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For those without garden space, indoor gardening can be a rewarding alternative. Imagine growing organic fruits, and vegetables in your home without soil. Hydroponics is an effective means of growing plants with water containing nutrients instead. It offers all the benefits of a greenhouse, using only twenty percent of the space required for soil gardening. To start out as a hydroponic gardener, you can choose one of the many available hydroponic kits, or enjoy the satisfaction of making your own homemade hydroponic growing system.

There are several homemade hydroponic growing system methods. The two simplest methods are the reservoir method, and the flood and drain method.

Five gallon plastic tubs with matching lids work well for either method. Tubs should be opaque in order to prevent light from reaching the nutrient solution, or liquid plant food. Wash containers with vinegar, and then soap and water, to kill any bacteria.

Begin by creating your grow medium. Place seedlings and an inert mixture of perlite, vermiculite, and coconut coir into individual plastic planters. Cut two rows of holes, matching the diameter of the individual planter’s size, into the tub’s lid. Drop a planter into each hole. Fit the lid, laden with planters, onto its container.

In the reservoir method, the plants will be sitting in a reservoir filled to the roots with nutrient solution. An external air pump will provide a constant, but gentle flow of air bubbles to the solution, providing the roots with oxygen. Cut an additional hole in the lid and pass an airline of tubing from the pump, through the hole, and down to bottom of the container.

For the flood and drain method, a second tub with matching lid will act as the reservoir. This time, instead of cutting that extra hole for the tubing into the lid, cut holes into the sides of each tub. Run the the waterline from tub to tub. Use waterproof caulking to seal the connections. The principle here is based on gravity. When the reservoir is positioned level to, or higher than, the grow medium, the solution will run from the reservoir through the line and flood the grow medium. Reverse the positions to drain it. Plants should be flooded in this manner several times daily.

After setting up the hydration system, lighting will need to be provided. Place your homemade hydroponic growing system in a window that receives direct sunlight. Use a High Intensity Discharge lamp, or fluorescent lamp in the absence of direct sunlight

If you don’t have time to build your own homemade hydroponics growing system, pick up a kit. Hydroponic kits include everything needed to begin indoor gardening including nutrients, pH kits, and grow guide. Hydroponic kits are available in any one of the system methods. Choose the one that will work best for you.

Whether you create your own homemade hydroponics growing system or purchase one of the system methods available as hydroponic kits, you will enjoy growing your own produce.
Find out how to quickly build an effective hydroponic growing system on a budget. Grab a ready made kit that would make you project easier, faster and stress free. Chose an easy build homemade hydroponic kit and all the accessories to save yourself the time and money.

Homemade Hydroponic Gardening System

Nitrogen is the essential element that in terms of quantity is required most by plants. It has many functions in plant metabolism, not least having a crucial role in protein formation. As it readily becomes unavailable in the form that plants can absorb it, it is also applied the most as a plant feed. Therefore in the majority of gardening situations, it is necessary to avoid a state of nitrogen deficiency and add it to the soil. In what form should this be done? For nitrogen, while present in the atmosphere as a gas, and locked up in organic compounds in the soil humus, is only available to the plants as mineral salts dissolved in the soil water.

The short and simple answer or perhaps simplistic answer is to apply readily soluble, chemical fertilizer such as Ammonium Sulphate or Urea. However plant nutrition does not take place in isolation from the general conditions prevailing in the soil. For instance, a lack of oxygen in the soil sets in motion a process known as de-nitrification, whereby mineral nitrogen changes to a gas phase, and is consequently lost to the atmosphere.

In order to prevent this, it’s necessary to ensure adequate drainage, and also a large percentage of organic matter, in the form of humus, in the soil. A high humus content helps to form a crumbly soil structure and thus a satisfactory balance between air and moisture. It further serves as raw material for essential soil organisms such as earthworms, which by their activity both enhance the soil’s aeration and indirectly cause nitrogen to become more available to plant roots together with the other elements vital to plant growth. It follows therefore that periodically adding compost or humus to the earth is an integral and necessary part of plant nutrition.

If Nitrogen fertilizer in chemical form is to be applied, it should be done so during the plants’ growing season. For lawns, the spring and early autumn are generally the ideal seasons, at least in Mediterranean climates, whereas fertilizing in the summer often induces fungal infestations. Chemical fertilizing is a cheaper and probably more effective method of feeding lawns than the spreading of compost, but it should be noted amongst other drawbacks, that a serious environmental issue is at stake here.

The problem is that nitrogen fertilizer is easily leached out of the soil by rain or irrigation, and in the form that it rapidly turns into, (nitrates and nitrites) pollutes the water table, or any other body of water into which it eventually drains, such as lakes and rivers. It is primarily for this reason that I advocate the use of slow release fertilizer containing a balance of nutrients, as opposed to soluble types. In any case, for lawns, entirely satisfactory results can be achieved in most home garden situations by their use.

With regard to the garden plants as a whole, it’s usually necessary to add nitrogen fertilizer while planting a new garden bed. The soil should be thoroughly composted before hand, at a rate of at least 20 liters per square meter of ground, and a balanced slow release fertilizer, containing a high percentage of N and P (nitrogen and phosphorous respectively) applied at the rate indicated by the manufacturer’s instructions.
My name is Jonathan Ya’akobi.

I’ve been gardening in a professional capacity since 1984. I am the former head gardener of the Jerusalem Botanical Garden, but now concentrate on building gardens for private home owners. I also teach horticulture to students on training courses. I’d love to help you get the very best from your garden, so you’re welcome to visit me on http://www.dryclimategardening.com

There are two colors you need to learn about before you start composting: green and brown. Those colors, in the right ratios, will turn ordinary coffee grounds and wood chips into two other colors: “black gold”. Okay, it’s actually a very dark brown, earthy substance, but you get the idea. The trouble is, many people are unaware of what they should put in a compost bin or tumbler in the first place. Here’s a rundown of what can go in and what has to stay out of your compost pile.

Greens include materials like kitchen scraps, such as fruit peels or crushed eggshells. It does not include meat, bones, dairy products, oils or grease. Keep these things out of your compost pile, as they do not decompose properly and will make the pile smell horrible. Plus, meat in a compost pile invites every critter you have tried to get rid of over to your house for a free meal. Rodents and wildlife will start scouring your yard looking for more food sources, ruining gardens and messing up the pile.

Browns include materials from your yard, such as dead leaves and plants, grass clippings, sawdust and yard debris like chopped up tree branches. Manure from grass eaters like cows are okay, and can actually help speed up the composting process since they are high in nitrogen. Fertilizers and manures, the kind of browns added to plants to make them grow, are something you can put in a compost pile; human and pet manure is strictly forbidden. Not only is it incredibly gross, but also full of diseases and parasites that you just don’t want to have mixed in with your plants.

Black and gray materials, like ashes from wood, limes or charcoal from barbecues should also stay out of the compost bin. These materials have too much alkaline, which messes with the pH level of the compost batch. Plants will not thrive in high amounts of alkaline, so leaves these things out. Additionally, keep out weeds, contaminated plants, anything that involves pesticides, or very wet or soggy matter. Wood and tree branches are great, but use a wood chipper or chipper shredder to chop them up into smaller pieces that your compost batch can digest easier. Lastly, do not put metals, plastics or glass in the compost pile-start a recycling bin in your home and put these materials in there. Remember, your compost pile is not a garbage heap, but a place to harvest your black gold-the best color in composting.
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