You can begin indoor hydroponics either as a fun hobby where you can supply yourself and your family with tomatoes, lettuce, strawberries or anything you like forever or else you can even start it up to profit from.
I do both, and have been doing for many years now. I make a lot of money from supplying local shops with hydroponic vegetables grown in my own basement and conservatory. I even have a special room in my house dedicated to hydroponics.
This page is going to briefly explain to you how you can set yourself up and begin growing anything you like. But first of all, lets take a look at the benefits of hydroponic gardening.
Why Do Hydroponic Gardening?
When I tell people that I garden without using soil, I often get puzzled looks.
“You can’t garden without soil!” Is often what i’m told, and then I slowly work to convince my uneducated friends about why I do it and why it’s superior to gardening in the more traditional sense. Here is what I tell them:
1. You get many insects and other pests when gardening in soil. They eat the plants and people don’t like to eat that. To get round that, farmers use pesticides. This isn’t a great solution either as it’s bad for the environment and is also not a great thing to be eating.
2. Soil can also pass on disease to plants which can effect whole strains of plants. Because we don’t use soil, our plants actually look many times healthier and they are more tasty too!
3. In hydroponics, we control the exact environment that whatever we’re growing loves! This means we can set the optimum temperature, light intensity and light duration, humidity, water quality and water volume, pH levels of nutrients and also CO2 levels. Is it any wonder that hydroponic plants grow 40% faster and also 40% larger on average.
4. Once you’ve made your initial investments, the cost of running a hydroponic system is around 20% less than with soil based gardening.
5. The grow season is all year round! Our plants don’t stop just because it’s winter time.
Choosing a Hydroponic System
Before you can start hydroponic gardening you will have to decide upon a hydroponic system!
There are around 6 hydroponic systems and the one you use will depend on the scale in which you’d like to take hydroponics and also what you’re thinking of growing.
If you’re going to spend time researching hydroponics then hydroponic systems is one of the things you should put a lot of time into learning about.
Hydroponic systems differ by the method they use to bring nutrient solution to the plant roots.
For example, a wick system uses a wick to transport nutrient solution in a passive way to the roots. This is a very slow method but is very hands off! The wick system is great for slow growing plants or for plants that don’t need lots of nutrients.
The ebb and flow system uses a timer and pump to periodically pump nutrient solution up to the grow medium, to in effect flood the medium. The solution is then drained until the next cycle. This is a great system for plants that require lots of nutrients.
Then there is the NFT system, known as the Nutrient Film Technique. This system pumps oxygenated solution up to the top of a gully where the plant roots are in contact with. The solution runs down the entire length of the gully and back into the reservoir. This is a constant cycle. The NFT system is probably the most popular system with professional hydroponic farmers.
You should definitely learn more about what is the best system depending on what your vision is.
Hydroponic Grow Tents
You have two choices, either you can convert a room to be your hydroponic environment or you can purchase a hydroponic grow tent!
Grow tents are incredible. They are small environments where you have 100% total control of everything! If you can fit your hydroponic system within a grow tent then you’re going to have very fast results.
What You Can Do In A Grow Tent!
1. You can place your grow lights inside the tent and have the lights shine directly on your plants leaves. Because the grow tents have silver lining, the light is all reflected back. Because the outside of the tents are black, no heat can escape.
2. You can install fans in your tent. You can have exhaust and intake fans installed. Some fans even take care of both air coming in and air coming out. Fans are important for controlling temperature, humidity and CO2 levels. So you will need to keep a check on all these things. A good fan used in conjunction with a timer can put all this on autopilot.
3. You can use CO2 cubes or even place in some manure to keep CO2 levels topped up. Plants thrive on CO2 and by putting in extra quantities in your grow tents you’re helping your plants to thrive.
Finally I will say that hydroponics really is a great hobby! I strongly urge you to give it a go!
