Living in an urban environment, apartment or high rise condo makes it very limiting when it comes to gardening unless you learn hydroponics, and begin to grow indoors. With housing developments in city areas becoming increasingly smaller, most of us gardening enthusiasts end up feeling constrained in terms of our hobbies. However, none of that has to be the case any longer. Growing plants indoors has become as easy and as convenient as any other outdoor garden, especially if you have the appropriate knowledge and systems to do so. This guide will equip you with the fundamentals that you need to know about how to grow plants indoors.
#1 Starting seeds indoors The absolute first step that you have to take for growing plants indoors is to start the seeds growing. For this process, you can pretty much use any container size. If you intend to get a multiple number of seeds going, it’s advisable for you to separate the seeds into separate rectangular containers that provide the plant with a sufficient amount of space for their roots. After all, you don’t want your plants to end up getting overcrowded. And for those who think this sounds like too much work, you can also purchase a seedling plant at the local nursery and remove all the soil from the root system.
#2 Transitioning outdoor plants to indoors
If you already have a plant or a few herbs that you want to shift indoors, it’s important for you to be aware about allowing your plant to make the transition smoothly. Doing otherwise would cause your plant to fall into a poor state of health, and it might not make it through the sudden transition. Typically, you’ll want to shift your plants early on during fall into an area that’s brightly let and cool in temperature, preferably your daylight garage or somewhere that’s enclosed and protected from the cold temperatures. After your plants have become accustomed to the change in temperature, you can pretty much place them anywhere you want that has a daytime temperature of around 67°F.
#3 Hydroponic water culture bucket systems
The most significant thing about hydroponic water culture bucket systems is that they allow you to grow your plants at literally any time of the year and the plants grow fast. These hydroponic bucket systems are designed specifically to be able to grow plants indoors, allowing them to be protected from harsh climates, bugs and poor weather. These hydroponic deep water culture buckets provide your plants with nutrients that you add to the water, the air from a pump and photosynthesis from the sunlight or your indoor LED grow lights. These hydroponic water bucket systems can easily be made in a DIY fashion from your local hardware store items or purchased in an easy to start hydroponic system kit. There are many indoor hydroponic garden kits on the market today and many available for under $40 – and some on sale!
How much nutrients to use in a hydroponics system?
There is no question that hydroponics is a good alternative to growing plants in an outdoor soil based garden. However, it takes more than basic knowledge to growing hydroponically. Items such as the appropriate amount and feeding of hydroponics nutrients should also be taken into consideration. If you are new to hydroponics, you may have be consumed with researching whether or not you are feeding the proper amount of nutrients to your deep water culture hydroponic system.
The point here is to keep the balance of nutrients as it is very important in the promotion of proper development and growth as your plants enter the various growth phases. The first thing you can do is either purchase a quick start nutrient kit and identify the type of nutrients that your plants are already receiving. Oxygen and carbon are among the essential hydroponics nutrients needed for vegetation; however, they are generally supplied naturally through water and air, and absorbed through the plant’s roots. Therefore, you no longer have to include them in your list of nutrients that you will be feeding to your plants since in a deep water culture hydroponic system, your oxygen is supplied by an air pump and you are growing the plants in a large water supply. This leaves the nutrients needed to feed your plants during the growth phases. Many company’s make liquid nutrients and plant food, however we recommend a liquid nutrient made for growing plants hydroponically (here is one we tried and like).
Familiarize Yourself with Hydroponics Nutrients
The basic hydroponics nutrients that should be included in your list include potassium sulphate, calcium nitrate, monopotassium phosphate, potassium nitrate, as well as magnesium sulphate. Sulfur and nitrogen are very important in the overall supply of proteins and amino acids. Phosphorus is very important in the overall growth and photosynthesis of plants. Magnesium and potassium serve as catalysts in the production of sugars and starch. Nitrogen and magnesium play a very important role in chlorophyll production. And of course, calcium contributes to the strength of the cell walls of the plants, boosting its overall growth. Or, simply purchase a starter kit and enjoy watching your plants grow — fast!
The amount of hydroponics nutrients that you will be feeding your water culture highly depends on the type of plant that you will be planting in a hydroponic system. While you can mix the nutrients on your own, the safest way to go is by purchasing pre-mixed nutrient solutions that are available in local garden shops or in our hydroponic nutrients for sale online.
The good thing about these nutrient solutions is that the amount of hydroponics nutrients are already pre-calculated in order to suit the needs of the plants that you are trying to grow. With expert advice from a local gardener, you do not have to worry about being a newbie in this field and there are many guides that you can read or simply purchase some liquid nutrients and read the label – it can be that easy.
In order to have a better understanding of what is a hydroponics system and how are they used, it is good to first understand what hydroponically grown means in general. Hydroponically grown growing refers to the growing of plants without the use of any soil to support the plant growth. In recent times, hydroponic farming has become quite popular considering it is used to so many different types of plants indoors, in urban areas without much space for farming and in areas where the climate is not best suited for growing plants.
Why grow plants in a hydroponic system? There are many reasons to grow plants hydroponically versus a soil based farming including:
1. Space Savings
2. Water Savings
3. No Weeding
4. Less Pests & Disease
5. Quicker Growth
What can you grow hydroponically? Flowers, herbs, fruits and almost every type of vegetable can be grown using a hydroponics system.
Unfortunately, environmental degradation has also been blamed for the scarcity of essential resources such as water and minerals critical for the plant growing process in many traditional farming area of the world. As a result, the increasing food demand caused by our population increases particularly regarding food security is a serious threat that has forced some farmers to resort to rethink the use of more industrial sized hydroponics systems to produce mass edible vegetation. Many US universities are beginning to support their campus cafeterias from their own campus hydroponic farms – maintained by their own students.
What are the advantages of growing plants in hydroponics system?
-It is a cost effective method of plant growth compared to traditional methods
-Easily scalable because it is easy to expand
-Flexible and scalable
So what types of hydroponic systems are there?
The most common types of systems fall into four classifications, including:
-Ebb and flow systems
-Aeroponic systems
-Continuous-flow solution culture systems
-Deep water culture hydroponic systems (these are the most common and can be made from items found in your local hardware store or as a simple kit – we like these DWC hydroponic systems for sale online to start with)
EBB AND FLOW
This is nutrient rich water that contains clay granules, Hydroton or other minerals that aid in plant growth. Usually, plants are put in a tray filled with granules. Once this is done, a pump that is placed below the tray is connected to it and at regular intervals; a nutrient rich solution is pumped and filled in the tray. Plants then have access to the solution when the tray is submerged. Once the tray is full, the extra nutrient solution is send into a reservoir for storage. Ebb and flow hydroponic systems work in continuous patterns by ensuring nutrients and water are reused.
AEROPONICS
In this process, an environment saturated with aerosol of nutrient solution or water mist is used to grow plants. The growing process takes place in a chamber where the plant roots are suspended in the air.
CONTINUOUS-FLOW SOLUTION
Here, plant roots come into contact with a water solution and a shallow flow nutrient. NFT commonly known as nutrient film technique is an excellent way to ensure results through impressive yields as plants are allowed plenty of exposure not only to nutrients but water and oxygen.
DEEP WATER CULTURE
This is one of the popular hydroponic systems where roots are suspended in a water solution that has plenty of nutrients. A netted pot is used to hold the plants in place and allow roots to be exposed to the solution. An air pump and porous stones are responsible for providing the oxygen.
Anyone interested in trying out hydroponic systems needs not worry because success is guaranteed so long as the entire process is strictly followed. The important things a grower must provide include clean water, nutrients as well watch out for plant diseases and pests. The reason many people are opting for hydroponic systems is because they yield better results than traditional gardening methods AND hydroponic systems can be used indoors with grow lights and grow tents.
Should I buy or build a hydroponics system?
Interested in trying to buy or build your own hydroponics system? We recommend starting with a deep water culture bucket hydroponic system, which can be purchased for as little as $30 from parts purchased at your local hardware store (including Lowes, ACE Hardware and Home Depot)- or check out our hydroponic systems for sale online – many are available for FREE shipping.
[fruitful_dbox shadowtype=”type-2″]HOW TO MAKE A HOMEMADE HYDROPONIC SYSTEM[/fruitful_dbox]
Skill Level: Beginner
It is so easy to make your own homemade hydroponic system for cheap!
How to make a homemade hydroponic system for cheap.
[fruitful_dbox shadowtype=”type-4″]HOMEMADE HYDROPONIC SYSTEM LOCATION[/fruitful_dbox]
There are so many different techniques and locations (indoors or outside) that you can choose to grow your first set of plants in a hydroponic system. We choose to grow outside (without artificial lighting) and during the summer in Atlanta (hot hot hot).
We choose to use the “deep water culture” method (as opposed to a “drip”, “ebb and flow” or “multi-flow” method) for our trial (Buy a Deep Water Culture System). This way we could learn how to grow outside during the summer months and then move it inside during the winter months and buy some grow lights and possibly a grow box if it is too bright with all the lights.
[fruitful_dbox shadowtype=”type-2″]HOMEMADE HYDROPONIC SYSTEM COMPONENTS[/fruitful_dbox]
Here is a list of what to buy in preparation for your 1 hour of installing the system.
1. Water Reservoir: We used a 5-gallon bucket from local hardware store (we found ours at Lowe’s) costing between $2.50 to $6.00 per bucket. We selected the “food grade” and “BPA free” bucket for $5.50 since it will be sitting in the sun and we didn’t want to have any risk of unwanted chemicals in the water.
2. Water Reservoir Cover / Plant Holder: This is one of the benefits of creating your own homemade hydroponic system because you can choose how many and how big of a plant you want to grow in the system. We choose to cut two 4-inch holes in our lid to allow two tomato sized plants to grow (see picture above). These were sold separately and priced around $2.00. We like that we can switch the hole configuration anytime we want to change plant sizes. For the “plant holder” you can either find a plastic plant container commonly sold with plants growing in soil and put hole throughout the container, purchase a plant container for less than a $1. We couldn’t find either of those at the local Lowe’s so we found a 4 inch drainage filter in the plumbing section that cost under $5 and will work to hold the growing media.
3. Growing Media: There are so many types of growing media that you can purchase, however since we didn’t have access to a hydroponic store, we used river pebble found at Lowe’s. This is not the best for long-term growing media, however it will serve the purpose for our first homemade hydroponic grow system. We will probably upgrade to a grow media and buy it online for our next phase of testing the different media types (future blog posting).
4. Oxygen / Air Supply: When you create a “water culture” system, you need to supply your plant’s root system with some oxygen and since the roots are submerged in water a simple aquarium pump will do the trick. We found ours at the local pet store in the aquarium section and choose a version with 2 outputs so that we could run two separate lines into our two buckets for about $24 dollars. You may want to buy a one-way valve for your new hydroponic system depending on where your pump is located so that water does not flow back into the pump if the power is turned off (we keep our pump on a stand that is higher than the water level so the water won’t be able to come back into the pump and saved us a couple of dollars).
Dark tubing used to connect the air pump to the container. Hint: clear tubing will grow mold and bacteria.
5. Tubing: We wanted to allow for our pump to be plugged in on a patio and then be able to move the bucket system around to optimize the best lighting as the season changes, so we purchased the 20 foot length and cut it in half (approximately $5). Hint: After researching some best practices and talking to local enthusiasts, we choose to use a black tubing so that the sunlight would not penetrate the tube and begin to grow mold in our tubing.
6. Bubbler: Since we are going to have 2 plants growing we need the oxygen bubbles to feed both plants, so we purchase two types of “bubblers” that will be a the bottom. The picture below shows the design that we selected for our first bucket and will review how it works in a later post (approximately $5 to $15).
Homemade hydroponic grow system – bubble system to get oxygen into the water.
7. Nutrients: The plants will need nutrients, so we purchased a few different types to test in our homemade hydroponic bucket system. We will review the performance of each solution in a later post, however at this point we recommend purchasing a nutrient solution made for hydroponics. Hint: We tried a version available at Lowe’s by Miracle Grow and our plants did not really like the mixture because it seemed to have a lot more nitrogen than the hydroponic grow solution. Here is a nice blog describing “Growing Plants Indoors” to help with this issue.
Homemade hydroponic grow system prior to adding growth nutrients.
8. Water Testing: Not all water is the same and you need to worry about the nutrient levels and make sure that your plants do not turn the water too acidic from their growth processes. We did not think we needed this type of testing; however we were wrong. We plan a future blog about what “not to do” from our lessons learned and hopefully save you some time and effort with making those same mistakes. The two types of testing devices needed include a PPM (parts per million) and PH testing. It is actually interesting to test your own drinking water and see how it compares to the recommended levels.
How to put oxygen into your homemade hydroponic system
Tubing Installation (expected time of 10 minutes): With a drill, you will want to make a small hole that will allow the tube to enter into the bucket both above the water line and below the lid’s rim (see picture above). Then run your tube from the pump through the hole and connect to the bubbler at the bottom.
We could have selected a much cheaper version from an online store, but we were trying to test what was available at the local Lowe’s to build our first homemade hydroponic systems.
Lid Installation (expected time of 10 minutes): We choose two 4 inch holes and had a little saw to cut the hole. They didn’t look perfect (see picture), but they are functional and are covered up by the rim of our containers that will hold the river pebbles in the nutrient rich and oxygenated water. We did add some nutrient to the water (see the red tint), however found it to not be the best solution and will have a future blog post about what nutrients work best and what not to do with your first homemade hydroponic grow system.
We hope this helps you begin to experiment with a homemade hydroponic system and look forward to sharing our experiences (and some funny lessons learned.) The one big take away is that homemade systems are educational and fun, but we may need to purchase some more professional equipment if we really become good at growing our own plants.
The 21st century has seen rapid urbanisation and the global population is now expected to grow to more than 8.3 billion by 2050. Currently, 800m hectares – 38% of the earth’s land surface – is farmed and we’ll soon need to give over another 100m hectares if we continue to use current agricultural methods. That’s not additional fertile land that actually exists though, so some are investigating the potential of vertical farming.
It has been suggested that a 30 storey 27,800,000 m2 vertical farm could be achieved within one New York City block. That farm could feed 50,000 people, providing 2,000 calories for every person each day. With results like that as a prospect, it’s easy to see why enthusiasts see vertical farms as the future.
Growing up
Vertical farms are still very much at the conceptual stage. The idea is to cultivate crops on multiple levels within high-rise buildings in urban areas. It’s not an entirely new proposition, with architect Ken Yeang suggesting a vision of high-rise plant cultivation in mixed-use skyscrapers as early as the 1980s. Professor Dickson Despommier, the leading international advocate of vertical farms, describes them as “a global solution” to the world’s urban food needs.
Vertical farms do indeed have many advantages. They would enable us to produce crops all year round using 70% less water. We wouldn’t need to use agro-chemicals and could avoid the adverse environmental factors that affect yield and quality in more traditional farming. And if food were grown in urban areas in the first place, we could eliminate the financial and environmental costs of importing food into towns and cities. Read more here.
Believe it or not, The Commons, Kennesaw State University’s state-of-the-art dining hall, feeds more than 5,000 guests each weekday! The facility opened in August 2009 and coincided with the introduction of the campus meal plan program. The staff of Culinary & Hospitality Services took advantage of an incredibly unique opportunity to incorporate industry-leading sustainable practices in a new building from the ground up.
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Did You Know?
The Commons has more than 10 hydroponic units. Hydroponics refers to the process of growing plants in sand, gravel, or liquid, with added nutrients and without soil. Rainwater run-off from our buliding is used as a water source.
The process consists of three steps: germination, propagation, and cultivation.
The Commons will produce 600 heads of lettuce every three weeks, which will result in about 9,600 heads of lettuce per year for use in the dining hall.
