Often called the cultivation of plants in water, hydroponic gardening is quickly proliferating due to the lack of a large water supply or fertile farmland. Actually, the method is not new. The famous Hanging Gardens of Babylon, one of the Ancient Wonders of the World, used a form of hydroponics to cultivate the plants.
Today, research has since determined that many different aggregates or media will support plant growth, not just soil, and hydroponic gardening is just one of them. One of the most blatant advantages of hydroponics is that it saves space. For this reason, home gardeners have adopted the technique, growing fresh vegetables and plants even in apartment balconies. What’s more, hydroponic gardening has become a widely preferred method for greenhouse gardening because of its space-saving benefits.
Hydroponic gardening uses a sterile medium. For the home gardener, this means that there are no weeds to remove and no soil-borne pests to worry about. In addition, diseases caused by these pests are minimized, if not eliminated completely.
It has also been found that properly grown hydroponic plants are healthier and more vigorous. This is because in hydroponic gardening, no soil is used, which means that the nutrients are more readily available to the plant. Thus, the plants can mature faster, yielding an earlier harvest of vegetable and flower crops.
The big advantage of hydroponic gardening is the ability to automate the entire system with a timer. This reduces the actual time it takes to maintain plant growth requirements. Automation also provides flexibility to the gardener. With hydroponic gardening, you can be gone for long periods of time without having to worry about watering the plants.
What Plants Need
All plants, whether grown hydroponically or traditionally, require nutrients, water, light, and air to grow. If grown in soil, your plants obtain nutrients and water from the soil. Uptake is slow because while soil provides the nutrients, it also impedes the roots’ access to these nutrients.
In hydroponic gardening there is no soil involved. And because water and nutrients are always available, plants are never stressed. You can make sunlight and air available by outdoor hydroponic gardening system. However, if you prefer to do your gardening indoors, you may need to use artificial devices to provide adequate light and air circulation.
Metal halide lamps and sodium vapor lamps used in conjunction with incandescent light bulbs are often used in hydroponic gardening. But gro-lights, or fluorescent lights may also be used.
Oxygen is needed to keep plant roots alive. Healthy roots (which are white in color) are responsible for the uptake of all nutrients for the plant. It is impossible for plants to survive if the roots die. Even if you have all the growth requirements of plants on hand, they would still be useless since the plants would not be able to use them without roots. To keep adequate oxygen supply, hydroponic gardening uses air circulation. This technique mixes the air and allows the plant to draw out the carbon dioxide necessary to carry on photosynthesis.
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Hydroponic Equipment
... nutrient solutions for use in your hydroponics system, and iGSL iLS120-ON 120V On Switcher, a hydroponic equipment used to turn on other equipment and power circuit. Hydroponics.net Greentrees Hydroponics at Hydroponics.net is a specialist when it comes to plant grow lights and reflectors designed for compatibility with any hydroponics system. In addition, Greentrees Hydroponics also offer the following hydroponic equipment: Hydroponic Gardening * Ballasts, reflectors, and bulbs * Hydroponic systems * Nutrient * Nutrient enhancers * Propagation and cloning * Growing media * pH and TDS * Pumps * Pots * Tubing and fittings * Insect Control * Fungicide AtlantisHydroponics.com Atlantis Hydroponics offers hundreds of products for the hydroponic and soil grower alike. With...
Hydroponic Supplies
Harvest Garden Supply offers alternative gardening supplies for the home gardeners. They provide organic fertilizers, natural insect controls, hydroponic supplies, indoor plant grow lights, hobby greenhouse, containers, propagation and irrigation supplies, and more. Since 1988, HomeHarvest.com has been shipping to hobby growers, and most of their gardening products are available 365 days a year. In addition to their hydroponic supplies, they also provide useful and informational resources pertaining to virtually every aspect of plant culture and growth issues. GardenAllYear.com An organic gardening and hydroponic supplies store, GardenAllYear.com offers you one of the largest selections of supplies and materials for organic gardening and hydroponics. Their products include: * Organic fertilizers - including bat guano, worm castings, hormone supplements, and rose & flower food and more * Growing media - including rockwool, vermiculite, per lite, and more * Organic pest control - including garden fungicide, pure Neem oil, and much more * Advanced nutrients - including voodoo juice, B-52 fertilizer booster...
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... most of these are probably just variations of these six basic types. Wick Hydroponic System Considered as the simplest hydroponic system, the Wick system is a passive system. This is because it has no moving parts. All that you have to do is place a wick unto the nutrient solution contained in the reservoir. The wick draws the solution into the growing medium, without need of any other extraneous movements. Besides the wick and the reservoir, the wick hydroponic system may include the following basic components: * Grow tray * Growing medium * Air pump * Airstone This hydroponic system may use a variety of growing medium, such as Perlite, Vermiculite, Pro-Mix, and Coconut Fiber, among other things. The biggest drawback of this system is that plants that are large or...
Indoor Hydroponic Systems
... may be perfectly suited for indoor hydroponic systems. For the plants' nutrient source, indoor hydroponic systems use nutrient solution. It was in the 1890s when Russian researchers first developed the right formula conducive for plant growth. The nutrients of course consist of nitrogen, phosphorous, potassium, and other trace minerals, which are dissolved in water and allowed to flow throughout the growing area, delivering the necessary nutrients to the roots of the plants. One advantage of indoor hydroponic systems is that they do not use standard fertilizers. Instead, what is used is the nutrient solution, which is really just a specially designed fertilizer. Because of the concentration of nutrients in these solutions, the essential growth elements needed by plants are more readily available to them. Indoor hydroponic systems can be very simple to build. In Hydroponic Gardening fact, you may not even need to purchase a lot of materials for you to start building your own system. Depending on the size of your...
Hydroponic
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Hydroponic Grow Systems
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Hydroponics
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Garden Stores
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