When one thinks of Hydroponics scientists in lab coats or Disney
World's exhibit at EPCOT may come to mind. Then one may think that this
technology is brand new and that they need to be a botanist to succesfully
gartden hydroponically. Well let us be the first to tell you that is not
true at all. In fact, hydroponics can be traced as far back as Egyptian
times, with thier incredibly lavish floating gardens. and with a few tips
anyone can harvest up to 100 times more tomatoes, for instance, in the
same growing space using 90% less water and with relative ease and cleanliness.

How is this you ask? Hydroponics comes from the latin words hydro, which ofcourse means water, and ponos, which means to work. The idea behind all of this is that if you can provide a inert sioless substrate, such as rockwool or perlite, and feed it with a high quality hydroponic nutrient and water solution, either timed or constantly, your plants will grow faster and produce more fruit. How? your plants will grow faster abd produce better because your plants roots are not having to expend alot of energy on a massive root system to find food and the air to water ratios in the sioless medias are much higher.

There are several different ways to garden hydroponically, but the common denominators in the method you choose are the water, the hydroponic nutrient, and the soiless substrate. generally one will choose a mehtod that matches the type of crop they are growing.For instance NFT, or Nutrient Film Technique would be used for smaller crops and a top drip system would be used on larger crops. If all of this sounds Greek to you perhaps you should try the simplest and perhaps most high performance method, Water Culture.

Water culture is as simple as putting an aquarium bubble stone attached to an air pump in a tray of nutrient rich water. Just add your plants in the
tray and watch them explode. Two more things the novice hydroponic gardener must be made aware of and thast is the PH of the water and the amount of nutrients present in the water. To test Ph you can get a digital meter for about 50$, or you can get lithmus paper or a dropper kit like the ones you use for pools. Generally plants like the PH to be between 6 and 7, however some plants like it lower or higher so know what your plants needs. Measuring the amount of nutrients in the water takes a meter that you can get for about 100$ (you may be able to find them cheaper but i would not suggest doing so due to lack of quality). This meter will measure the TDS, or Total Dissolved solution in the water. These meters cannot tell which elements are actually present, rather all of them combined. The amount of Total Dissiolvled solution needed will vary depending on crop. Lettuce for instance likes a 400-600 ppm range
while tomatoes will need 2200-2600 ppm.

In closing, hydroponics can be as simple, or complex as you would
like it to be. There is a ton of information out there and even a couple
of magazines devoted to hydroponic gardening, so take this seed we are
offering you and plant it. Just don't use soil.

Heather and Jason Griffis have been gardening hydroponically for eight years. Contact this writer:writer@newlifejournal.com

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