In this article, we will analyse what is a hydroponic system, how does it work, when you should create your own hydroponic garden, who can do it and why to choose this system among traditional ones.
What is Hydroponic Farming?
It is a method for growing plants using mineral nutrient solutions in water, without soil. The hydroponic gardener regulates the composition of nutrients in the liquid solution used to water the plants. A hydroponic farm will work with suspended roots which may be also supported by an inert medium, such as perlite or gravel.
How does a hydroponic farm look like?
There are many options when creating a hydroponic farm. However, they can be divided into two categories.
On one hand, there is the method which only uses water and nutritive elements needed by the plants, like the ones used by Deep Water Culture. This methodology is cheaper and easy to have at home. Roots are suspended in a solution of water and nutrients.
On the other hand, there are ones which rely on a solid substrate. There are many alternatives but the most popular are the ones using an organic substrate (tree bark or moss) or an inorganic substrate like sand.
When should you lean to hydroponic farming?
Anytime! One of the good things about this method is that you can use it all along the year.
Who can do it?
Anyone can do it, from a highly professional to a beginner. This option is also a good choice for people with little space in urban areas.
How to do it?
You can do it yourself or also buy one on the market. IKEA domestic hydroponic farms offer one of the possibilities that suit anyone who wants to start growing their own food.
Nano Garden, created by Hyundai Engineering, is another good option for any house kitchen. Niwa Owe has a completely automatized system designed by a Spanish startup.
Here you can see a DIY Homemade Deepwater hydroponic system that you can build for $35:
Where to create a hydroponic Farm?
Actually, any place is good for doing it. If you don’t even have one square foot available, windows are good enough for it. Project Windowfarm promotes a good example of this methodology. However, not every system has to be a vertical one or in small places. Here you have another example of a Homemade Hydroponic System with 168 plants.
Why should you do it?
These are the main reasons why you should do Hydroponics:
Stability of the productions throughout the year.
Saving resources, mainly water thanks to the reuse of it.
Safer food due to the absence of chemical products.
More possibilities for the success of crops due to their lower vulnerability to external elements, such as, for example, bad weather.
Would you try it?
