I'm wrong, but I think it tastes great if grown here in my barrel, in the water with fertilizer, so guys, that's all I have for today they do have.

Any other experiments with cucumbers or things you'd like me to try, let me know in the comments section below and remember I'll leave a link to that master mixer: liser and the clay pebbles. I'll put them in the description box. Bottom line, I'm not an expert in hydroponics. I'm just learning by trying things. I know it works great with cucumbers. You guys have asked a million questions about what else can be grown that way there if you just Google it. or YouTube crack key method crack key hydroponics you will see hundreds of videos of everything you can grow in a hydroponic solution, mostly most people use a shallow tray and grow lettuce, bok choy and greens like those cucumbers.

I've seen a minute in a trash can this idea in the 55 gallon barrel came from my friend Leon from Gardening with Leon. I don't know if you could make tomatoes like these or not. I haven't tried it, but let me show you a little secret real quick. something I haven't shown you guys yet, we're trying it here with success so far a watermelon, check it out, we'll see how it goes. That's the only small watermelon I have, small like that so far, so I think watermelons might work. Let's try it because I love learning new ways to garden, learning new ways to grow food, but anyway, that's all I have for today.

Thanks for watching. I hope you enjoyed it. Have a great day and, as always. see you in the next video