Hydroponic gardeningAll about hydroponic gardening information

When I think of gardening I think dirt, weeds,bugs and cold, dirty fingers. I also think of wonderful, flavorful, fresh and pesticide free food and that’s the reason I tolerate all that other “stuff”.

Would you be interested in getting rid of the dirt, weeds,bugs and the cold dirty fingers and still get great garden produce. What If you could grow all this indoors with almost no effort? Does this sound like something you want to do? Then you need to think Hydroponics.

A method of growing plants both for home and commercial use without using soil is hydroponics. The interest in home hydroponics is a recent phenomenon and is increasing in leaps and bounds and with very good reason. Hydroponic plants are usually more healthy, mature earlier, and use less space.They can be grown year round.

If you are serious about growing clean, flavorful, healthy food and herbs at home year round I would suggest you get one of the many portable hydroponics systems. Get one that promises to have all the instructions you need. If you don’t have a large window to supply enough light for growing plants, get a system with a proper light source

If you are interested in constructing your own system you will be able to find lots of information on the various types of system to build. Don’t let the idea of building your own scare you. It is really quite simple.

Try this to get a beautiful lettuce crop: Get yourself a cheap plastic tote from any hardware store. Be sure it is dark colored. (light colors allow excess green algae growth) You will need 2″ thick styrofoam slightly smaller than the tote. This needs to be carefully shaped, pay particular attention to the corners. It has to move up and down freely inside the tote. (It will float on the liquid underneath). Cut it so that you do not allow any more light than necessary under it. Cut 2″ holes in the styrofoam raft to accommodate your plants growth. they should be 7″-8″ apart.

Next you need an air pump, an air stone and a length of plastic tubing from the pet store. Put the air-stone in the bottom of the tote and carefully place the tubing down the corner so as not to interfere with your styrofoam raft. Use a bead of silicone and press the tubing into it and let dry for a few hours. The air stone infuses the solution with oxygen. Cut foam rubber discs the same size as the holes in your raft. Cut these about 2/3rds of the way across. These will hold your seedlings in the raft. That is essentially all there is to the construction.

By: Carm Paynter

1000 watt grow lights have a high energy watt and pure light that will benefit gardeners and professional gardening hobbyist alike. You can buy 1000 watt grow lights at your local hardware store or nursery or a general chain store and they are relatively inexpensive. Here are four benefits to using a 1000 watt grow light.

Brings Out The Color in Plants and Fruits Better

The first benefit of using 1000 watt plant lights is that it helps brings out the color in plants and fruits better. Even in places where the sun is arise for up to 7 hours, there is still plenty of shade, using the 1000 watt indoor light a minimum of 2 hours, will help plants and fruits to fully colorizing.

Helps in Colder Weather

The second benefit of using plant lights is that it can help keep plants, vegetables and fruit warm in colder weather. As summer fades into autumn, using the HPS plant light will help keep your plants, vegetables and fruits from frosting or icing over. It will also keep seeds from getting frozen which will stop them from ripening and seeding as they should. Seeding is when the seed opens and starts to grow.

Add Moisture to the Air

The third benefit of using a 1000 watt indoor light is to add moisture to the air. Moisture will add to keeping your plants, vegetables, and fruit healthy and watery. Certain plants, vegetables, and fruit need quite a bit of water to help maintain themselves. The 1000 watt garden light induces humidity and therefore a dew point, which helps add much needed moisture to the plants.

Keeps Dirt Moist

The fourth benefit of using a 1000 watt growing light is to keep dirt moist. The added humidity that the 1000 watt grow light help to induce in the air, will also help keep plants, fruit and vegetables’ dirt moisturize, helping for healthy plants.

By: Thomas H Jones

If you’re going to get started growing your own food, the first thing you’ll need is organic gardening supplies. Choosing to grow your plants organically is a great idea. It gives you the satisfaction of knowing you did it yourself, and you have control over the entire process, meaning you know your food is healthy. With the right preparations, it’s easy to get started on your own organic garden, whether indoors or out.

You can find organic gardening supplies at the hardware store, home center, or your local farm supplier. Seeds from organic sources are available for only a little more than it would cost you to buy conventional ones, but without the risk of pesticide and other chemical contamination. You can also pick up untreated topsoil, compost, and manure. Avoid treated and fertilized soils, which contain chemicals you won’t want in contact with your plants. One big bonus of these organic gardening supplies is that they’re often cheaper than buying chemically treated options. That saves your wallet as well as your health.

Other supplies that can be helpful will depend on how you’re planning to set up your garden. People who are looking for organic gardening supplies for an outdoor project will need different things than people setting up an indoor or windowsill garden. Container gardeners should buy pots with the eventual size of the plants in mind. If your plant is going to become large, it will need a large, heavy pot. Consider setting this pot on a wheeled platform early on if you’ll need to move your plants into the sun on a daily basis.

If you’re growing indoors, you don’t have to worry too much about pests and diseases. People buying organic gardening supplies for an outdoor garden will, however. However, organic gardening means avoiding conventional pesticides, fungicides, and herbicides. Instead, you’ll need to use natural means to deal with any problems in your garden. Fortunately, plenty of organic gardening supplies can be found or made from items you have around the house. Keep birds away from your seeds and crops with loud, reflective items, such as aluminum pie plates flapping in the wind. Make your greens taste bad to rodents by spraying them with a dilute solution of garlic, soap, or cayenne pepper. Just remember to wash them well before eating them yourself, or you’ll get a surprise!

By: Kevin E Brown

How does extending your growing system from a few months to all year round sound? Wouldn’t it be nice to have fresh tomatoes in the middle of winter. If you answered yes to both of these questions then one of the many hydroponics growing systems could be just the thing for you.

There are hundreds of different types of hydroponic systems on the market today, and there are the same amount that you can put together yourself from parts found at your local home supply or hardware store. The hardest thing is deciding what kind of system you will start with.

There are four questions that you should ask yourself to determine which one of the many hydroponics growing systems is right for you.

What kind of plants will you be growingHow much time do you have to dedicate to this projectHow much space do you haveWhat is your budget

After you have decided how much of a commitment that you can make, it is easy to match which type of hydroponics growing systems will be the one for you. I always recommend that beginners start out with either an bubble bucket or ebb and flow system. Both of these systems are not costly or complicated.

Hydroponics Growing Systems are versatile and can be adapted for just about any type of environment. The advantage of hydroponics is that they let you start out with a small system and slowly add to it as your time and budget allows.

Some categories of systems that you should consider are as follows:

Passive Systems – A hands off system that uses wicks to deliver nutrient solution to the plants roots.Active Systems – A system that delivers nutrient solution to your plants roots using pumps.

It is recommended that you start off small scale and uncomplicated with your first attempt into hydroponics growing systems. A Ebb and Flow system is perfect for this and you can successfully grow tomatoes, lettuce or herbs. The main suggestion is to start off with baby steps and gradually get deeper into the hobby of hydroponic gardening.

By: M. T. Varnado

Interested in taking gardening to the next level? Welcome to the wonderful world of hydroponics. If you have ever bitten into a hydroponic tomato, you can’t help but be curious as to how it’s done. This article is a quick guide to getting you started in growing vigorous flowers and vegetables hydroponically.

The system.

There are four popular hydroponic systems:

·      Water Culture Hydroponics.

This system consists of reservoir that hold the gardener’s desired water plant solution. In the reservoir there are floating plants in planters, which the roots are consistently submerged.

·      Drip and Ebb Flow system.

The ebb flow system is like the water culture but instead of the roots being submerged they are dripped on by a steady drip through a hose. This is the system we are going to focus on.

·      Aeroponics

Aeroponics is a system that instead of using predominately water, uses a system that mist water in to an airtight enclosure. The roots are suspended in the air so the roots get high levels of oxygen. This helps the grow process immensely.

We are going to use a drip system, as it is easy to maintain. You will need a decent size tote that is plastic. Pick one that is black if possible because we don’t want to let any light get into the bin, which could cause root rot. Make sure also that the bin has a lid that can stay on tight. Next you will need to go to a hydro store and purchase special net pots that have a mesh like bottom and sides. Also we will need a fish pump an air stone/pump and some tubing that fits the desired pump.

First we will cut holes in the top of the bin so that the net pots fit snug but no fall through. After that we will want to cut a hole in the side of the net pots so that the tubing fits through to get to the roots. Hook up and connect with connecters the tubes to the one pump. Hosing and connecters can be purchased at your local hardware store. After that, throw in the air stone in the bottom with the pump being outside of the bin. Fill the bin with 4-8 gallons of water depending on the size of your bin. Should be about 6 inches deep of water.

There are many different types of medians to fill the net pots with. Most are pretty much all the same but we are going to use hydroton as it seems to evenly disperse the water to the roots and is cheap. This also can really only be purchased online or at a gardening store.

Atmosphere

There are two ways of creating a good atmosphere. One you can buy plastic and create a room or two you can purchase online grow tents. These tents are perfect as they consist poles to hang lights and holes for installing ventilation.

Generally speaking you are going to want to keep the room at a consistent 65 to 75 degrees. This varies form plant to plant but for this guide we are just going to assume that you are growing tomato plants.  You need fresh air to blow in and fresh air to blow out. A fan is also needed to push the air around inside the tent. Humidity can also be an issue depending on where you live in the world. A dehumidifier maybe needed to be purchased depending on how your type of plant responds to humidity.

Lighting

To make your beautiful plants grow, you will need to pick up a HID light. These can range from 80 to 1200 watts. The more watts the bigger and better the plant will grow. Keep in mind that the higher the wattage means more heat. If you have the money for a 1000-watt light and need to maintain 75 degrees, you will want to hook up a fan to the light, as it was get the growing environment super hot. Keep the light 1-2ft away from the plant as this will burn or dry out the plant.

You are going to want to keep the light on for 18 hours and 6 off. This will save on power and still maintain enough light to keep the plants growing at an optimal level. If your plant flowers which tomato plants do, you will need to trigger the flower stage by setting a timer to 12 hours of light and 12 hours of darkness. In 3-7 days you will start seeing the flower/fruit start to develop. Be careful not to interrupt the plants with light when they light cycle is supposed to be dark as this will cause the plant to do bad things including reducing how big the flower/fruits are.

Feeding

Once your have your room all set up, you are going to want to feed your plants a specific formula of nutrients which suit your plants specific needs. I like to use a line of food called advance nutrients for tomato plants. These guys have it down like it’s their job. Wait it is their job.  Anyways pick a line of nutrients that are ideal for your type of plant. Make sure to test your water for its PPM (parts per million) and PH. An Ideal PPM is anywhere from 1000 to 2000PPM and a PH of 6.5. A PPM meter and PH meter can be purchased at a hydroponic store or online. It is very important to keep an eye out for PPM and PH levels, as this is crucial in the deployment of your precious plants.

For more information check out your local library on hydroponics as they will give you way more detail on this advance way of growing. Trust me as soon as you see your plants flourish with growth and fruit you will never want to grow outdoors again.

By: Nicholas Lyons