What is Hydroponic Gardening?

Hydroponic Gardening is essentially the art of gardening without a medium, such as soil. A hydroponic system is versatile because it can be used by large scale farmers or by homeowners. 

Typically, the traditional way of gardening or farming involves sunlight, water and soil. However, with a hydroponic system, this is not the case. It means that hydroponic gardening can take place at any time of year. 

There’s now more interest in this type of gardening. Partly thanks to the popularity of living walls and roof gardens where conventional potting is too heavy or inaccessible. 

What is Hydroponics?

Hydroponics is the Greek word from ‘hydro’ which means water, and ‘ponos’ which means work. Therefore, ‘working water’ is its original meaning. 

It is a method of soil-less cultivation of plants. 

The basic idea behind hydroponics is to allow the plant roots to get in direct contact with the nutrient solution. This in turn, gives great access to oxygen, known to be essential for proper growth. 

With hydroponics, you, as the gardener, can fully control nutrition a plant gets. You can give a plant exactly what it needs unlike plants that are in soil.  As a result, a hydroponics garden can be a simpler and more productive garden in comparison to an underground one. 

Moreover, you can use hydroponics systems indoors. It will require special UV lighting providing the photosynthesis to plants. However, there are different techniques and systems that you can use. 

What is a Hydroponic Garden?

How your plants grow depends on what hydroponics system you use. Your equipment can be as simple as a bucket, some nutrients and some styrofoam. Or you might consider using the MEGAPot hydroponics system.

MEGAPot Module

This includes a MEGAPot module which acts as a tray to catch excess water and nutrients. As well as the module, there is a fabric pot. This allows the roots of the plants to develop and grow as needed. It doesn’t constrict the roots, so they can take in all the nutrients. 

MEAGPot System

The MEGAPot system also includes a white pipe which ensures that the system doesn’t attract the sun. The water and nutrients can pass through unaffected. This is key to ensuring that the water and nutrients are passed straight to the plants first.  Fourthly, the MEGAPot valve controls the flow of water and nutrients.

What are the Benefits of a Hydroponics Garden?

There are many benefits to starting a hydroponics garden. 

Did you know that plants using a hydroponic system can grow about 30% faster than plants grown in traditional soil. This is because plants do not have to spend energy to find nutrients in the soil continuously. Instead, nutrients are transported directly to the plants and provide energy to grow. 

There’s no more over watering or under watering. Furthermore, you don’t need to spend time on trying to rebalance your soil’s PH. Compared with traditional soil cultivation methods, hydroponics systems can save up to 95% of water. Since the system is closed, the water used in the growth process is not exposed to the outside, thus reducing evaporation.

Growing plants is also not affected by environmental considerations. You can grow plants indoors and factors such as weather conditions and soil types do not affect your harvest. As a gardener, you can control the growth conditions more finely. 

Another benefit to a hydroponic garden is that it’s great for small spaces or difficult areas.

Some people may think that it’s too complicated to start a hydroponic garden. However, it can be simple, if done correctly. 

How to Use a Hydroponic Garden

Once you learn the process and get used to it, hydroponics is just like growing in the ground. 

There are two basic types of hydroponics systems.  The first type requires aggregates or other porous root media to support the plant roots. This is sometimes referred to as hydroculture. 

The second type of system doesn’t need aggregates. The most widely used term for this is the nutrient film technique or NFT.

Starting Your Garden

When starting your own garden, you need to consider the following elements.  Firstly, decide where you are going to be growing. This may affect what nutrients you buy and how much light you will need.  Secondly, choose a hydroponics system. 

A MEGAPot system makes hydroponic gardening as easy as possible for you. Its design is aimed at the expert as well as the beginner. 

Next, you need to select the right growth medium. Examples include rockwool, perlite, grow rock and coco chips.  In addition to this, you need to consider what lighting to use, especially if you’re growing inside.  Most edible plants need at least 6 hours of sunlight a day. 12-16 hours is good.

Finally, it’s time to assemble all the elements. The specific system you choose will directly relate to how simple it is to install into the space you have. 

To Conclude: What is Hydroponic Gardening?

At its simplest, hydroponics can be a plant growing in a pot of inert aggregate such as perlite. Then given water containing a liquid fertiliser.  The spaces between the aggregate contain air so that roots do not suffocate. Most beginners can start with a simple system and learn the basics before investing in a more detailed approach. 

With a MEGAPot system we can make it even easier for you. So that anyone can have a go at growing crops. 

A hydroponics garden allows you to grow crops at a faster rate than traditional gardens. Not to mention the fact that it uses less water. Building your own garden can be very rewarding. However, it can be mostly trial and error to start with so you need to be patient. 

To find out more about hydroponic gardens, just get in touch with us at the MEGAPot website and we can talk it through further.