Is Hydroponic Gardening for you?

The concept of hydroponic gardening seems to go completely against everything we have been taught and are familiar with, in gardening. How can it be? How can it work? How can you grow plants without soil, indoors?

Hydroponic gardening in fact, has been around since the Hanging Gardens of Babylon. The term hydroponic , comes from the Greek word “hydro” which means water, and “ponic” which means labor. It hasn’t been until recent years though that the popularity of hydroponics in the marketplace has increased rapidly. More and more people are trying this system and learning that hydroponics is one of the best ways to grow heartier, healthier fruits, herbs and vegetables, right in their own homes.

The concept seems difficult, but it is really rather simple. By using a controlled environment, controlling the air temperature, the water and nutrient inputs, and not having to worry about pests, you can grow bigger, healthier plants, in a shorter amount of time and increase your yield by 3 to 10% depending on your system.

Relying on Mother Nature to provide the perfect scenario to garden outdoors can be risky, as we have seen most recently with the freeze down in Florida. Commercial farmers down south are struggling to save their crops from this latest event.

Getting started with a hydroponic system is very easy, and once set up, your hydroponic system is extremely low maintenance. Believe me I was a skeptic until I tried it. Seeing is believing. A seed really can grow in a container full of pellets or wool, placed in a stream of cycling water.

About the Author
Michele Daniels of Grow Home Organics, LLC is a contributing writer for Mike the Gardener Enterprises, LLC. Grow Home Organics is the maker of Quantum Growth, a consortium of over 20 strains of beneficial bacteria that help boost major plant health functions.

Hydroponics Gardening

Hydroponics gardening is a new wave and revolution in a dirt free gardening. As the population has grown and the available space on the earth to grow plants has shrunk and in such a situation, hydroponics gardening has come as a new technique of plant cultivation.

Hydroponics is the art of growing of plants through a mixture of water and nutrients. It is an easy and an efficient way of plant cultivation. Plants grown hydroponically are much healthier as compared to soil based plants, as all the required nutrients are fed directly from the roots, without the need for big bags of gardening soil.

Do you remember your childhood summer holiday assignment in which you had to grow a sweet potato tubers in a water jars. By just providing essential nutrients through water, you could see it grow in a water jar. The hydroponics gardening also works the same way.

Steps that you need to follow to grow plants correctly in a hydroponically garden are given below.

Step 1# Choose right containers to plant crops for your hydroponic garden. You can consider using plastic containers, if you wish to use a hydroponic system with plants in water only.

Step 2 # Select appropriate plants according to the size of your containers. You can choose from almost any of the vegetable or fruits such as lettuce, tomatoes and cucumbers to grow.

Step 3 # Allocate a sunny location for hydroponic crops. Crops grown hydroponically need the same amount of sun light as plants grown in soil need.

Step 4 # To construct your hydroponics garden, you need to order hydroponic kits from any garden suppliers. You would require a simple hydroponic system, a plastic mesh tray, an air pump, and a soilless growing medium to support the roots of the plant. You can choose from sand, gravel, coconut husks as your growing medium.

Step 5# To prepare the container for planting the crop, add one to two inches of sand or coconut husks at the bottom of the container.

Step 6# Place the air pump and add plant nutrient solution is sufficient quantity to fill the container to a reasonable level and then place the mesh tray to cover the container top.

Step 7# Place your plants in the tray, allowing the roots to hang down from the top.

Step 8# Start the air pump when you have finished inserting the plants on the tray. The air pump will provide the required oxygen to the plant from its roots.

Step 9# Monitor the level of nutrient solution in your container.

Prashant T Verma is working as a Technical writer in one of the reputed I.T. companies. He has total 3 years of an experience in writing and has written articles on many different topics. Please visit http://www.prashant-t-verma.blogspot.com and http://www.articlefeeder.blogspot.com/ to find articles on different topics.