Making a hydroponic garden

Growing up, I always enjoyed learning about plants. My family have always seen plants as a way to brighten an area. Either it was in front of the house or in the deck, there were always plants in sight. As I grew up, I enjoyed learning about plants and the earth more and more. Which is how I realized that soil is limited, and that we should find alternatives to be able to grow a garden. I chose to do this project because I have always been fascinated by the many different methods on planting. By doing this project, it will be a way for my family to start hydroponic since it has always been discussed between the family on who will start the garden. Since I have always been fond of plants, I’m taking the initiative to start, it will be a way to bond with my family as well as studying hydroponic. I will also be doing this project independently, which will certainly come with some difficulties here and there. In a way it will be easier to make it specifically for the needs of the home and garden.

My goal for the project is to research and study hydroponic methods and the benefits toward human health, then design and create my own hydroponic system at home. This is a challenging project as there are many steps involved and a slight mistake can affect the project. The project will require time and commitment to be able to succeed. It will also require research and interviewing owners of hydroponic gardens to get some information and tips on what to do and not to do.

Global Context

The global context of my project is Globalization and sustainability. The global context focuses on the system which will be used for the project to be able to make a garden. As nowadays there are many advantages and disadvantages towards most things which includes plants based on how they were grown. The reason I’m doing this project is due to the fact of limited space. With doing hydroponic, it doesn’t need a lot of space, and because of the different systems out there, we can choose the system to our liking. Besides that, since hydroponic doesn’t use soil, it solves the problem of limited soil. This project will have both advantages and disadvantages both surrounding the project.

Product

The final product of my project is a hydroponic garden. For the garden, I ended up using four different systems. I found that certain vegetables may grow in one system but not the other. Each of the systems needed different aspects to make the system functional. The systems that I ended up using were the dft system, wick system, planting using cocopeat, and the dutch bucket.

Through the process, I initially thought that I was going to be able to successfully plant fruits. But when I was growing it, I found it more challenging than I thought. For the melon, they said that I had to wait for the flower to grow, then in one way or another had to marry the flowers to be able to grow the melon. I got confused and none of the flowers ended up growing and the plant died.

The final product of my project ended up being the hydroponic garden. There I was able to grow most of the vegetables and in the process of growing the fruits. As I was creating the garden, it certainly appeared harder than I expected. The plants that I mostly grew and were successful were most of the vegetables.

Reflection

In the beginning of starting the project, I was very nervous about whether or not I was going to actually be able to do it. Since hydroponic is tricky and not many people that I knew have done it. When my mom heard that there was course on hydroponic, she instantly signed me up. I was lucky to have found the course, but from there, there were certainly some ups and downs. In the beginning setting up the garden, I really didn’t know what I needed for the plants. I didn’t know anything about hydroponic until my parents introduced it to me as well as the course.

Before I started the project, there were some things that I had to do prior. One of them was to renovate the area designated for my garden. The area beforehand was used to dry clothes. The area was bigger than my room and in short it was a waste of space. My parents decided to renovate not only because of my project but also because of the pandemic and everyone was spending more time at home.

This project became more of a family activity than I thought in the beginning. My parents were so happy with the garden that they couldn’t stop talking about it with their friends. Everyone at home took great care of my plants from watering it to making sure that it didn’t get caught in the middle of the rain. I was able to bond with my parents over my plants and being able to share what I was able to create with friends and family.

After this project is done, I plan to continue this project and being able to collaborate with others. I got an input from my mom’s friend, Tante Sinhwi, to contact “Kebun Maisa.” Maisa is about the same age as I’m, she has a real hydroponic farm with local farmers. I have also started helping my mom’s friend in doing hydroponic. As well as my aunts who are asking me to help them start a hydroponic garden, because they have seen how fun and beautiful having a vegetable garden on our own backyard.

IB Learner Reflection

As IB students, being able to develop IB learner skills is very important. During personal project, there are some IB learner skills that are more noticeable than others. The most notable IB learner skills are knowledgeable, inquirers, and risk-takers. Other IB skills that can certainly be seen. But I found that I was able to expand my knowledge of certain skills some more than others.

During the project, I initially didn’t think that I will be doing much research as I have done. One of the IB learner profiles is inquirer, through my project it can be seen through research. I not only had to understand the different systems, but also the concept of hydroponic. Being a communicator was also relevant because I had a lot of questions which I had to ask my mentor Bu Bertha.

Another IB skills is risk-taker, I had to take a lot of risks to get the best outcome of my project. My project was mostly trial and error. I used different systems to be able to choose the right one for each plant. Since I found that using different systems can affect the plants growth in different ways. For example, when I was growing the mustard green using the wick system, it was always going to be eaten with bugs. Which is why I had to transfer it to a different system.