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