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

When growing plants indoors, one of the most important things to bare in mind is that in order to thrive, plants need sun, not just light. They need the radiation, in different wave lengths. Putting plants by a window might not be enough.

Indoor grow lights replicate the spectrum of the sunlight, unlike a conventional light bulb for home use. There are many kinds; from fluorescent lights, through HID (high intensity discharge) lights, Metal Halide bulbs and LED lights. Each has it’s benefits and drawbacks to be considered.

The fluorescent lights are the cheapest of the indoor grow lights and the simplest to use, but they have to be hung close to the plants. HID lights are relatively small units and produce strong light, but they require a ballast to control the amount of electricity that goes to the lamps, or to the high pressure sodium bulbs which are another kind of HID lights. The bulbs themselves have to be handle with caution, without leaving oily fingerprints on them that might concentrate the light and cause the bulb to explode. The HID indoor grow lights will lean heavily on your electric bill, so to make it cheaper and more useful a reflector might be required.

When using a reflector (a shiny surface that bounces the rays) you can achieve a few things; the light source can be further away, you can use less bulbs since you are getting the light from the bulb and from the reflector. Light reflectors come in many shapes and sizes and cost between $40 to over $300 for reflectors with cooling systems that reduce the need to cool the area when the indoor grow lights are placed in a closed area.

The LED indoor grow lights are highly efficient and burn at much lower temperatures. They are more expensive than the rest, but that is paid back with not having to use a cooling system. The lights use only 20%-30% of the electricity the other systems use. That will reduce the cost of the electricity bill. They require no special modification, since they fit into regular house sockets and last up to 10 years. There are 3 different kinds of LED indoor grow lights, each one provides different part of the light spectrum, depending on your growing needs. Bulbs can cost around $100 each.

You can find indoor grow lights in supply stores that deal with hydroponic gardening supplies. The prices for a whole system of HID lights ranges from $300 to $400.

By: Fay Salmons

How do we know how much water is enough or too much for our plants? The overall health of our plants is determined largely by the proper amount of water they receive. If they do not get enough, they will wilt and collapse. If they get too much, the roots will rot and the plant will eventually die. Also, the plants needs will change with each new season.

Plants will actually tell you, by certain signals, how they are doing. So, it is important that we watch closely for those signs before it is too late.

If the leaves are turning yellow, and soil is dry, the plant is calling for water. If the leaves are turning brown and moist, and the soil smells sour, it is too wet. If the soil stays wet, and the plant is dying off, it probably has root rot.

When a plant has the proper moisture level, it will have firm and vibrant colored foliage. The leaves will be gravitating toward the light source, and they will generally feel cool to the touch.

Plants that lack sufficient moisture will be limp and dull in color, and will feel warm to the touch. However,they can also look like this if their roots are rotted, because they are unable to draw up water.

There are a few ways to test the moisture level in a plant:

The first would be to use your finger (if you don’t mind getting dirt under your nails). This works best with smaller plants because you have to go about 1/3 of the way down into the soil. Test the weight of the plant. If you can lift the plant very easily, it is probably dry. Try lifting the same plant after watering it to judge the difference. Soil Probes are metal, or plastic rods with several notches in them which, when inserted deep into the soil, will pull out soil samples. You just feel the dirt to tell how wet or dry it is. Soil dries out unevenly in potted plants, so you should extract soil from different areas around the plant before deciding how much to water. Moisture Meters will tell you to what degree the moisture level is at. It has a metal probe which you insert deep into the soil. At the top of the probe is a scale which registers the moisture level. This is pretty accurate in telling you when it is time to water, except for certain soil types and high pH levels.

There is no set way to check the moisture level of plants. Some ways are better than others for different plant situations. Use a combination of methods to determine what works best for each plant.

Keep alert for the signals that the plant is giving you, and do a little exploring to find the cause of any problems, and you’ll be able to make the correct watering decisions.

By: Shaun R Lewis

It’s the dead of winter, and you want a fresh salad, but the ground is covered with snow. Or spring is just around the corner, and you want to get a jump on things by starting some of your less common varieties that you know you won’t find in the local nurseries when the time comes to start planting that garden. These are just a couple of situations where you will consider an indoor garden or some type.

There are just a few things that are really necessary for creating an indoor gardening area. To start, you will need some dedicated space. This is not as difficult as it sounds. For those just starting some seeds, the seed companies sell little plastic greenhouses that are only a few square feet for starting a couple of dozen seeds, and you can go up as far as you want from there.

Of course the critical need is light. The temptation is to try putting the garden near a window, and while that is good it is almost surely not going to be enough.

And simply parking a conventional light source near your plants probably won’t do the trick. The part of the light spectrum that plants need is different from the light from most home lighting which has been optimized for the human eye. In fact, the light needs of most plants varies somewhat over the life cycle of the plant. And for indoor situations, it is often the case that since artificial light is not as strong as sunlight, up to 12 to 18 hours of lighting is needed each day.

Artificial Grow Lights

The solution is to use grow lights. These lights are designed to generate the type of light that is needed by plants, and are also designed to deliver that light efficiently to the plants. For artificial lighting it is critical that the light source be as possible to the plants, and needs to be moved as the plants grow and mature to keep it close.

Incandescent Bulbs

Years ago the choice was incandescent grow lights. These often looked like miniature flood lights, but were limited in the amount of light they could deliver because incandescent is a fairly inefficient technology, which in practical terms , while it drives up the cost of the electricity used, more importantly it generates a lot of excess heat. This effectively limits how much lighting can be used before it just gets too hot for the plants.

Fluorescent Grow Lights

Over the years fluorescent lighting has become a lot more cost effective, and it really is the best choice these days for the home gardener. It is about twice as efficient as incandescent lighting, and it is more flexible in the shape and style of the bulbs. For years the most popular version were the long 40 tubes, usually paired in the traditional long reflector that was similar to the old overhead lights seen in kitchens or garages.

But there are some better choices for both the lights and the mounting schemes available today than the traditional long tube fluorescent grow lights…

By: J Ruppel

Training your plants to grow in a hydroponics grow box

Growing plants inside of a hydroponics of grow box is a bit different than growing plants in nature. In nature you have the sun which is providing plenty of light for your plants. In nature your plants have an unlimited amount of space to grow. Unless you are growing in a greenhouse there is no ceiling so you can grow as tall as you want. You can grow your plants as high as you wish with really no envelope. There is nothing stopping your plants from growing even eight or 9 feet tall. Even small plants can grow as tall as trees in nature.

But when you are growing in an enclosed space such as when you’re using a hydroponics grow box for instance. You also have to keep in mind that you’re going to need a couple inches of clearance between the tops of your plants and the bottom of your lights. Because the lights of a hydroponics grow box will create quite a bit heat which can burn the top of your plants if your life gets too close or if you have poor air circulation. This concept is the very reason that we are going to introduce you to the concept of training your plants.

Training your plants absolutely necessary if you’re going to be growing in a grow box or any other enclosed space. Because you have limited amount of vertical height you have to maximize the amount of grow space in your hydroponics grow box to its maximum. Naturally plants are going to want to gravitate towards the light. This is natural for them. Meaning all plant naturally grow towards the middle and directly towards the light source. In order to get the most out of your grow box you will train your plants to use every nook and cranny of space you have available to grow in. Now some of these techniques may seem far out to the new hydroponics grower, but these techniques are commonly used in any type of hydroponic garden, you should learn these well.

It is okay to bend your plants gently until the plant stays where you need it to. For instance there will be of great amount of space around the corners of your grow box. No plants are going to naturally grow into the corners, so in every grow you always have plenty of extra room to grow your plants that is often overlooked. So what we to maximize the space in your grow box is to make your plants grow into the corners. Grab the stalk of your plant you wish to train plant with your thumb and forefinger and apply pressure, gently until you feel the stem snap into place now into place. There may be an association of cracking but the plants will heal very quickly; often in days.

In a few days your plant will heal itself, much the same way you do when you break a bone. The fracture will heal much stronger than it was before the break of the branch and now will stay exactly where you want it. So you can train your plants by snapping them and get your plants to grow at 90? angles all around your hydroponics grow box. So by using this training technique you are able to take advantage of every bit of space you have your hydroponics grow box. . You can train your plants to grow into corners by simply snapping the stalks into the position you want it to stay positioned in. Now you can use all the space in your grow box to the maximum and train your plants to grow extremely short and dense.

Using these training technique you will be able to get the best possible yields of a small contained space. The small bushy plants will be able to deliver more yields than their traditional skinny, tall plants because they can support more weight, and they’ve been trained to grow short and dense; really bush out. This is the best way to get the most out of your space. I highly recommend that you learn to train your plants and practice training regularly in order to get the most out of your yields. This technique is necessary.

If you would like to learn more about training your plants as well as hydroponics [http://www.homegrown-hydroponics.com] in general I would highly recommend checking out the free DVD tutorial videos found on the website in this link. There you will find over 100 videos of DVD quality completely free of charge which teaches you everything you need to know about hydroponics. Topics included are picking lights, adjusting pH levels, and even using CO2 to increase your plants growth rate using a hydroponics grow box. Many other things as well as training are discussed on this website and is helpful to a novice hydroponic gardener.

By: Allen J Carrillo