Hydroponic Gardening culture has been used widely and has been proven to make agriculture more efficient and effective, at lower overhead costs and high quality standard of produce.

Hydroponics mainly has two different methods of culture. These are the solution and the medium culture. Solution culture uses nutrient solution on its procedure. The three types of solution culture are static solution culture, continuous flow solution culture and aeroponics. Medium culture on the other hand, uses solid media in its culture. It can be gravel, soil and sand. Two main variations for each medium, sub irrigation and top irrigation.

Static solution culture. In static culture, plants are grown using containers. It may be of glass, plastic containers, tubings or tanks. Condition for culture is monitored such as the solution of the nutrient been applied to the plants. In this solution, culture may be aerated or not. In unaerated condition, the Nutrients solution is kept low enough so that the roots can be exposed to the air, to supply its oxygen needs. However, aeration can also be provided through the use of aquarium pump, airline tubing and valves. When the nutrient solution has been depleted to a low level, fresh water may be added. An example of culture that uses such procedure is on garden hydroponics, this may be due to its space minimum requirement.

Continuous flow solution culture. Continuous flow solution culture has the nutrient solution flowing past the roots. This is done on large container, where solution may be kept concentrated and potentially serves thousands of plants. A popular variation of this is the NFT. NFT is Nutrient Film Technique where solution is kept at a film level to enable roots exposed for aeration and the nutrient is circulated through watertight gully called channels. The advantage of using Nutrient Film Technique over other solution culture is that it gives the plant adequate supply of oxygen, nutrient and water, where in some techniques, irregularity may occur. However, a downside of this technique may be on power outages and water clogging.

The key to effective Nutrient Film Technique is having the right slope pattern for the culture. Practically the ratio for this design is practiced at slopes of 1:30 to 1:40. Higher yields of high quality produce are obtained over an extended period of cropping.

Aeroponics. Aeroponics, as defined by wikipedia, is a system where roots are continuously or discontinuously in an environment saturated with fine drops (a mist or aerosol) of nutrient solution. This entails the plants to be suspended in the air. The key for this technique is proper aeration. Aeroponics is widely used in studies of plant physiology in laboratories.

Medium Culture. Medium culture as pre-defined in the above statement is the hydroponics culture with the use of gravel, sand or any solid media.

Subirrigation and top irrigation. Sub-irrigation or passive hydroponics is “a method where plants are grown in inert porous medium that transports water and fertilizer to the roots by capillary action from a separate reservoir as necessary, reducing labor and providing a constant supply of water to the roots,” wikipedia. A simple technique of this is the container is placed over a solution of nutrients or capillary mat.

Top irrigation is a method where the nutrient solution is periodically applied to the plants. This is usually done manually but may be automated through the use of water pump.

The use of technique for hydroponics system may vary depending on the produce and the space available to apply it. What is advantageous, mostly, the techniques are versatile and can be adapted to any environment.

Growing Organic Vegetables

How much do you know about organic vegetables?

Well, buy some books to study before starting your Organic Garden. Growing your own vegetables benefits your family’s health because you do not apply insecticide and its natural food. Also you can pick and grow your favourite vegetables readily to serve as salad or cook them to your taste.

Successful organic vegetable gardening can require a lot of work and careful planning. This includes the preparation of the soil by enriching it and protecting the soil from the infestation of harmful insects.

Organic vegetable gardening is different from conventional gardening in two major ways. They differ from the usage of fertilizers and pest control. The fertility of the soil depends upon three components: nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium.

Nitrogen increases the growth of lush foliage. Phosphorus helps with strong roots and sterns. Potassium protects the plants from disease and cold. These nutrients are needed for every plant that stays alkaline for more than a year. In conventional methods, synthetic fertilizers are used to enrich the soil. Commercial fertilizers are available as a mixture of the three main ingredients mentioned. However, in organic vegetable gardening, these nutrients are added in a different manner.

Composting is a very good organic way of enriching the soil. Compost can be made easily in pots from your backyard with garden and kitchen refuse. Materials like leaves, lawn cutting, pine needles, weeds, carrot tops, spoiled fruit and vegetable, animal manure and the like, can be used to make good compost. The decomposition of the organic material forms bacteria and fungi in the soil. This helps in converting unavailable nutrients like nitrogen to ammonia and nitrates making it usable for the plants. This process is called nitrification. Rock phosphates, natural occurring deposits of phosphorus in combination with calcium, can be mixed with the compost. Natural potassium occurs in substances like wood ashes, tobacco stems, seaweed, potash salts and ground rock potash. They can be also mixed for organic vegetable gardening.

The organic material takes longer to decompose and affect the soil. Hence it should be added at least a fortnight before planting the vegetables.

The pH scale runs from 0 to 14. 0 indicates extreme acidic conditions. 14 is extreme alkaline and 7 indicates a neutral soil. The most inexpensive and efficient material for raising the pH is ground limestone. Dolomite limestone has an additional ingredient, magnesium, which many soils lack. If the pH of the soil is alkaline, finely ground sulphur is used to lower it.

Pest control in organic gardens is also done in a different manner. Organic vegetable gardening relies in the theory of manageable pest levels. This model theory, suggests that the pests are not to be completely eradicated, but kept at an easily manageable level maintaining the balance and harmony.

When pest resistant varieties are planted, natural predators and parasites are used to eat up the harmful insects. Mulching the soil helps to avoid direct contact with sunlight, as the harmful organisms require bright sunlight to grow. These methods using organic vegetable gardening techniques will help in raising a healthy and abundant crop.

organic gardening

Growing vegetables year round can be a challenge in most of the US. The winter months won’t support any type of outdoor gardening in most of the US, and in the southern states many types of vegetables won’t survive the summer heat and drought.

But Indoor Gardening can be a real challenge as well. Proper lighting is always an issue, as most vegetables want 8 hours or more of sunlight a day. Of course many vegetables such as corn or large vining plants like cantaloupe are just not practical even if you could create enough lighting to support them.

But it’s not at all out of the question to grow small leafy vegetables for salads, and many herbs can be grown indoors as well. These generally are not heavy feeders, so they are also well suited for a Hydroponics Systems.

One of the more popular systems for growing container vegetables indoors is the Aerogrow Aerogarden system. It includes room for several seed pods and a built in adjustable height grow light. With a microprocessor based controller, the flow of nutrients in the hydroponics system and the timing of the grow lights are optimized for the specific type of plant that you are growing at the time. By varying the height of the grow light as the plants increase in size, you are able to maintain the optimum growing conditions for weeks at a time.

Another advantage to the Aerogarden indoor garden system is the variety of seed types available for the system. You can grow a variety of lettuce, spinach, cherry tomatoes, herbs, chili peppers and even petunias. With this large a variety of plants, some folks find they need more than one Hydroponics system to keep up.