How to Make a Hydroponic Garden
If you're interested in becoming a hydroponic gardener and want to make a hydroponic garden to take your home garden to the next level, then you're about to enter a new world.
Hydroponics are exciting, fun, and much easier than you might think.
For those who want to grow delicious tomatoes, exotically beautiful flowers, or abundant foods, hydroponics is the way to do it.
Traditionally, hydroponics are grown indoors in either a house or a greenhouse.
Usually they are done with grow lights, but natural sunlight can also be used (especially in a greenhouse setup).
The three things that every hydroponic system will have are: natural or artificial sunlight, a nutrient solution appropriate to the plant and conditions, and something to hold both the solution and the plants in place.
Not very complicated, really.
A very basic hydroponic system is nothing more than a bucket or pot filled with solution and a net (fishnet, hairnet, or cheesecloth will do) suspended in such a way that the plant's roots are in the solution at all times.
The solution is periodically replaced with fresh nutrients and water and the plant is given daily sunlight.
While this setup will work for apartment dwellers on a budget and who aren't planning to grow a lot of plants or vegetables, it won't suffice for the home gardener who's serious about having year-round access to fresh veggies.
For this, a larger, more elaborate system is required.
To make a hydroponic garden on a larger, more serious scale to fit the needs of a family gardener, a little more setup and equipment is needed to make it happen.
A typical home hydroponic garden will be located in a garage, basement, shed, or greenhouse.
It will consist of garden beds (trays), an appropriate nutrient solution, and a circulation system to move the nutrients and water solution through the garden.
Let's have a look at a typical setup for home hydroponics and how it's put together and functioning.
For this setup, we'll assume a pre-fabricated hydroponics kit was purchased and assembled, but you'll soon see that many of the parts can be made in most home workshops quite easily.
The setup consists of two large plastic trays (the "beds" for our garden), enough rock wool media to adequately fill the bottom of those trays, and a nutrient solution pre-mix that requires only dilution.
The kit also has a pump system and reservoir for distributing the solution.
The trays are set up on small frames as a platform to hold them off the ground for easier access by the gardener.
The bottoms of the trays are uniformly covered in the rock wool medium so that the plants have something to "root" to while still allowing clear flow of the nutrient and water solution through the beds.
At one end of the beds is a drain which uses gravity to drain into a reservoir.
From the reservoir comes another hose with a small electric pump which feeds solution to the end of the beds opposite the drain, so the solution flows through the media (and over the plant roots) and to the drain, completing a circuit of liquid.
Over the beds is an infrared grow light to simulate sunlight, which runs to a simple timer and then the wall outlet.
The timer is set to turn the lamps on and off automatically in 12-on, 12-off shifts.
So, the plants grow in the solution using the medium as a "base" to root themselves to.
The solution of nutrients is circulated over the roots using a simple pump and circuit of solution into a reservoir.
The reservoir acts as a holding tank for excess solution and as a convenient point to ad new nutrients and drain off waste products from the system.
The grow light provides the sunlight needed by the plants so they'll thrive.
As you can see from this example, the initial setup of the hydroponics system is the "hardest" part.
Once in place, there is no weeding, no (or very little) pest control, etc.
The only effort needed is to plant, check progress, periodically replace nutrients, and then harvest.
This is part of the reason hydroponics are getting so popular.
The other reason is that the controlled climate and situation allows for massively larger and healthier plants than would otherwise be had.
Hydroponics are exciting, fun, and much easier than you might think.
For those who want to grow delicious tomatoes, exotically beautiful flowers, or abundant foods, hydroponics is the way to do it.
Traditionally, hydroponics are grown indoors in either a house or a greenhouse.
Usually they are done with grow lights, but natural sunlight can also be used (especially in a greenhouse setup).
The three things that every hydroponic system will have are: natural or artificial sunlight, a nutrient solution appropriate to the plant and conditions, and something to hold both the solution and the plants in place.
Not very complicated, really.
A very basic hydroponic system is nothing more than a bucket or pot filled with solution and a net (fishnet, hairnet, or cheesecloth will do) suspended in such a way that the plant's roots are in the solution at all times.
The solution is periodically replaced with fresh nutrients and water and the plant is given daily sunlight.
While this setup will work for apartment dwellers on a budget and who aren't planning to grow a lot of plants or vegetables, it won't suffice for the home gardener who's serious about having year-round access to fresh veggies.
For this, a larger, more elaborate system is required.
To make a hydroponic garden on a larger, more serious scale to fit the needs of a family gardener, a little more setup and equipment is needed to make it happen.
A typical home hydroponic garden will be located in a garage, basement, shed, or greenhouse.
It will consist of garden beds (trays), an appropriate nutrient solution, and a circulation system to move the nutrients and water solution through the garden.
Let's have a look at a typical setup for home hydroponics and how it's put together and functioning.
For this setup, we'll assume a pre-fabricated hydroponics kit was purchased and assembled, but you'll soon see that many of the parts can be made in most home workshops quite easily.
The setup consists of two large plastic trays (the "beds" for our garden), enough rock wool media to adequately fill the bottom of those trays, and a nutrient solution pre-mix that requires only dilution.
The kit also has a pump system and reservoir for distributing the solution.
The trays are set up on small frames as a platform to hold them off the ground for easier access by the gardener.
The bottoms of the trays are uniformly covered in the rock wool medium so that the plants have something to "root" to while still allowing clear flow of the nutrient and water solution through the beds.
At one end of the beds is a drain which uses gravity to drain into a reservoir.
From the reservoir comes another hose with a small electric pump which feeds solution to the end of the beds opposite the drain, so the solution flows through the media (and over the plant roots) and to the drain, completing a circuit of liquid.
Over the beds is an infrared grow light to simulate sunlight, which runs to a simple timer and then the wall outlet.
The timer is set to turn the lamps on and off automatically in 12-on, 12-off shifts.
So, the plants grow in the solution using the medium as a "base" to root themselves to.
The solution of nutrients is circulated over the roots using a simple pump and circuit of solution into a reservoir.
The reservoir acts as a holding tank for excess solution and as a convenient point to ad new nutrients and drain off waste products from the system.
The grow light provides the sunlight needed by the plants so they'll thrive.
As you can see from this example, the initial setup of the hydroponics system is the "hardest" part.
Once in place, there is no weeding, no (or very little) pest control, etc.
The only effort needed is to plant, check progress, periodically replace nutrients, and then harvest.
This is part of the reason hydroponics are getting so popular.
The other reason is that the controlled climate and situation allows for massively larger and healthier plants than would otherwise be had.
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