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Hydroponic Gardening - Choosing A System To Suit Your Demands
By Jonathan HikWik
Hydroponic gardens consist of raising plants in a growing medium other than soil. Most times, this means suspending a plant's roots in a tray of water that is concentrated with nutrient solution. The roots then absorb the essential nutrients that they need in order to provide maximum growth. Because of this, hydroponics gardening plants generally utilize the nutrients more efficiently and then produce bigger blossoms and larger yields. By doing some research online, you can find several successful systems for producing a successful hydroponic gardening system.
Many indoor gardeners employ the Ebb and Flow method (also known as the Flood and Drain method). With this hydroponic gardening system, a submersed pump floods the grow tray with a nutrient rich solution at regular intervals. A mechanism monitors the surrounding environment to help determine the amount of nutrients to provide to the plants for optimum growth. With this hydroponics grow system, gardeners can use a variety of different growing mediums. Gravel and Grow rocks are also helpful when placed in the bottom of the grow tray to help the plants get the nutrients provided by the solution. Or, for smaller plants, gardeners may choose to use individual pots that they can easily move around if needed. Beware of power outages, though. Since some equipment runs on electricity, a power outage can cause the roots to dry out quickly.
Using the water culture method provides the correct amount of nutrients, oxygen, and water to your hydroponics grow system. This common raised gardening method uses plants floating on top of a sheet of Styrofoam while a pump adds nutrient and oxygen filled water to the root systems of the plants. Lettuce and other water-based plants are ideal for this hydroponics grow system and other plants should be grown using other methods that are
more suitable
for them. Teachers also use the water culture method in their classroom
as a teaching tool for their students.
Perhaps the simplest
method for a hydroponic gardening system, or raised gardening, is the Wick method. With this hydroponics gardening method, there are no expensive equipment to buy and no moving parts.
The gardener simply places one end of the wick into a solution rich in nutrients
and the other end of the wick is placed into the growing medium, where the plant
roots are. The nutrient solution is then transferred into the growing medium.
For diagrams and free plans about how to build this type of hydroponics grow
system, visit simplyhydro .com. One disadvantage of this hydroponic gardening system though, is that it is not ideal for large plants, as they use
up the solution and water faster than the wicks can supply the nutrients.
You
can discover either hydroponic gardening systems or raised gardening methods that provide a wide array of benefits to passive or avid gardeners.
With a hydroponic gardening system, you can be as involved or as uninvolved with the growth of
your plants as you want to be. Gardeners have been able to find many hydroponic gardening system diagrams and plans in books and on the internet, including many
free ones at "simplyhydro .com". Finding a hydroponic gardening system that suits your needs is not a difficult task.
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