The urban gardener asked:

hydroponic plants receive all the nutrients they need for growing and fruiting from the growing liquid with all the nutrients dissolved in it. Hydroponic nutrients are available in great variety at specialized hydroponic stores. By the way, both chemical nutrients and organic nutrients can be used for the needs of hydroponic gardening. The only thing to remember is that organic fertilizers require more skills, time, and attention to use them effectively.

Hydroponic gardening allows anyone to grow organic vegetables, fruits, and flowers. A little research, learning and training, combined with enthusiasm, will soon bring the first success in hydroponics to you.

Today, there are many ready-made hydroponic systems available on the market. They are not too expensive, but such systems can really help to make an easy start in hydroponic gardening. For the beginning gardeners it is even recommended to choose simple inexpensive hydroponic systems – they are enough to give you the necessary experience. Of course, you can always build you own system to suit all your particular growing conditions and requirements, when you have enough experience and understanding of how hydroponic system works.

If organized properly, hydroponics gardening can even be easier than traditional plants growing. For example, with hydroponic system it is much easier and less time-consuming to test and maintain the necessary pH level in comparison to the regular soil gardening, where even the pH level testing can be a very challenging task, not speaking about maintaining it on the required steady level.

After all, it is necessary to remember, that in spite of the fact that hydroponics differs significantly from traditional gardening, it is nothing but an alternative approach to grow the same fresh, tasty, and healthy food. Just spend some time to research the topic, evaluate all the benefits of hydroponic gardening – and you will see that there are many advantages offered by hydroponics. Growing healthy organic vegetables without polluting and exhausting fertile soils is definitely one of them.

The urban gardener asked:


Key Facts on Hydroponics

Hydroponic plants do not require soil to grow in. They use different growing media instead. All the required nutrients are supplied through nutrient solution. Hydroponic system allows cultivation of plants, irrespectively to climate and environmental condition. Hydroponic system allows increasing the density of plants significantly (up to 3 times higher in comparison with traditional soil gardens). It may be surprising but hydroponic plants consume considerable less water than those, growing in soil. Since soil is not used in hydroponic systems, there is no need to worry about crops rotation. Hydroponic plants are healthier, because there are no or very little risks for them to get infected by parasites, living in soil. Hydroponic gardening does not depend on seasons of the year. You can grow plants and gather harvest all year round.

Hydroponics in the Present

Thanks to many technological achievements and innovations, hydroponic growing has already become much more effective, convenient and affordable. Plastic, used for manufacturing of hydroponic equipment, such as plumbing products, fittings, growing pots and containers, etc., made it possible to lower the cost of hydroponic systems significantly.

Multiple electronic devices, such as pumps, timers and monitors, have made hydroponic growing a fully automated process. Furthermore, the hydroponic plants themselves have evolved significantly, ensuring high yield results even if used under the most extreme environmental conditions, for example, at the submarines.

Hydroponics in the Future

The next goal of hydroponics developers is to make indoor gardening eco-friendly and more energy-saving. In this regard, current achievements in the development of solar heating systems look very promising. On the other hand, current innovations open new opportunities for designing new growing light systems with higher lumen output, better spectrum profile and lower electricity consumption. In the long run, hydroponic systems may allow increasing the amount of grown plants to completely satisfy the needs of people in food products, without using additional natural resources and soil.

Furthermore, maybe in the nearest future hydroponic systems, which have already been tested in space on the space stations, will even become another valuable step in the space exploration by the humans.