The most important
thing for you is to realise is that Hydroponics should be easy. It is
easier for the home grower to grow Hydroponically than in soil and
that’s a fact!
This is the reason for this booklet. In this booklet I hope to show you how easy, how inexpensive, and how satisfying Hydroponics is. Simply there is no easier way to grow, house plants, ornamental plants, vegetables such as tomatoes, lettuce, beans, fruit, root crops such as potatoes, carrots, onions, flowers such as roses and carnations, bulbs, vines, trees, orchids, herbs, anything in Hydroponics. To my knowledge, there is nothing that is grown that cannot be grown using hydroponic techniques. In Europe they call Hydroponics, “soil-less culture”. This is in fact, the best possible way to describe what we do. We take away the nutritional control of soil, by using a balanced liquid containing 99.9% water, and 0.1% of the Minerals found in soil. Instead of soil giving out some nutrient whenever it can, Hydroponics gives the right amount all the time. Hydroponic nutrient is totally organic (in terms of not artificial or synthetic compounds), except the minerals are mined from the ground and are then balanced to exact proportions, so your plant will get exactly what they need, nothing more, and certainly nothing less! In fact if we could take the perfect soil and dissolve it, we would have exactly what a nutrient solution is, totally natural, but under your control.
This
is the question I most want to answer in this book. I will discuss the
major systems and hopefully lead you to the conclusion that Hydroponics
is EASY.
This is the reason for this booklet. In this booklet I hope to show you how easy, how inexpensive, and how satisfying Hydroponics is. Simply there is no easier way to grow, house plants, ornamental plants, vegetables such as tomatoes, lettuce, beans, fruit, root crops such as potatoes, carrots, onions, flowers such as roses and carnations, bulbs, vines, trees, orchids, herbs, anything in Hydroponics. To my knowledge, there is nothing that is grown that cannot be grown using hydroponic techniques. In Europe they call Hydroponics, “soil-less culture”. This is in fact, the best possible way to describe what we do. We take away the nutritional control of soil, by using a balanced liquid containing 99.9% water, and 0.1% of the Minerals found in soil. Instead of soil giving out some nutrient whenever it can, Hydroponics gives the right amount all the time. Hydroponic nutrient is totally organic (in terms of not artificial or synthetic compounds), except the minerals are mined from the ground and are then balanced to exact proportions, so your plant will get exactly what they need, nothing more, and certainly nothing less! In fact if we could take the perfect soil and dissolve it, we would have exactly what a nutrient solution is, totally natural, but under your control.
Apart
from nutrients, the most important thing we do in a Hydroponic growing
design is make sure the plants have access to Oxygen. Basically, this
means that they are not growing in water so they drown, but have a
supply of air around their roots. I will explain more about this
shortly.
The burning question in your mind should be
How do I get started in Hydroponics?
To
get started in Hydroponics is as simple as deciding what system will
best suit the plants I wish to grow? This question determines the type
of system.
The
systems described further on explain whether they suit small plants
like lettuce and herbs with smaller root systems or larger plants like
tomatoes and cucumbers with larger root systems, short term crops like
lettuce or long term crops that will be in the system for more than 3-4
months. Remember, plants such as
tomatoes can be harvested and removed, from short-term systems, before
they clog up the system with roots, but some crops will be harvested for
long periods. E.g. flower and herb crops may cut without the actual
plant being removed. These can be an extreme example, of a long-term
crop, but their roots could be trimmed, or plants replaced with young
seedlings instead of re-cropping.
We’ll discuss more with each system