Advantages of Hydroponic Gardening
1. Space Saver
Hydroponics saves an incredible amount of space compared to traditional soil gardening. Usually, a plant’s roots need space to spread out through the soil, not with hydroponics. Instead, nutrients are applied directly to the root zone, so there is no searching for food and all that energy can be focused on above ground production. Because of this, you get to pack your plants closer together, resulting in a huge space savings!
2.Versatility
Plants can be grown almost anywhere; indoors, rooftops, urban areas and anywhere soil gardening is just not possible.
3. Saves Water
The plants eat and drink exactly what they need and the rest gets recycled unless you're on a drain to waste feeding schedule.
4. No Weeding Necessary
No more wasted time and energy weeding your plants.
5. Less Pests and Diseases
Following that same logic, pests and diseases are drastically reduced in hydroponics. Soil is taken out of the picture and replaced with one of the common hydroponic growing media. Eliminating soil also eliminates a lot of the different soil borne diseases and pests that plague traditional gardening.
6. Time Savings
Not only does growing hydroponically save you the time of weeding, pest control, and watering; it also speeds up the growth of the plant. If you’re growing outdoors, that means you get to squeeze in more harvest cycles before your growing season ends. You also get to observe the growth of plants at a quicker pace and learn about all of the different things you could do to improve the growth much quicker. For example, you can take a head of lettuce from seedling to harvest in around a month in hydroponics compared to two months in soil.
7. Gives You absolute Control
You become the master of your plant’s environment. It’s up to you to create the perfect nutrient mixture, temperature, humidity and growing schedule.
8. Become An Amateur Scientist
All of the additional control you have over your growing environment makes for a great way to learn how to grow plants. You can tweak the variables and see how your plants react. You get to customize your environment to whatever plant you’re growing. Each plant is unique. Figuring out what adjustments you should make to your recipe is part of the fun of it.
1. Space Saver
Hydroponics saves an incredible amount of space compared to traditional soil gardening. Usually, a plant’s roots need space to spread out through the soil, not with hydroponics. Instead, nutrients are applied directly to the root zone, so there is no searching for food and all that energy can be focused on above ground production. Because of this, you get to pack your plants closer together, resulting in a huge space savings!
2.Versatility
Plants can be grown almost anywhere; indoors, rooftops, urban areas and anywhere soil gardening is just not possible.
3. Saves Water
The plants eat and drink exactly what they need and the rest gets recycled unless you're on a drain to waste feeding schedule.
4. No Weeding Necessary
No more wasted time and energy weeding your plants.
5. Less Pests and Diseases
Following that same logic, pests and diseases are drastically reduced in hydroponics. Soil is taken out of the picture and replaced with one of the common hydroponic growing media. Eliminating soil also eliminates a lot of the different soil borne diseases and pests that plague traditional gardening.
6. Time Savings
Not only does growing hydroponically save you the time of weeding, pest control, and watering; it also speeds up the growth of the plant. If you’re growing outdoors, that means you get to squeeze in more harvest cycles before your growing season ends. You also get to observe the growth of plants at a quicker pace and learn about all of the different things you could do to improve the growth much quicker. For example, you can take a head of lettuce from seedling to harvest in around a month in hydroponics compared to two months in soil.
7. Gives You absolute Control
You become the master of your plant’s environment. It’s up to you to create the perfect nutrient mixture, temperature, humidity and growing schedule.
8. Become An Amateur Scientist
All of the additional control you have over your growing environment makes for a great way to learn how to grow plants. You can tweak the variables and see how your plants react. You get to customize your environment to whatever plant you’re growing. Each plant is unique. Figuring out what adjustments you should make to your recipe is part of the fun of it.
HELPFULL TIPS
Novice Setting Up
1. Always test your water before you start. ph and tds(total dissolved solids) meters will let you know what kind of water you are working with and what needs to be done to it. (filter or ph adjustments.)
2. Most plants will need their medium (what the plant is growing in) and water to be in the 5.5-7.0 range.
3. If your tap water is above 300 ppm (parts per million) this might be a sign of hardwater or polluted water. You might want to consider a reverse osmosis filter or using distilled water.
4. Make sure to assess your gardening space before you decide on what technique to use. Do you have easy access to water, or a place to drain water? Is there a way to assure proper ventilation? If something floods will it be costly? Is there enough space to work in? Is there enough electrical outlets? How high are your ceilings?(plants can't be too close to the grow lights) Knowing these things will help you set up the proper system that fits your needs
5. If you are growing indoors you will need to seal the room with a reflective material to maximize the light available to plants and covering the floors as well if you don't want to get the floors wet or dirty.
6. Setting up all ventilation and electrical should be done first before anything
7. Hanging lights with ceiling hooks and light pulleys will allow you to raise and lower lights as you please.
8. Inline fans and oscillating fans are recommended for proper circulation and ventilation.
9. Humidity must never be allowed to go over 60% . This promotes mold and will reek havoc on an indoor garden. Ideally 40% humidity is where your environment should be but as long as its not over 60% plants will be fine. Humidity gauges are a must, proper ventilation will help with humidity but in some cases a dehumidifier will have to be used.
10. Temperatures can range anywhere from 50-90 degrees but ideal temps for most plants will be 65-80 degrees.
Novice Growing
1. Most common mistake for beginners are that the put their lights to close to the plants. Some grow lights give off a lot of heat and plants cannot develop properly exposed to high temperatures a good rule of thumb is holding your hand under the light and if you can feel the heat on your hand its too close.
2. Next biggest mistake is over feeding and overwatering. Over zealous gardeners tend to drown or burn their crops with too frequent of waterings or over fertilizing. Both will severly stunt growth and in some cases even kill the plant. With ferilizers, it is important to start with 1/4 strengh of directed use and move up from there, depending on how your plants react. Crispy/discolored leave edges will appear if fertilizer is to strong. If this happens plants should be flushed with plain water or a clearing agent before nutient burn progresses. Overwatering usually happens in soil grows with out proper drainage. The overwatering does not allow the plants roots to get enough oxygen essentially drowning them. This is not a problem in hydroponic gardening because of good drainage and the use of aerated water. Overwatered plants displays signs of droopy curled leaves, stunted growth and a crispy look and feel to the leaves.
1. Most common mistake for beginners are that the put their lights to close to the plants. Some grow lights give off a lot of heat and plants cannot develop properly exposed to high temperatures a good rule of thumb is holding your hand under the light and if you can feel the heat on your hand its too close.
2. Next biggest mistake is over feeding and overwatering. Over zealous gardeners tend to drown or burn their crops with too frequent of waterings or over fertilizing. Both will severly stunt growth and in some cases even kill the plant. With ferilizers, it is important to start with 1/4 strengh of directed use and move up from there, depending on how your plants react. Crispy/discolored leave edges will appear if fertilizer is to strong. If this happens plants should be flushed with plain water or a clearing agent before nutient burn progresses. Overwatering usually happens in soil grows with out proper drainage. The overwatering does not allow the plants roots to get enough oxygen essentially drowning them. This is not a problem in hydroponic gardening because of good drainage and the use of aerated water. Overwatered plants displays signs of droopy curled leaves, stunted growth and a crispy look and feel to the leaves.