Grow Diary: Kale

Here Kale was grown in the 10L bucket Kratky Hydroponics system. The seedlings were started in Root Riot Organic Starter Cubes in heated germinators (Garland Fab4 Electric Propagator) before being placed in the 10L bucket after 5 days. The plants grew very aggressively and very healthy looking apart from being less bushy than expected - this possibly may have been due to sub-optimal lighting in the conservatory.
In total, the plants grew for over 2 months before growth clearly slowed as the nutrient concentration became too low to sustain the plants (the remaining media was measured to be at 58ppm on day 69!). Note that in the later weeks of the grow, leaves were continually picked off the plant for tasting, so what you are seeing in the pictures below is a significant under-estimation of the actual total growth of the plants.
Overall, the Kale plants grew very well in the 10L bucket Kratky hydroponics system, however, we suspect that had the bucket volume been larger, the plants could have continued to yield edible produce for much longer.
Day 5

Day 12

Day 22

Day 31

Day 42

Day 56

