5 Reasons you should grow vegetables in hydroponics! Recommended starter kit included
Do you hate gnats flying in your face? Tired of killing plants by over/under-watering? Confused about how much you should fertilize your plant? If you’re looking to start an indoor garden, I highly recommend using hydroponics to solve all of these questions and more! Hydroponics does not need to be complicated or expensive to get into. Want to know more? Great! Here are the advantages of growing with hydroponics:
How does hydroponics work?
Hydroponics is the process of growing plants without soil. Instead of soil, plants are suspended in a liquid nutrient solution. The roots receive water, nutrients, and oxygen directly without needing to search in soil. The most common method of doing this is using an inorganic growing medium that the plant can grow into and that grow medium is suspended in the nutrient water.
In my hydroponic garden, I use the Kratky method, which is perfect for beginner hydroponics! Kratky systems use a simple method of placing a plant in a container and allowing the roots to grow down into the container as the plant drinks the water. Look to the end of this post to find out more.
What are the advantages of hydroponics?
No soil
The costs of soil and compost outweigh the cost of the inorganic growing mediums used in hydroponics. The amount of potting soil you would need for a healthy plant vs hydroponics is astounding. A 1.5-inch Rockwool block can hold an adult lettuce plant! If you were to make a garden bed and fill it will bags of topsoil and mulch, the price would also be intense. Costing upwards of about $300 to fill an 8″ x 4″ x 12″ garden bed with compost.
Before you use potting soil or dirt, you may have to test the soil to figure out what you are dealing with. Soil testing is complicated and can be expensive, but with hydroponics, on the other hand, you control how much nutrients you put into the water directly, making sure the plants only get what you want them to get.
Soil is consumed when you plant on it consistently. More soil is required when your plants grow, and re-potting is dangerous to plants if not handled carefully. I have murdered many plants by damaging the roots in a transplant. It is also easy to over-fertilize the plant and cause a lot of damage to it. Once it is over-fertilized, the soil is completely useless except for the compost heap. Soil generally has a lot of issues in comparison to hydroponics.
Good use of space
Hydroponics can be done anywhere! If you rent or live in an apartment, hydroponics is a simple way to grow plants. With the Kratky method, you can grow in a kitchen or bay window and its hands-free gardening! Just clean and refill the container when it’s empty. No more killing plants by over-watering.
Roots need less space because they do not have to spread out in nutrients. Even large plants can be grown in a small hydroponic system. Gone are the days of large pots and continually re-potting plants as they grow. Most hydroponic plants never need to be replanted but if they did, re-potting is a simple and easy process.
Plants can be grown close together because they can be in separate containers or in enough nutrients for all plants in one container. Here is a picture of the system that I use for my Kratky system. All within a 4″ x 2″ space I can grow 16 heads of lettuce, 8 kale, 8 celery, and 16 salad mix plants.
Water savings
Growing on the water means consuming more water? Nah, It seems weird but hydroponics consumes little water. Since the roots take water and nutrients directly from the system, little is wasted in soil. Watering potted plants are always a nightmare for me. You must drench the soil until water comes out the bottom or place the pot in another container full of water and let it bottom water. Either way, it is messy and a waste of a lot of water without including the evaporation from the soil itself.
Better yield faster up to 30-50% faste
Since you most likely growing indoors or in a greenhouse with hydroponics, you can control the environment for the plants to grow better like humidity, temperature, air circulation, and nutrient density.
Plants do not have to search for nutrients, it is all supplied directly to the roots. They can focus on growing up top, which is the most important part for us!
Less use of pesticide, herbicide, and fungicide:
Tired of those gnats, grubs, and other root damaging insects that you can’t seem to get rid of no matter how much you try? Well, fortunately, it’s time to say goodbye to these insects because problems are eliminated with hydroponics.
I started growing vegetables indoors with potting soil and Gnats were a huge problem! I could not get rid of them. I tried the Gnat paper, spraying the soil with hydrogen peroxide, apple cider vinegar traps, nothing would get rid of them as fast as they would reproduce. Do you know the saying “desperate times call for a desperate solution”? I guess I did just that, As soon as I switched to hydroponics, I never saw a gnat again!
Since switching to hydroponics, I have not seen mold or dampening off as well or weeds. Hydroponics takes the guesswork out of growing indoors. The biggest issue I have run into so far with hydroponics is algae. If you leave your nutrients exposed to light, you will inevitably get algae into your system. Algae is smelly, slimy and can drastically change the PH of your water which will affect your plants. Algae come in an airborne spore and are everywhere so expect it in your system regardless of cleaning regiments. Ensure you cover all nutrient sources from light to reduce the amount.
Disadvantages:
Water and electricity DO NOT mix
If handled incorrectly, your system can give a dangerous shock. Be conscious of where water is and goes. Ensure plugs and extension cords stay away from the water. Try to get equipment and grow lights that use 3 prong plugs to protect you from electric shock.
System Failure
Whichever hydroponic system you decide to use will have a possibility of system failure.
If your plants lose access to water, they will die within a few hours. Plants in soil tend to be more drought-resistant than plants in hydroponic nutrients.
Power loss may cause a system failure in hydroponic systems that use pumps and air bubblers, and an empty container or reservoir will be the system failure in non-electric systems like Kratky.
Once the plant droops down, it is unrecoverable without permanent and drastic plant damage. Make sure you monitor your systems often to mitigate the risks of system failure.
Plants in the same container can spread pests or diseases quickly
Hydroponic systems, where all plants share the same nutrients, will share the same fate. If you get a water-borne disease or pests in your system, it will affect all your plants equally. Make sure you are monitoring your plants for issues and attempt to resolve them quickly. This includes PH, nutrient solution concentration, and cleanliness of the system.
Hydroponic systems do not scale well.
The bigger the system, the more challenging it will become to maintain it. System failure is a huge problem in large pump based hydroponic systems.
If you use containers, you will need to make sure none of the containers run dry and they are cleaned on a regular basis. On the other hand, cultivating and growing on land is linear, which the same process can be repeated over acres of land and does not become more complicated. This is one of the main reasons why hydroponics isn’t done on a massive scale.
Initial investment
The initial investment for hydroponics may be high depending on what type of hydroponic system you use. If you want to try out hydroponics before you buy a $500 system, I recommend this hydroponic starter kit.
Hydrofarm GCSB Salad Box Hydroponic Soil-Free Garden Growing Kit – Indoor Home 8 Plant Site Herb Garden for Greens, Lettuce, Mint, and Plants (2 Pack)
This hydroponics starter kit is perfect for a beginner looking into starting their own hydroponics system. It comes with everything you need to do your first hydroponic plant (except the seeds)! This unit can be used indoors or outdoors, by a window or in a grow setup. This system is very versatile and a good addition to any hydroponic gardener. I would also buy some Rockwool plugs along with it, for it is hard to find replacements for the root wraps.
1.5″ Rockwool Starter Plugs, 2 Sheets of 49 Plugs (98 Plugs Total) + Twin Canaries Chart
Rockwool is my number one choice for my inorganic growing medium. It has been used by hydroponic growers for a long time and is a trusted method of growing plants from seeds all the way to harvest. I recommend getting the 1.5″ version for 2″ net pots.
General Hydroponics Flora Grow, Bloom, Micro Combo Fertilizer set, 1 Quart (Pack of 3)
This is the best choice for the hydroponic nutrients I use for all my solutions. This Three-part mix concentrate can be used for all growing situations including fruiting and vegging. I have made over 60 gallons of the solution with these 3 parts and I am only halfway done with the quart bottle!
On the bottle, there are instructions on which concentrates to use for different situations like flowering or seedling. Once you have got the hang of making solutions, you can change the mix as the plants grow to control exactly how you want your plants to act. At first, though, I would recommend only using the general-purpose solution. If you’d like a walkthrough of how I mix my hydroponics nutrients please watch this video below:
Finally, if you want all the materials for the setup I use, watch this video on how I made it and the materials you need (I’ve included links below in case you’d be interested in buying them). This is a very inexpensive build and can make a lot of trays for plants once you’re ready to scale up a bit.
HFS (R 6 Mil Mylar Film Roll 4 FT X 25 FT Diamond Film Foil Roll Highly Reflective Grow Room
1020 Net Pot Trays 10 Pack for Aquaponics and Hydroponics by Bootstrap Farmer
2 inch Net Pots Cups Heavy Duty Round Wide Rim Design – Orchids Aquaponics Hydroponics Slotted Mesh (Cz Garden All Star – 50 Black)
Bootstrap Farmer 1020 Trays, Blue Extra Strength No Hole, 10 Pack, Seedling Tray for Growing Microgreens, Wheatgrass Seeds, Hydroponic Germination, Fodder System
Now that you’ve read the advantages and disadvantages of a hydroponic system, do you think it’s worth giving a shot? I suggest to at least give it a try as I love how clean and easy it is to use! If you love growing and gardening, then hydroponics will be a great addition to your garden.
Check out this blog that I created dedicated to what seeds grow best with hydroponics.
Thank you for reaching this far! This is one of my first posts! If you have any comments, suggestions, or any questions about hydroponics please feel free to comment. I’d love to hear your thoughts about this!
