One of the most regularly asked questions is “can I grow hydroponically without EC/pH metres”.

The answer is yes you can.

If you’re lucky enough to live in a soft water area, and you use the right nutrients for that specific quality of water then I don’t see a whole heap that can go wrong. Its going to be pretty hit or miss at the start if you are unable to test the feed strength prior to giving it to your young plants and without a pH pen you leave yourself exposed to all sots of possible issues, all of which will come to make your growing experience un-enjoyable, unproductive and a waste of your time. Harsh but true.

I have wasted some time too. 4 months in fact, on one particularly gnarly sativa grown in NFT, so I speak from experience.

If truncheons and Ph pens are just not possible for one reason or another, I wouldn’t recommend anyone jumping into a hydroponics grow. Think about trying to service your car without a spark-plug spanner? Yes it can be done, but not without loads of grazed knuckles, and the air turning blue as one string of expletives follows another. It’s just not worth the hassle that can come as a result of not having the right tools for the job in hand.

If on the flip side, your mate round the corner is a grower who has all the necessary accoutrements needed for a successful hydro harvest, then go borrow his for a day. This way you will at least have a starting point…a benchmark to work from when you don’t have daily access to measuring devices. It’s a lot better than guessing from the outset.

Unfortunately that’s a plan which is always doomed to failure.

The primary beauty of growing in compost with pots is the lack of arse-ache that comes with it. Everything is measured in millilitres! How rad is that?

If its worth growing, its worth overgrowing!

I remember reading through threads in the organic section of overgrow.com. A place for men was that, and a crying shame it’s no longer online.

Where garden lime was measured in handfuls or cups. Handfuls of lime? Organic growers rock. Epson salts measured in teaspoons and all your liquid fertilisers measured out with an old syringe in ml’s, mixed on the kitchen drainer while the kettle boiled merrily beside you. “Add a pinch of bone meal” came the advice. “Chuck a bit of maxicrop in”, (chuck?? A bit??).

Happy days!

But there comes a time in an organic grower’s life when he needs to look beyond the immediate horizon for the answers.

Let’s face it, (and speaking from the male perspective), we all like to tinker and tweak a bit.

If you can get your Ford Capri to go faster than your mates? Result! If it comes as a result of a little tweak you made under the bonnet, you can be guaranteed your mate will want you to make the same adjustment on his so he can blow other Capri drivers away. It’s the competitive streak in us, which no doubt plays a part in our spending an entire lifetime worrying about the size of an organ which gets seen precious rarely enough for it to even matter that much…but I digress.

Having the ability to grow 2 or 3 times the amount of ganja in the same amount of time as it takes to grow an ounce sounds like an offer to good to pass over. So I took the plunge and dug out my EC truncheon. Only then I remembered my Hanna Ph pen had been broken in the umpteen moves I’ve made since my last hydro debacle mid-way through 2003. In fact life has been a debacle period, but that’s another story.

One swift Internet transaction later and I’m the proud owner of another Hanna pen, (the pH ep - red one).

I’m not going to even try to pretend I know how these things work. They just do.

There’s a little glass bulb at the bottom the casing, kind of recessed up inside the pen, with a protective cap over. With the cap removed, you can see the bulb clearly.

This is the sensor which reads the pH value and displays it by way of an LCD read out at the top. You simply dip your pen into the feed solution and the pH reading (once steady) is shown.

But before this information can be used to our benefit, we need to calibrate the pen, so as we’re sure its telling us the truth, and to do this require a few extra bits and pieces. Of course, if your local grow shop owner is worth his weight he will make sure it’s calibrated before it leaves the shop. Even so you will require a bottle of pH7 and a bottle of either pH4 or pH10.

We use the liquids, as guaranteed pH7 and pH4 sources (or 10), and using the small precision screw driver which comes with the Hanna pH pen, I’ll adjust the 2 clearly marked screws so that the pen reads the correct value of the different liquids as I test both individually. And it’s as simple as that.

Its worth mentioning, these pens are notorious for knocking themselves out of kilter with annoying ease and regularity. So it’s worth keeping on top of the calibrations by making it at least a weekly thing. Daily even, if your pallor is the normal deathly white of the reclusive, perpetual harvest hydro grower.

Christmas is coming, although by the time you read this, the turkey carcass will be in the bin, your new socks and jumpers will be safely stowed in your “I’ll leave it there till I need it” draw and those annoying post-Christmas holiday ads will no doubt be trying to convince you of the allure of Brighton, or even Skegness - which is absolutely, the last resort when it comes to holiday destinations!

I hope your Christmas was a happy white one. Stay on top of your calibrations and make your New Year green & prosperous.