Hydroponic Gardening

New Growers101 - What is a hydroponic garden?

Okay, so you are new to the growing game and maybe a little embarrassed to ask some of the most basic questions in getting started, right? There´s also some pretty funky and cool stuff you are just learning about that might seem pretty complicated at first glance, right? Good news – there´s no need to get embarrassed, and the stuff that you think is really complicated right now, really isn´t after you look at it just a little more closely. Remember, the smart and successful growers are the guys that started out asking the most basic and important questions first, so that they could properly develop their knowledge base and apply that to a winning skill set in producing the best crops.

You probably didn´t know that plants really don´t require soil to grow. Soil is really just a material means to hold or harness nutrients and water that plants use for food and nourishment. It´s also a great material to hold their roots in place and allow them to spread and fan out in a way to access all of the nutrients they need in the widest area possible for them. One of nature´s big secret´s is that if you supply plants directly with the food they need directly to their root systems via nutrients that are dissolved in water, they will be able to grow and flourish just as well as any soil-grown plant. That´s exactly what hydropnics is! The other great news is that since you are freed from using soil, hydroponics offers you the potential to take up much less space for your garden, making it a great method for growing indoors. With no soil to worry about, it´s much easier on the cleaning!

The two main ways that hydroponics are applied are by being able to suspend a plant´s root system directly within a mineral nutrient solution or by basing the plant in an inert growth medium like gravel, mineral wool, clay pebbles, coconut husks etc. These mediums will support the plant and roots and allow their roots to come in contact directly with the dissolved mineral nutrient solution for feeding. In recent surveys, Humboldt's Secret Golden Tree, liquid fertilizer has ranked as the number one rated nutrient product for use in hydroponic gardening.