I plan on doing a lot more indoor gardening this year. One reason is home grown food is healthier and my produce will have no chemicals and the other reason is our summer was pretty much non-existent and my garden was reduces in size to deal with the weather.

photo credit: Handolio

So I am not burned out on gardening this year and there are areas I want to experiment in. One area is small space gardening techniques, growing a variety of plants in a small space to see exactly what I can successfully grow.

Another area is hydroponic gardening.

When I first read about hydroponic gardening I was put off on this style of gardening. The list of chemical made me think the food would be toxic! But as I read more these are chemicals in the soil and are needed to grow. We also need these chemicals in our systems to be healthy.

So this winter I will be experimenting in different styles on hydroponic gardening. Vertical gardening, growing walls and greenhouse hydroponic will all be in the plan.

photo credit: _foam

So if you are a pro in hydroponic gardening join in and offer suggestions.

And if you are a novice, like me, be prepared for an adventure.

In the next few weeks you will see a lot of articles by guest writers who know about this topic than I do. And hopefully in the late winter and spring I will have a wonderful garden to show off.

Technorati Tags: gardening experiments, greenhouse gardening, healthy gardening, hydroponic gardening, indoor gardening, small space gardening

Normally, when individuals decide to begin hydroponic gardening, they will set up a system wherever they have some additional space, such as the basement. Obviously, though, most folks aren’t interested in letting their hydroponic garden invade their homes!

photo credit: _foam

That’s why many individuals who are committed to hydroponics will look into purchasing or constructing a greenhouse.

Growing your plants in a greenhouse is preferable in many ways to just setting them up in an unused area of your home. You’ll find that if you have your garden inside a greenhouse it’s much simpler to create an environment which will permit it to thrive.

Temperature, ventilation and lighting are all easier to control. As well, you need lots of room in order to install the irrigation and lighting systems that are needed for hydroponic gardening. You can install this equipment precisely where you need it in a greenhouse. Controlling the water and lighting are more imperative in a hydroponics garden compared to a normal garden.

Lighting is in fact the main reason why a greenhouse is so ideal for a hydroponic garden. When you grow plants hydroponically, it is vital that they get adequate amounts of light. But it is also important to remember that too much direct light allows algae to grow and that is not useful.

In a greenhouse setting, daylight is filtered and diffused naturally. It’s even possible to regulate the lighting level and angle of sunlight with blinds or shutters. Less energy consumption is another advantage as you won’t need to continually run the hydroponic lights.

When you have a greenhouse, you’ll see that the system for providing nutrients to your plants is less difficult to set up and maintain. This is vital to how well your hydroponic specimens grow and thrive. When plants grow in solution rather than the ground, the pH content can change more rapidly.

There will be great variations in alkaline and acid levels because it’s all dependent on the water. With a greenhouse, it’s not difficult to implement an automated system of pH control, which gives you a break from forever checking the levels.

The temperature reading is also imperative in terms of hydroponic gardening. You’ll be able to keep heaters at bay when a greenhouse is well built as it does a decent job at maintaining the temperature.

This is particularly useful if you live somewhere that gets cold but has plenty of sun. You can also install air vents and fans to regulate the temperature in your greenhouse even more exactly.

There is a good selection of greenhouses kits to be found, however you can also build one yourself from scratch. The scope of the available models and sizes is quite large. Should your hydroponic garden become larger you can add on to a number of the greenhouse packages that are available. As you can see, many worthwhile factors exist for using a greenhouse for hydroponic gardening.

Hydroponics is an increasingly popular technique for year-round, indoor gardening. Find out more at Hydroponic Gardening.

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Hydroponics is no longer a subject in mysterious form only known in the confines of a science laboratory. It is an established way of commercial agriculture feeding the world today.
photo credit: joaoa

Research on the nutritional requirements of plants and the hydroponics system were conducted since 1699 until today. By 1925, there were already practical applications of hydroponics established in the greenhouse industry. By the 1930s, there was a huge development in the industry as scientists grown mindful of the bright future of producing crops hydroponically.

In 1930, Gericke developed the first commercial hydroponic unit in the USA. With such model, the American forces even employed this system in the Pacific to produce vegetables during World War II.

Developments continued for the commercial use of hydroponics leading to the spread of the technology worldwide. The momentum finally exploded with the development of a system known as NFT by Dr Alan Cooper in the 1970’s. This improved the nutritional formulations that caused the hydroponic farming of several plants commercially possible. The NFT system is a system of covered plastic channels with the plants growing through holes in the covers while the roots of the plants are based in the nutrient solution.

Since then, the development of automatic control systems with hydroponics system has become accessible as well as digital testing equipment. This has unfolded the field of hydroponics to even the ordinary home gardener.

Nevertheless, hydroponics is still in a developing stage. There are still plenty of range for experimenting with plants and trees. As a home gardener, hydroponics gardening will change your lifestyle by providing you with fresh fruit, vegetables and flowers all year round. Even the banana plants, only found in the tropics, can be cultivated the hydroponics way.

Technorati Tags: agriculture, container gardening, gardening, grow hydroponic, hydroponic, hydroponic gardening, hydroponic system, hydroponic systems, Hydroponics