Growing plants hydroponically is fun, efficient, and something anyone from a budding gardener to a seasoned green thumb can do successfully.
Many experts in agriculture even consider hydroponic gardening to be much more than just a cool way for home gardeners to grow a few plants—they see it as the future of food production.
What is Hydroponic Gardening?
Simply put, hydroponic gardening is method of growing plants without soil. Plants don’t actually need soil to thrive, as long as they have water and nutrients (along with sunlight and carbon dioxide, of course)—both of which are provided by a hydroponic garden.
In a traditional garden, plant roots have to seek out nutrients in the soil. In hydroponic gardens, nutrients are dissolved in the water that surrounds the roots, so plants have even easier access to the nutrition they need.
There are different kinds of hydroponic systems. In some, plant roots actually dangle in the water. In other hydroponic gardens, plants grow in some kind of soil substitute, such as peat moss, coconut coir, perlite, or clay pebbles. And because there’s none of the soil that many plant pests and diseases need to survive, when you ditch the dirt, you cut way down on your chance of experiencing those problems.
Benefits of Hydroponic Gardening
Growing plants in water is actually one of the easiest ways to garden, and it offers a whole bunch of advantages over traditional soil-based growing.
You can garden anywhere, anytime.
Hydroponics make it possible to grow plants just about any place you’d like—including indoors. Because you can grow indoors with a grow lamp, you can grow just about anything, anytime—including winter. Hydroponic systems also allow you to grow plants in less space than you’d need for the same number of plants in an in-ground garden.
You can save water.
Water recirculates in most types of hydroponic gardens, which means the only moisture used up by these kinds of systems is the water taken in by the plant roots. In a traditional garden, some of the water you add to the soil will inevitably end up going where there aren’t any roots to soak it up and it just ends up evaporating.
Your plants will grow faster.
Lack of water or nutrients can limit plant growth, but that’s not a problem when you’re growing them hydroponically. Plants grown in water always have plenty of both of these necessities, so their roots don’t have to syphon the plant’s energy reserves searching for them—which is why hydroponic plants grow faster than those grown in soil.
You’ll get a bigger harvest.
More growth also means that plants will produce more than they would if they weren’t grown in water. It’s all thanks to those super-available nutrients that go straight to the roots with no soil to act as middle man. For an even bigger harvest, you can use H-G Fulvic Food as a foliar spray. H-G Fulvic Food works to increase yield in hydroponically-grown plants by making nutrients more readily available.
The use of fulvic acid is becoming increasingly popular among all types of hydroponic growers, who can now take advantage of a healthy, happy plants and abundant harvests. Thanks to this substance, nutrient uptake and management are much more efficient, and root growth is simply spectacular.
Check out our products to learn more about H-G Fulvic Food!
Read more: 6 Benefits of Fulvic Acid for Plants