Indoor Gardening with Hydroponics System

Hydroponics is easy to care for and set up at home. There are materials you can buy or some you may be able to find around the house. The dirt or soil that you use to grow plants in a traditional method is substituted for a growing medium with full of nutrients the plant needs to grow in hydroponics gardening. The growing medium is fed directly to the roots by method of a drip-feeder.


Photo: klmmicro

The system can be automated and the gardener can control how many drips the roots receive in a specified time frame. The more of the growing medium the faster the plants grow. Since the system can be automated, the amount of time and energy that is required to maintain a hydroponics garden is less than with a traditional garden.

As long as enough water is present and growing medium the plants can be left unattended for a longer period of time. A home-based hydroponics garden can grow vegetables year round. The concern about pests and the composition of the soil are not an issue with this type of gardening.

Another bonus with this type of gardening is how fast you can have mature vegetables indoors, by increasing the amount of growing medium. The types of plants that are best for hydroponics are ones with thin spider like roots. Plants that have a bulb root system are still best grown in the traditional soil method inside a pot or outside.


Photo: ZanyShani

When you are ready to begin, germinate the seeds for your plants like you normally would. When the seed has started to sprout and has approximately 2-5 millimeters of growth it is ready to transplant to the hydroponics container and begin growing.

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Safety Deliberation For Indoor Gardening

It is most likely that your indoor plants will be safe from hard other than the odd garden pest. But if you have young children or pets in the home, the danger can be for them. There are many plants that are not recommended for indoors or outdoors for that matter when children or pets are present. Some plants are poisonous, even fatal if ingested. Listed below if a few of the more popular plants that aren’t safe to have around.


Photo: dinesh_valke

The seeds of Rosary Pea and Castor Bean plants are lethal. Fatalities have been reported from the ingestion of just one seed. If a young child or cat chews on one of the leaves they are sure to get sick. You can purchase necklaces that are made from the seeds of this plant.

These are not meant for children and can cause skin irritations in adults. Parts of the Oleander plant are also poisonous. It is not worth the risk to have these in the house. Even with due diligence children or pets are bound to get into a houseplant at one point or another.

It is hard to safeguard against falling leaves or other unavoidable events. The bulbs of certain flowering plants are considered poisonous too. Even if you are planning on planting the bulbs outside, be careful they are stored in a safe out of the way area that is not accessible to little heads.


Photo: shisuka25

The flower bulbs in question are from the Hyacinth, the Daffodil and the Narcissus flowers. If you own any of these plants and don’t have little animals or children running around to get into still use caution.

Be conscious of what plants in your house are potential hazards to humans. In addition, be a considerate host or hostess and put the dangerous plants in a safe way when young visitors are coming over.

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Semi Hydroponics

Semi-hydroponics, Passive hydroponics or passive subirrigation is a method of growing plants without soil, peat moss, or bark. Instead an inert porous medium transports water and fertilizer to the roots by capillary action. Water and fertilizer are held in a reservoir and conducted to the roots as necessary, reducing labor and providing a constant supply of water to the roots.


Photo: orchidboard.com

Passive hydroponics does away with the need for water or air pumps, by depending on the capillary action of the plant's own roots to transport water and nutrients to it. It essentially involves growing the plant in a porous container with a reservoir containing water and hydroponic nutrients. This system allows the plant to take in only the specific amount of nutrition it needs. The most basic passive hydroponics system consists of a pot placed in a nutrient solution or a capillary mat saturated with nutrient solution.

In the simplest method, the pot sits in a shallow solution of fertilizer and water or on a capillary mat saturated with nutrient solution. Since routine maintenance is much simplified, passive hydroponics can reduce the labor required to maintain a large collection of plants.

Passive hydroponics, and other hydroponic techniques, offer many advantages over traditional methods of horticulture. Firstly, since a sterile medium is used instead of soil, the plant is protected against soil-borne diseases. Secondly, plants grown using hydroponics take up much less space than those grown in soil, which makes hydroponics the perfect choice for hobby horticulturists.


Photo: suretogrow

The various hydroponic media available contain more air space than more traditional potting mixes, delivering increased oxygen to the roots. Allowing air to reach the roots is particularly important in preventing root rot in epiphytic plants such as orchids and bromeliads, whose roots are exposed to the air in nature. Passive hydroponics also may add additional ambient humidity through evaporation. It is important in passive subirrigation to wash out the system from time to time to remove salt accumulation. Plants that require drying between waterings or a dry dormant period may fail to thrive under the constant moisture of passive hydroponics.

Sources: hydroasis.com, wikipedia.org

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