 Hi there and welcome to the channel. So in today's video, we are going to be setting up this IDU hydroponic system and I'm going to show you two different ways that I like to use this system. It works good with any kind of DWC system like this such as the Aero Garden. This is the IDU brand. I have a Hortos brand as well. There's quite a few of them out in the market. But the two things we're going to do today are first of all start some herbs growing in here and I have selected four different herbs that I'm hoping to grow and harvest and create one of my favorite spice blends for cooking. But the other thing that this system is really good for is starting seeds for that you want to grow in other mediums such as this cracky method that I'm using here for my lettuces. So I'm going to be starting some lettuce, maybe some arugula, spinach, not sure which leafy greens I'll be doing. So the reason I like to use this for seed starting is it's got a great light. It's on a timer. When you just have a few things starting it hasn't taken up too much space. You've got a lot of empty space to fit some of these different net cups here that can take advantage of the light and get your seedlings started. So I'm only going to be using six of the ten pods here in this system to grow my herbs. So that frees up a lot of space initially when these are just seedlings and just starting to grow. So that's why I like to use that available space to start other things such as my lettuces here. So these little net pots are all set up and ready. I'm going to be throwing some seeds into them and they can just take advantage of this space and light and get a really good start growing before I set them up in this cracky method in this tub. So I have picked out four types of lettuces, leafy greens that I want to get set up in these net cups today. One of them I have never tried before but this was sent to me as a free gift from Heritage Harvest Seeds when I placed an order with them. This is called the White Paris lettuce. I'm not sure what that's going to look like but I'm wondering what kind of color it's going to be so I'm very interested to see what this looks like. I've already been growing this in my other system. It is still growing really good now. I've been doing lots of cutting. Come again with this lettuce. It's a romaine that's called Coastal Star. It is so good. I really like this lettuce and it's great for indoor growing. I was able to harvest this in about 25 to 30 days from planting. This is another one that I grew indoors. It's more of a leafy, you know, colorful type lettuce. Not quite as firm as the romaine but it's still a very nice lettuce for salads. So I'll be starting some of that. And as always I got to have a little bit of arugula to mix into my salad. This is seed that I collected from my outdoor arugula plants last fall. So I'm just going to get these set up with a few seeds in each and then we will once we get the system going here we'll put some domes on them and they will probably sprout within a few days. And you know in a couple weeks when they got a good root system going I will set them up here in my cracky method. So I presently have a batch of lettuce going that I planted about 35 days ago and I've been doing the cut and come again on it and it's been growing back really good. So I want to just get some more going here because that'll probably be another couple weeks before it'll probably kind of die out and I'll be ready for some fresh lettuce seeds to get going here. So I like to try this succession plant my lettuces so that I have some going all through the winter. So these little net cups and pods are what come with the IDU system. I still have a small supply of these but they're basically kind of the same type of thing that you would see with an aero garden. So I have the nutrients in here already and I'm just letting these pods absorb them and expand before I put the seeds in there. So as I mentioned my plan is to grow some herbs that I can harvest and dry and make into a spice blend. I usually cook with a lot of Italian herbs such as the you know the basic oregano time basil combination and I also found these chives that have a garlic flavor to them. So I thought these four would make a really nice Italian seasoning blend. So I am going to just do one of the basil, one of the chives and two of each of these. I find one basil plant in one of these systems produces really well. If you harvest it properly it will keep growing back more and more. So one plant seems to be enough. So I've never found that having you know this many pods is really a good thing for the most part depending on what you're growing. I would say herbs probably take up the least amount of space of anything but you know I've grown tomatoes in here dwarf tomatoes and I just put two plants in. I tried to grow some other things in here with it just to make use of all these other pods and it just didn't work out well. The the tomatoes eventually overtook all the light and everything else kind of died out. So I don't think growing 10 different plants in one of these systems is really the best way to go. I think six is going to be a lot. It's going to drink up a lot of that nutrients. There's going to be a lot of roots in there competing for nutrients. So I think this is just the best way to go. The chives I'm assuming are going to be one of the taller of these four herbs. So I'm going to plant them at the back. I think thyme is one of my favorite herbs to grow and to use in my cooking. It does grow a little bit tall as well. So I'm going to try putting it on the outside corner over here and then here as well. So with these herbs I don't really worry about marking them. Pretty much we'll know what they are once they start growing. The oregano and thyme their seeds are super super tiny. So I'm just doing a little pinch putting it into each hole. And finally the basil will go in this front pod here. Okay so all the herbs are planted up and like I said I have these four empty spaces that aren't being used right now. So that's where I'm going to just set these net cups that I have the lettuce seeds planted in. I put a little dome on them just to kind of keep that humidity in and help with germination. And this way they can sit over the hole and as their roots start to grow they have somewhere to go. I can just top water them with a spray bottle just to keep this moist. And then once they have a few roots popping out the bottom that's when I'll move them over to my crack key tub. Okay so it has been 14 days since we planted up these herbs and the lettuces and I just wanted to give you a little update of how things are coming along here. So as you can see the lettuces are really taken off. So I think this one here is the arugula. As you can see it's already shooting some roots down the bottom. I haven't seen roots yet on the bottom of these lettuces. So I've been just top watering these with a watering can or spray bottle just keeping that rockwell moist and they're coming along good. So probably in another you know week or so I should be ready to move these off of this system and plant them up in their the crack key tub. And as you can see we have all the herbs are coming along good here. This is the basil. And once these lettuces move I will just cover up these holes with these little plugs that come with the iDU system and that will just keep the light off of out of the water there so so things are coming along good. And if you notice in the background I have something that I wanted to share with you that is going to be part of my indoor herb garden. And this is a mesh um herb dryer that I purchased off of Amazon and I'm pretty excited to be testing it out. So the last time I did an herb garden in in my arrow garden I had so many herbs. I was harvesting you know every couple days and it was really hard to keep up with dehydrating and drying them out like using an electric dehydrator. So I thought this system here would be a good way to just quickly harvest leaves off of my herbs every couple days. Put them into this air dryer and let them dry naturally. So it's no power required and it's a nice compact size that I'm going to try out for dehydrating my herbs. So hopefully I can keep you updated in future videos on how my indoor herb garden is going and how my new herb drying system works out. So if you enjoyed this video I hope that you will hit that like button and leave me some comments and don't forget to subscribe so that you don't miss out on future videos coming to the channel. Thank you for watching and happy gardening.