Hydroponic Systems

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Hydroponics for Beginners

Hydroponics is defined as the process of growing plants without the use of soil. In this process, any nutrients the plant may need are transmitted via the water the plant’s roots are placed in. As an all-water system, hydroponics makes it easy to grow your plants by adding any needed nutrients to the water supply. Hydroponics has been understood for centuries as a form of plant cultivation used by ancient civilizations and is still used today.

Reasons To Use a Hydroponics System

When designing a system to grow plants of any type, you may be wondering why you would want to use hydroponics instead of traditional dirt planting. Hydroponics offers many advantages such as:

  • Greater Range Of Growth Locations: A key advantage of hydroponics is it lets you grow plants in places where you usually couldn’t. In many parts of the world, the soil is too dry or simply unsuitable for growing plants. With hydroponics, you can make use of locations for growth you couldn’t get before with traditional farming methods. Hydroponics is also useful in areas where there simply isn’t a lot of land available to use and every foot counts.
  • You Can Work Around The Seasons: Many hydroponic systems are located in greenhouses or other controlled environments. This means you can grow plants all year long without worrying about the growing season. This is very useful if the types of plants you want to grow have specific environmental needs or if you live in a location with extreme weather, such as very hot summers or snowy winters.
  • A Shorter Harvest Time: With hydroponics, your plants grow faster. With direct access to nutrient-rich water, your plants don’t have to develop extensive root systems to get the nutrients needed to reach maturity. In such a beneficial setting, your plants are lush and healthy and reach full maturity in roughly half the time needed for traditional farming.

Creating Your Own Hydroponic System

A Hydroponic system can vary greatly in size, scope, and cost. A working system needs the proper blend of nutrients, lights, and motioning systems to ensure your plants get the care they need. The most basic systems can be set up with trays, a support structure, a reservoir, pumping equipment, containers for your plants (with proper drainage), a growing medium, drainage tubes, a nutrient solution, seeds, and a timer. By understanding how hydroponics works, you’ll soon have a working system for your plants.