Hydroponic Gardening

Hydroponic gardening is an outstanding method of growing your plants and has numerous advantages over traditional gardening in soil.  Hydroponics is a fun and exciting way to provide a wide variety of healthy and happy fruits and vegetables while giving one the satisfaction and sense of accomplishment of using an advanced system of gardening.  Hydroponic gardening means that your plants are grown without the use of soil and where nutrient solutions are used to deliver oxygen and mineral nutrients to the plant’s root system.  An inert medium is sometimes used to anchor the roots.  A hydroponic gardening system can either be built or purchased, depending on the amount of education and time you wish to invest in your garden.

Hydroponic gardening methods are generally classified as either active or passive systems, as defined by the way the nutrient solutions are moved within the system.  Additionally, these systems can also be categorized as either recovery or non-recovery systems in terms of whether or not the nutrient solutions are reused.

The highly oxygenated nature of the nutrient solutions used allows the roots to absorb nutrients faster and these solutions contain all of the minerals and elements a plant would normally get from the soil.  Plants grown in hydroponic gardens require little energy to find and break down foods, as the basic minerals and nutrient salts in the nutrient solutions are in perfect balance.  The energy saved allows the plants to grow faster and produce more fruit.  When hydroponic systems are maintained properly, the plants are never stressed because water and nutrients are always available.                 

In hydroponic gardens, plants grow faster and are healthier than plants grown in soil and these techniques allow precise application of highly oxygenated, nutrient enriched water directly to the roots.  The plants generally mature faster, thus yielding an earlier harvest of crop.  Hydroponic gardens also use less space than traditional gardening, as the root system does not have to spread out or grow larger to find food and water.  Additionally, since the root systems are grown in a sterile medium, soil-borne funguses, diseases and pest infestations are greatly reduced or eliminated using hydroponic gardening methods.  Since the nutrient solutions are generally contained within the system, the environment is not harmed as with fertilized soil runoff.

The concept of growing plants without soil, or hydroponic gardening, has actually been around for thousands of years.  The Babylonians, Chinese and Aztecs all used growing methods where the plants absorbed their nutrients from sources other than soil.  Water culture experiments began in England in the early 1600’s and mineral nutrient solutions were first perfected in the mid 1800’s in eastern Europe.  Solution culture for agricultural crop production was promoted publicly in the 1920’s in California and the term “hydroponics” was first coined in 1937.

The many types of systems and various methods of hydroponic gardening which may be used allow gardeners to create an advanced and fully automated gardening system which produces very healthy plants and crops with a high yield.  Unlimited possibilities are available with hydroponic gardening when some time and effort are put into it.