Hydroponic gardening

R.O.S.S.I

R.O.S.S.I

R.O.S.S.I

Soldato
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Does anyone do any hydroponic gardening on here?

I've seen more and more of it pop up whilst doing various bits of gardening related research and it's got me curious about if many people opt to do it.

My basic understanding is that you basically set up a system that pushes a flow of water over the root system of whatever you're growing rather than planting into a compost/soil substrate. I know there is going to be tonnes more to it but that was the basic jist that I got of it.

In particular I've seen the DIY vertical towers people are making and growing heaps of fruit and veggies from in a very condensed space. Growing a tower of lettuces, herbs, tomatoes etc is quite appealing for the summer months!

Does anyone know much about it or have any experience of doing it?
 
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It's definitely an interesting way of growing things. I would guess most people don't opt to do it because of the start up costs for equipment etc, and it's supposed to be quite difficult - at least compared to traditional growing in soil.
 
CaptainRAVE said:
Used one of those hydroponic sets from Amazon years ago and they grow like crazy. Would be quite fun I should imagine to build your own.
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I'm tempted to have a go (probably next year now as I'm fully in the mix with growing fruit/veg). I'd be keen to integrate it into HA for automation. From some brief reading - the pump could be automated to pump the solution around. You could have a sensor on the tank for when the solution gets low. You could have a sensor in the solution to measure pH levels, and even better if you can have a mechanism to either increase the acidity or alkaline levels. Add that in with disposing of the solution every so often, you could pretty much have it running with very little input - apart from harvesting produce.
 
very expensive but its quite simple, it is mostly just a water pump sending water in a constant cycle over the roots or various similar methods.

you add nutrients to the water, calculating the correct amounts and testing it with a device to get the NPK ratio just right.

the water is usually heated to the ideal temp with a fish tank style heater and given air with a air pump.

it is all rather costly as i said though but people save money by making DIY setups.
 
Had some experience of it at college its really for professional/commercial growers its much easier for amateurs/casuals to stick to more traditional ways of growing its complicated it requires a pump, something to measure pH, nutrient levels, etc etc more suited to automated operations

case in point one day the pump failed and as the water wasn't flowing the pH monitor detected it incorrectly and pumped huge amounts of nitric acid in the water and killed almost the whole lot and it happened overnight so wasn't spotted until the next day by which time almost all the crop was ruined
 
The advantage of soil over hydro is the fact that with soil the plant takes what it needs, but with hydro you need to supply the exact nutrients.
 
I wasnt aware it was a bit more complex in regards to ensure the water had the exact correct nutrient mix but that makes sense I guess given its only option is going to be rain/tap water.
 
There's a place that sells stuff like this from a unit near me and the way they advertise it with discreet drive-in etc it's obvious it's geared towards illegal grows.
 
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