We recently refreshed one of our very first playlist of video tutorials about getting started with SNAP Hydroponics. According to our user insights, many users are looking for SNAP tutorials online. More than the usual every week. There is still no indication that sustained interest in urban gardening, container gardening and hydroponics is gonna die down anytime soon. With the pandemic still raging more and more people are getting interested in growing their own food.
Shopee featured videos
These set of videos, in Filipino, are featured prominently in Happy Grower’s Shopee.
Happy Grower’s Shopee is closed.
Unfortunately, it has become too cost prohibitive for us to operate our shop on Shopee. Not to worry because we are still selling our products online through our very own online shop.
SNAP Setup: Paano magpalaki ng halaman gamit ang SNAP Hydroponics?
Is it really that simple to grow your own vegetables with hydroponics?
Simple Nutrient Addition Program or SNAP Hydroponics is a low-cost, low-maintenance hydroponics system that is designed for household or small-scale commercial vegetable production. It enables growers to utilize small spaces typical in urban settings for food production. Developed in the Institute of Plant Breeding, UPLB, it’s been around for over twenty years and has a flawless safety record and impeccable performance even for first time growers. It is very easy to use and easy to learn because it’s just a Simple Nutrient Addition Program.
“Gabay sa SNAP Hydroponics Mula Binhi Hanggang Ani” by ME. Playlist is composed of comprehensive video tutorials in Filipino.
We are currently working on a new series of videos covering SNAP Hydroponics so don’t forget to subscribe!
Need More Help?
Still not feeling confident to try? Need help getting started? Please join our Facebook Group SNAP Hydroponics Growers. We are a very active community of hydroponics and gardening enthusiasts. We will help you as best we can.
Is it really that simple to grow your own vegetables with hydroponics?
Simple Nutrient Addition Program or SNAP Hydroponics is a low-cost, low-maintenance hydroponics system that is designed for household and small-scale commercial vegetable production. It enables growers to utilize small spaces typical in urban and peri-urban settings for food production. It can easily be adapted to large-scale commercial vegetable production. Developed in the Institute of Plant Breeding (IPB), UPLB, it’s been around for 20 years and has a flawless safety record and impeccable performance even for first time growers. It is very easy to use.
“ Gabay sa SNAP Hydroponics Mula Binhi Hanggang Ani” by ME. Playlist is composed of comprehensive video tutorials in Filipino.
Need More Help?
Still not feeling confident to try? Need help getting started? Join SNAP Hydroponics Growers on Facebook. We are a very active community of hydroponics and gardening enthusiasts. We will help you as best we can.
With the holiday season ending as January comes to a close the seasonal influx of styrofoam boxes to our country ends as well. As discussed in a previous post the importation of grapes from California, the United States starts around the beginning of ber months late-August. This reaches its peak late December as evidenced by the number of social media posts of discarded styrofoam boxes that made rounds in social media and mainstream media as the new year starts. A number of enterprising and environmentally conscious SNAP hydroponics growers tried their best to make the most of the abundance of styrofoam boxes.
There will be a scarcity of standard sized styrofoam boxes in the following months. And many are asking about alternatives to styrofoam. In this post we’ll discuss possible alternatives and what properties to look for when considering alternatives.
Ideas for Building the Ideal Growbox for SNAP
We will be looking for a readily available alternatives to styrofoam boxes that is used in the default SNAP Hydroponics setup. The recommended SNAP setup is a passive system. The nutsol is kept in the lower half of the styrofoam boxes. Water is prevented from escaping through the boxes ventilation wholes via a plastic lining that is installed in the lower half. Our alternative box or container must be able to hold water. If it cannot, a plastic sheet can be used to line the container to enable the container to hold water.
This discarded crate can be mended and lined with PE plastic so that it may hold water.
We will be working on the discarded crate pictured above. It’s a broken milk crate that has a volume of around 30L.
After cleaning off the mud of our crate, we mend it to restore (a little bit) of its structural integrity using zip ties.
The styrofoam growbox, being opaque, protects the nutrient solution from light. The nutrient solution needs protection from light to prevent algae from growing on the nutrient solution. Excessive algae growth will take away nutrients from your plants or retard the growth of the roots.
Since our crate lets light through, we need to line the crate with an opaque material blocks light and also minimises heat transfer. We need an insulator.
The styrofoam growbox is an ideal insulator which is why it works great in the SNAP Hydroponics system. It’s cheap, it’s abundant , it’s easy to work with and is a great insulator. Most containers can be modified to provide the same level of insulation as styrofoam.
The nutsol reservoir in this NFT system is lined with silvered insulation foam to keep the nutsol’s temperature low.
To protect our nutsol from light and heat in our grow create we will be using a discarded packing material that has an opaque plastic layer, a bubble wrap layer, and a layer of insulating foam.
A crate growbox lined with discarded packing material. This lining provides both insulation and protects the nutsol from light.
We still need the crate to hold the nutrient solution. So we add a plastic liner. We use a 40⨉40 PE plastic bag.
SNAP grow crate lined with a PE Plastic Sheet. We use a 40⨉40 PE plastic sheet for this crate.
Next we need to replace the upper half of the styrofoam growbox. The upper half’s purpose is to hold the seedling plugs in place and of course protect the nutsol from light and heat. For our crate we use a piece of styrofoam panel that was used in a previous project.
SNAP grow crate with a styrofoam cover.
Setting Up our “Grow Crate’
We find an area with sufficient sunlight for our crate and make sure it’s level. We fill it up with enough nutsol:
SNAP Grow Crate Filled with Nutsol.
We add our cover and seedling plugs:
SNAP grow crate with cover
We make sure the nutrient solution reaches the bottom of our seedling plug.
SNAP seedling plug in nutrient solution.
We then drop in our seedling. In this case a cucumber seedling germinated in a rockwool cube.
Cucumber growing with SNAP.
Then we let it grow:
Cucumber growing in SNAP after a few weeks.
That’s it! If you have any questions please feel free to leave a comment. Good luck and happy growing!
