Get Gardening Indoors With Hydroponics

Love fresh produce, but just don't have the space for an outdoor garden? When you lack the land for a traditional garden, consider building an indoor hydroponics system.

Soil-less gardening is also known as hydroponics. The technique of growing with hydroponics can be traced all the way back to the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, still considered one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World.

Then, in the 1890s, a group of German scientists developed nutrient formulas and brought the hydroponics technique into modern agricultural practices. The hydroponics method has now grown far beyond the simple notion of gardening with the use of water, and today's hydroponics gardeners use other forms of growing media.

There are six basic types of hydroponics systems in use today: wick, water culture, ebb and flow, drip, aeroponic and nutrient film technique, or NFT. Other methods are available on the market, but they are generally variations on these six basic types of hydroponics.

Wick Hydroponics Systems

Most indoor gardeners prefer wick systems as the simplest ways to grow plants using hydroponics. The wick system is passive, so it has no moving parts. Growing plants using the wick method is as simple as placing a wick into a reservoir containing nutrient solution. The wick draws the solution into the growing medium, so there is no need for any moving parts.

Other components of the wick hydroponics system typically include:

* Growing tray

* Growing medium

* An air stone

* Hydroponics system air pump

To use the wick hydroponics system, you'll also need to incorporate a growing medium. Coconut fiber, perlite, vermiculite and Pro-Mix are common media used in hydroponics gardening. The major drawback to using the wick system is that large plants, and plants requiring a substantial amount of water, may use the nutrient solution at a faster rate than the wick can supply.

Water Culture System

One of the easiest ways to grow with hydroponics systems to use the water culture system. Components include a floating platform, air line, air stone and air pump. The floating platform serves as a support system and keeps plants in place while the roots are allowed to dangle in the nutrient solution. The air pump is located outside of the tank and sends air through the line to the air stone. In turn, the air stone aerates or "bubbles" the nutrient solution, providing oxygen for the plant roots.

Leaf lettuce is an ideal plant to grow using the water culture hydroponics system. It's a fast-growing plant that loves water, making it the perfect match for this type of hydroponics system. Lettuce is, in fact, one of very few plants that will actually thrive without soil in a water culture system.

Ebb and Flow

Also known as "flood and drain", the ebb and flow indoor hydroponics system works by temporarily flooding the grow tray with nutrient solution, and then draining the solution out of the tray and back into the reservoir. There is a submerged pump connected to a timer that is responsible for keeping the cycle going continuously.

When the timer turns the pump on, the nutrient solution is pumped into the grow tray. Then, when the timer shuts the pump off, the nutrient solution flows back into the reservoir. This process is carefully timed, and repeated at several intervals throughout the day. The size and type of plants, humidity, temperature and the type of growing medium used can all affect the number of times the hydroponics system will "ebb and flow".

If you love gardening, but just don't have the outdoor space or ideal climate, building an indoor hydroponics system can be the perfect solution.