Introduction to Hydroponics - Growing Your Plants Without Any Soil

Table of Contents Introduction Advantages of Hydroponics Nutrients for Healthy Plants Macronutrients Micronutrients The Difference Between Hydroponic Growth and Soil Growth Different Growing Mediums Hydrocorn And Expanded Clay Coconut Coir Rice Husks Growstones Vermiculite and Perlite Sand, Brick Shards, and Pumice Slivers of Wood Wool Products Mineral wool aka Rock Wool Ordinary Gravel Containers and Irrigation Static Solution Hydroponic Culture Raft Culture Solution Continuous Flow System The NFT system Traditional Bengal System Deep Water Culture Top Fed Water Culture Buying Nutrients? Conclusion Author Bio Publisher Introduction If you start a discussion on hydroponics with a person who is a keen and an avid gardener, he is going to say in a very blas tone, "Oh yeah, you are talking about a gardening method which you are not going to use any soil at all. In fact, you are going to be growing your plants in water." And he is going to be so right. Hydroponics is that gardening method, in which you are going to grow your plants in lots of water. This gardening method is normally implemented in places where the soil is not fertile enough to sustain plant life. I, being a practical doomsayer, predict that within the next 50 years plants are going to be grown extensively through hydroponics because we will have poisoned all the soil, with our chemicals, by then. The idea of hydroponics is not something new. I would not be surprised if in ancient times plants were grown in water, especially in places where one wanted to grow plants indoors - especially in palaces. By the way, a couple of years ago, archaeologists who were doing a little bit of digging in Egypt found some Lotus and water Lily seeds going back more than 2,000 years ago, in some pond excavations in a palace in ancient Egypt. Out of the 20 buried seeds found, which were sent to Kew Gardens London, three of them germinated, and so we have 2,000-year-old lilies, whose ancestors were collected by Egyptian princesses. The princesses in the palace collected the lotuses every day in the ponds and use them for religious rituals as well as adorning their rooms and persons. I do not think they went bathing in the scented waters, because they must have been really careful about the muddy and dirty waters, especially with natural organic fertilizers put in them to promote the growth of the plants.