Basically I didn't understand anything. "Hydro what?" I said to my friend the first time I heard him: "Hydroponics? ... ah, that is, I can practically grow a vegetable garden at home". I am lucky to have a small terrace but nothing more. I have always enjoyed growing something, also for the satisfaction of having a small harvest made with my hands and maybe even eating the fruits!
He is about to end up run over, his mother saves him
Basically I didn't understand anything. "Hydro what?" I said to my friend the first time I heard him: "Hydroponics ?… Ah, I mean I can cultivate a vegetable garden at home, practically". I am lucky to have a small terrace but nothing more. I have always enjoyed growing something, also for the satisfaction of having a small harvest made with my hands and maybe even eating the fruits!
"One's hydroponic cultivation is the art of far grow plants in the water. The word comes from the Greek “hidro = water” and “ponos = work“. Seeing how good? I did my homework and read some guides on the indoor cultivation.
My friend had already convinced me at the third word of his speech: "Look, with hydroponics you can make a garden ..." I didn't even feel it anymore, so much so that I already thought of hydroponics as the super technique that would feed me.
Actually when you start with the hydroponic greenhouse, the ideal hydroponic system, fertilizers, substrates and more, you understand you need a vast number of products to put your harvest to good use.
My experience with hydroponic cultivation
In practice, I took several steps to get to accultivate my garden at home. First of all, I followed the many tips and guides found on the website www.idroponica.com able to combine useful information (videos and manuals) with the tools I had to use. Instructions like: "This is how it is done and this is the best hydroponics tool to do it."
Precisely, in this image you can see a aeroponic system. In general it changes little if I have not misunderstood. What I understood well, as you can see from the photo, is how to cultivate. I try to summarize the basic concepts of hydroponics and indoor cultivation that I have learned and put into practice:
1) What is hydroponics?
As I said earlier hydroponics is a technique for growing plants out of the ground (literally!). In practice, some tubs in which the plants are immersed to make their roots develop and then these plants with the roots are made to "cling" to a natural layer (called substrate) and specifically designed to support them.
2) What advantages does it bring me?
The system you see above it absorbs very little water! Doesn't that seem like an advantage if you have to grow indoors? Don't worry it will be. Hydroponics in general is very useful because you can keep some factors constant which cannot be maintained in traditional agriculture.
3) Choose between aeroponic or hydroponic systems
The aeroponic systems make use of greenhouses and closed environments, but without the use of land. To choose I went to a portal that deals with hydroponics with manual guides and tools.
4) Choose the most suitable hydroponic system and light kit
Yes, because once I chose between hydroponic or aeroponic techniques I had to find the ideal system for the sizes of my balcony and for the type of cultivation I wanted to do.
5) Germination
Each hydroponic cultivation has three phases: Germination - Growth - Flowering. Germination is the process of getting the roots out of the seed. In fact, the roots do not come out on their own, they need special techniques (deepen them on a portal as I did).
6) Growth
Growth is the second phase and very simply it is the time span in which the plant develops and grows. In this period I have seen my plants grow, what to say, a satisfaction that I enjoyed day by day.
7) The Flowering
It is the last stage. It means, as the word itself suggests, the period in which the plant makes its flowers "bloom". I have planted lettuce and therefore you can see my "flowers" on the photo I found.
In short, I started about 2 months ago that I knew a little bit about irrigation but nothing about fertilizers, pesticides, hydroponics tools and now you can see the results in such a short time!
It takes very little maintenance, it only takesor follow the methods for making the three stages of the plant life cycle as indicated by the guide.
In a couple of weeks I have read the manuals online (it's not that I've been there night and day!) And I've seen that it really works. With little water and little effort you can make a small garden tailored to your needs.
Lorenzo Tempestini
Read also:
- Urban gardens: in Brooklyn the green roof with the largest hydroponic greenhouse in the world
