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

In lean times, people have looked to ways to provide for their families, and one of those ways was through growing some of their own food. The “Victory Garden” came into being during World War II and times of food rationing. Today many people are looking for easy ways to grow delicious fruits, vegetables and herbs, and this can be done through indoor gardening. There are gardening methods, such as hydroponics, which require no soil at all in order to grow wonderful foods, as well as aeroponics, which allows plants to grow in the air. With any of these indoor gardening systems, you will need appropriate grow lights in order for the plants to grow and thrive.

Plants need light in order to perform photosynthesis, whereby the plant converts light to energy for itself. This energy is what causes the plant to grow, mature and reproduce. The key to good photosynthesis in indoor gardening situations is having ample grow lights available to all plants. Without grow bulbs, growing plants will struggle to reach the little light available, and will grow spindly and weak stems, if they grow at all.

There are many different types of grow light available, and what you will use depends on the kinds of plants you are growing, in which stage of growth they are, and your budget. Young seedlings require grow lights that are in the blue temperature range, which helps the little plants to grow. Mature plants that you wish to flower and set fruit require grow bulbs in the red and orange light spectrum. You also need very bright light for indoor gardening, because you are trying to imitate natural sunlight.

Many gardeners choose LED grow light for indoor growing. LED grow lights are easily suited to any color spectrum you need. These powerful grow lights also produce much less heat than standard grow bulbs, eliminating the need for fans and cooling systems. LED grow lights also consume less electricity than non-LED grow lights do, saving you money over time in energy costs. LED grow lights are also much lighter in weight than standard lighting fixtures, which makes them easier to hang over your plants, and they do not require extra equipment such as ballasts in order to operate properly.

You can learn more about LED grow light, other types of indoor gardening lights such as HID lamps, metal halide lamps, high pressure grow bulbs and all other types of lighting equipment including digital ballasts, light movers, reflectors and hangers suitable for indoor gardening by looking for information online.

By: Susan Slobac

Regardless of the season or the weather outdoors, LED (light emitting diode) plant lights can make indoor gardening easier and much more economical. Since natural sunlight streaming through a window can be hit or miss in helping plants grown indoors thrive, using LED grow lights helps indoor gardens and plants to grow at a steady pace.

Unlike incandescent or florescent plant lights, LED lights do not contain toxic metals and are cool to operate. That means that this type of grow light won’t burn or dehydrate growing plants no matter how close the light source is to the garden. Another major benefit of using an LED light as an indoor gardening lighting source is that they are not a major consumer of electrical power, providing an economical way to provide light to plants on a daily basis without having the electric bill skyrocket.

LED lights come in a variety of colors, each one suitable for specific garden plants. Blue lights are best when the garden is at the seedling stage, while orange lights are nurturing for fruit bearing plants. Flowering plants tend to thrive best when a red LED light is used in the growing process.

This style of indoor plant lighting reduces the risk of fire when using the units for long periods of time because of their cool operation. Not a lot of space is needed to set up LED lights in an indoor gardening area, making them the perfect size even if space is at a premium.

LED plant lights are economical to use, are eco-friendly, provide a consistent plant lighting source without excess heat or fire risk, and come in a variety of sizes and colors to accommodate any type of indoor gardening operation. LED lighting for plants also tends to last longer than traditional sources of indoor garden lights, making them an economical investment for those who enjoy growing flowers, plants or herbs indoors.

By: Thomas H Jones

Systems that provide proper ventilation for indoor gardens are key to indoor growing success. Without an abundant supply of fresh air such as your plants would receive in a natural, outdoor environment, your efforts at indoor gardening will soon end in an unpleasant, mini-ecological disaster. In this article, we will discuss some of the reasons why ventilation for indoor gardens is needed, as well as some different options.

Grow Room Ventilation Systems – Overview

As you know, in the natural world, air is virtually always in motion – even on days when the air is “still;” there is almost always a slight breeze due to minor temperature fluctuations over various terrain. When it comes to indoor growing, such grow room ventilation systems are necessary in order to replicated this natural environmental condition. These consists of mechanical devices, such as “squirrel fans” or other air-moving devices, which circulates the air from one side of the indoor growing area to the other.

How Much is Needed?

The amount of ventilation for indoor gardens that you will need is dependent on several factors, including the size of the space in terms of cubic feet, how much of the space is used for indoor gardening, and the time of year. Normally, the rate of air exchange is greater during the summer.

A solitary single-speed fan will usually not be adequate for most indoor growing needs. You can determine this by multiplying the floor area by the height of the room; therefore, an indoor gardening room measuring 10′x 20′ in floor area times 10′ in height will need enough fan and ventilation capacity to completely refresh 2,000 cubic feet of air at least once per minute during the summer, and once every three minutes during the winter.

Fan Options

“Squirrel fans” and “Squirrel cage blowers” are technically known as shaded pole blowers. These are used in many applications in which heat build-up is a potential problem, such as HVAC systems and automotive climate control as well as high-end computers. They are constructed of two large rings, which are connected by as many as fifty diagonal blades; the entire assembly spins on its radius, drawing air in axially and exiting through a side opening. These are some of the most efficient fans available for grow room ventilation systems.

Several companies manufacture what are known as “whisper fans,” which are particularly quiet-running. They tend to cost a bit extra, but if noise is a concern for you, these may one of the best indoor gardening supplies you purchase.

By: Susan Slobac

Embarking on an indoor gardening project can seem challenging if a person is completely new to the idea. As with most efforts that involve plants, this form of gardening can be rewarding as long as the new gardener adheres to some basic guidelines.

Most people maintain an indoor garden to have some green during the winter. Maintaining appropriate humidity levels is crucial to keep the plants from wilting in the dry winter air. Misting plants by hand in the morning simulates the presence of dew. This allows them to thrive and maintain proper hydration.

Keeping a plant watered seems easy enough to do, but moderation is key when it comes to indoor plants. This is because these plants grow in containers, which do not drain away excess water as efficiently as a plant growing outdoors would. Avoid drowning plants by determining how much water they need, using a hydrometer to gauge soil moisture levels where necessary.

Plants need light to grow, but this is a challenge for indoor gardening. Many gardeners turn to LED grow lights to meet this purpose. These need less power to run compared to traditional grow lights, yet last longer. Additionally, the light emitted by an led grow light is much brighter than a standard grow light and encompasses the necessary plant growth light spectra. The setup is also minimal compared to standard grow lights, making them cheaper to buy and operate.

Plants need fertilizer to flourish, but it has to be applied sparingly to avoid poisoning them. There is no universal formula for fertilizing different plants, some of which may require specific types of fertilizer, so less is usually best.

For many people, indoor gardening is a hobby that needs time to reward the practitioner. Once a person has gotten the hang of the plants’ requirements, which are usually minimal, the next thing to do is to sit back and admire the results.

By: Van Gordon

Many options are available for indoor gardeners when it comes to choosing the best type of lighting scheme to maximize plant growth at a healthy rate. Indoor gardening with Sylvania metal halide light bulbs (i.e. 100W Metalarc) is one of the most popular ways to grow plants indoors, for several different reasons. This allows a great deal of precision in the amount of lighting and heat that is emitted, and includes the benefit of ultraviolet radiation that helps stimulate plant growth in a very impressive way. Most of the time, an indoor gardener will combine several different types of lights in the effort to best replicate the natural world in each phase of a plant’s growth.

Using this type of lighting scheme has several benefits, including the fact that metal halides emit some UV rays, which have been shown to increase the rate of overall plant growth. This is not true of other lighting setups, such as high pressure sodium lamps. Indoor gardening with metal halide light bulbs ensures a fast, healthy growth rate and thus is especially recommended during the initial vegetative stage of the plant growth cycle. The lighting can be continued and carried over into the second, flowering stage as well.

If deciding to continue indoor gardening with Sylvania metal halide light bulbs during the flowering stage, a few tips should be kept in mind. The color outputs can come in at all ends of the spectrum. Blue, cooler tints have been shown to increase overall plant growth, but warmer reddish/orange hues by contrast seem to have a direct effect on the stimulation of flowering, budding, and fruiting. A combination of lamps that emit different color hues may be used to achieve the overall best result for a flowering plant.

A gardener is certainly not restricted to just one type of lamp. In fact, many times the lighting types will be combined into a pre-made complex lighting system that requires the least amount of decision making and effort on the gardener’s part. Indoor gardening with Sylvania metal halide light bulbs however continues to be one of the safest and most versatile methods of stimulating plant growth and the flowering process alike. For this reason, it will continue to be one of the best sellers for indoor gardeners on both a professional or hobbyist level. The type of lighting needed will of course also depend on the type of plant that is being grown, with every different plant having different specific needs.

By: Mark P Hudson

Indoor gardening provides consumers with an opportunity to cultivate their own flowers, herbs and vegetables throughout the year. People who live in apartments or colder climates, most times indoor gardening will be the only practical option. But, just recently constant, bright lights had been a problem for indoor gardeners. Two of the popular choices for indoor grow lights were the metal halide bulbs and the high pressure sodium bulbs, which combined to form HID lighting or high intensity discharge.

HID lighting generates a great deal of blue spectrum lighting, meaning it imitates the sunlight. But, “high intensity discharge” implies that these types of lights take a lot of energy. This means that for those who care about the sustainability of the environment, the percentage of energy that the HID system would take is a serious problem.

Now, technologies advancements provide “LED grow lites” for indoor gardeners. The LED is short for “light emitting diode”, and this is much more energy-efficient when compared with other types of lights. In comparison to HID growing lights, the LED growing bulbs will use only a small fraction of energy. Additionally, these lights also generate much less heat. Improved energy efficiency indicates that gardeners are able to reduce their carbon footprint whilst still experiencing indoor gardening experience.

However, it did not seem practical to grow plants with LED lighting initially since the light produced wasn’t as powerful as the HID bulbs. But, in recent times technology has advanced to make it simpler for gardeners to grow with these LED systems. Recognizing that plants just use red along with blue spectrum lighting for the development process, the LED manufacturers have began to make the lights which only generate blue and red light.

Finally, nursery owners and botanists are now seeing the benefits of using the “LED growing lites”. These people fully understand that growing with LED system will be the coming trend, so they have started cultivating plants which thrive especially with these indoor lights.

By: Colin Scott

Light is essential to herb growth. Gardening indoors necessitates providing your plants with light similar to what they would get outside in the sun. Grow lights are extremely important for any grow room gardening operation. Sunlight provides a great deal of light for? herbs growing outdoors and creating that effect indoors is difficult.

When planning your grow room lamp system the important thing to remember is the light spectrum frequency of the bulbs you utilize. The light spectrum is a measure of the frequencies of light. Different wavelengths of light have different effects on a crops growth and so thought should be used to decide what types of lamp you are going to utilize and when.

Lighting can require a lot of electricity and make a large amount of heat. To counteract these issues special lamps have been created to be very efficient; able to provide herbs with adequate energy to grow and bud while utilizing a tiny bit of the energy as normal bulbs. The main bulb types are fluorescent grow bulbs, high intensity discharge lamps including high pressure sodium lights and metal halide bulbs, and LED grow lamps. Growers use these types of lights either alone or in combination.

Normal fluorescent lamps can be utilized to cultivate indoors however several special lights have been created that emit more light and are better for grow room cultivation. High output fluorescent lights emit double the light as regular bulbs. Compact fluorescent bulbs emit light like that of larger lights but take up less area and can be used in confined rooms.

High pressure sodium bulb and metal halide bulbs are both used by many gardeners and are categorized as high intensity discharge lamps. High pressure sodium emit bulb in the lower range of the spectrum. They are most effective when utilized for the vegetative cycle of growth. Metal halide bulbs produce light on the cooler end of the spectrum and are normally utilized for the flowering stage of herb development.

LED bulbs have undergone substantial recent advancement and are currently being utilized as grow lights. New designs are cheap, bright and can be designed to emit specific wavelengths of light needed by herbs.

Whatever the flowers you are trying to cultivate and your hydroponic room space limitations you have one of the many lighting options available should be appropriate for your needs.

By: Steven Toms

Geranium (Geranium spp.) is an annual, biennial, and perennial plants with 422 species. Its name was derived from the Greek “geranos” meaning “crane”. The name cranes bills was derived from the fruit’s appearance of the fruit capsule of other species and from the shape of the unsprung column which looks like the bill of the crane in some species, hence the name cranes bills.

Geraniums are excellent for indoors, but mostly they are grown outdoors. For indoor planting you need to follow some planting requirements for your successful indoor gardening.

Some ways to grow Geranium indoors

Soil Medium. The right amount of soil mixture for Geranium consists of the same ratio of garden soil, peat moss, and coarse sand. In the absence of sand, you can replace it with perlite which can be purchased in some nursery stores. There are also some ready made soil mix you buy provided they are in line with the right soil mixture requirements of rich in organic materials.

Container. You should select a potting container with good drainage, light, large to accommodate the plants during its growing period.

Climate. Geranium favors with enough light to produce more flowers during its productive phase. Place your potted plants in a location facing south and west windows where the plants can receive sunlight the whole day. If there’s not enough sunlight to supply the plant’s need, put up an artificial light at least 12 inches beneath of fluorescent bulb during the day for 16 hours continues supply. Temperatures during the day of 65 to 70 and around 55 degrees Fahrenheit at night are ideal for your success in your indoor plants. Don’t place your geraniums in cold, hot or drafty areas.

Water requirements. Geraniums doesn’t tolerates with too much wet soil. Monitor the soil mix condition, it should be dry between each day and apply water only when the soil is dry from a depth of 4 – 6 inches from the surface of the pot. Maintain the soil moisture not exceed its water needs, water only as required.

Plant nutrition requirements. Apply fertilizer from slow-release fertilizer solutions directly into the container, not hitting the plants. Fertilize at least once a month. Follow strictly the direction in the fertilizer label to attain a good result. Don’t fertilize when the soil is dry, the roots will be damaged by the solution.

Pest and disease control. The most common insect pests of Geranium are the mealy bugs, caterpillars, mites, white-flies, and aphids. These pests can be controlled by any insecticides intended for the purpose. But, for friendly control measures, I have my own homemade insecticides composed of; 2 tablespoon of vegetable oil, 2 tablespoon baking soda, and 2 tablespoon powder laundry soap. Mix the solution properly and spray directly into the subjects until they’re totally eradicated.

Botrytis blossom is prevalent when the condition is cool and damp causing the premature drying and fading of the flowers. To control this disease, remove some old flowers before they starts to fade away and provide the area with good air supply.

Happy gardening!

By: Crisologo Ramasasa

LED grow lights are very useful for various purposes. One of the main uses is indoor gardening. If the plants are not able to get natural heat and light, they are provided by the LED grow light color spectrum you choose for your garden. These lights are very efficient and provide light to the plants for a long time. Since the LEDs are very small you can easily fit them into electronic devices for making the lights. They are capable of saving about 75% of the energy than the traditional bulbs. By using about 100 watts of power these lights can last about fifty times longer than the conventional lights. LED grow lights help the plants to grow faster. This is because of the wavelength of light emitted by them. Since plants require light for their photosynthesis they absorb the light emitted by these devices. They emit the light in the wavelength which is required by the plants. Normal bulbs may not be as effective as the LEDs. Another advantage of using LED is that it does not deteriorate. LED lights are designed in such a way that they are shock resistant and do not burn off. You can replace the bulbs when the brightness decreases considerably.

These lights are very important for indoor gardening because they are free of toxic materials unlike the fluorescent bulbs. The LEDs come in a wide variety of styles. Some types can even flash and there are some which are multicolored as well. Some of them are alphanumeric too. A special kind of bulb which produces extremely bright illumination is the UFO. A standard UFO emits red and blue lights. But these days you can also find the tri-band varieties which give a special spectrum of red, blue and orange.

These lights provide the plants with appropriate wavelength of light necessary for their growth during all the stages. Another variety is the five-band spectrum which offers red, blue, orange and two special bands with blue and red spectrum. Choosing the correct LED grow light color spectrum helps you to enhance the plant growth and take care of them properly during any season. They also facilitate increased yields, larger blooms and greater vegetative growth.

By: Patrick Malone