Hydroponics Beginners Gardening Guide: How to Start a Hydroponics Growing System Step by Step

By Simon Hamilton

Get your feet wet in the incredible science of hydroponic gardening!

For centuries, hydroponics have represented the pinnacle of horticultural science, improving on nature's growing methods to produce astounding agricultural yields. Hydroponics—raising plants in water and without soil—is not only a more sustainable method of growing food with limited water and space, it's nothing less than a technological miracle.

Now, author Simon Hamilton makes the secrets of hydroponics available to the beginning or urban farmer with Hydroponics Beginners Gardening Guide: How to Start a Hydroponics System Step by Step!

Learn your perlite from your vermiculite, and learn why it matters.

Hydroponics is an amazing system, but it's not for the faint of heart: before you see your first crop, you'll need to decide on all kinds of variables, including water, growing medium, and of course, what plants you'll be raising! But don't get bogged down in rumor or misinformation…Simon Hamilton answers all your questions in this simple, easy-to-understand guide.

From balancing an appropriate nutrient solution to testing and adjusting the pH of your water to ensure your plants are healthy and happy, Hydroponics Beginners Gardening Guide has your back! Just take a look inside to find the answers to:

What kind of growing medium is right for me?

What kind of water do I need to use?

How do I get my plants the nutrients they need without soil?

Which hydroponics system works for my space and resources?

Make your life healthier and happier with a bountiful harvest of fresh, homegrown produce!

By the end of Hydroponics Beginners Gardening Guide, you'll know which of the major hydroponics systems (Wick System, Water Culture, Ebb and Flow, Drip System, or NFT) is easiest and best for your purposes. Better still, using the information in this amazing guide, you'll be able to start your very own hydroponic garden without spending a fortune.

Plus, as a special bonus, Simon Hamilton includes with purchases of Hydroponics Beginners Gardening Guide a copy of his companion eBook, Growing Vegetables in Containers: All You Need to Know About Growing Food at Home! Between these two guides, you'll be armed with all the knowhow you'll need to start your own gardening experiments and take sustainable gardening into your own hands.

Don't wait around for delicious, sustainably-produced organic food to come to you. Start your very own gardening revolution today by clicking "Buy Now" at the top of this page!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Simon Hamilton
• Release date: Feb 28, 2019
• ISBN: 9781386942849

Book preview

Introduction

I want to thank you and congratulate you for downloading the book, Hydroponics Beginners Gardening Guide: How to Start a Hydroponics System Step by Step.

This book contains proven steps and strategies on how to successfully build your own hydroponics system, as well as help you understand the underlying concepts of its different systems.

In the current capitalistic economic system, the continuous and exponential growth of human population is generally favorable. It is, however, quite the opposite for the Earth itself. Just a century ago, the majority are under the impression that world’s natural resources are infinite—that clean drinking water will never run out, that there is enough if not an excess of land, and that food will always be available. Now, however, that the Earth has begun to change as a direct result of humanity’s uncontrolled consumption and destruction, it has dawned on everyone that such an idea is completely naive. The Earth will not grow along to satisfy the demands and needs of the growing population. Everything is finite.

This realization called for immediate action and innovation. Many scientists and researchers focused their efforts on agriculture to prevent (or control) the shortage of food—the first basic need of man. This, however, is but one of the many problems that sprouted from overpopulation. Drinkable water, along with land areas for both farming and living, steadily crawls in depletion. The ideal agricultural system should, therefore, be space and water efficient.

Surprisingly, the answer isn’t something that is yet to be invented or conceptualized. The ideal agricultural system has been in study since the early 17th century, and it was known then as solution culture. Francis Bacon published a book entitled Sylva Sylvarum in 1627 (which was, sadly, a year after his unfortunate death) discussing the growing of terrestrial plants without the use of soil, and it was the first book in history to have done so. It was only in 1929 when this system had become a sensation—when William Frederick Gericke grew a twenty-five feet high tomato in his back yard using only a nutrient solution in place of soil. In 1937, and as proposed by W. A. Setchell, the term for the system was changed to hydroponics (hydro, meaning water; and ponics, meaning to labor).

What required 25,000 acres of soil in traditional farming, required only 1,300 acres of space with hydroponics in meeting the annual demand of tomatoes in Canada. And if an acre of soil can produce 7,000 pounds of cucumber or 10 tons of tomato, the same space allocated for hydroponics will yield 28,000 pounds of cucumber or 300 tons tomato. These stunning results enabled farmers to feed more humans (and livestock) and thus save space by simply yielding up to 6 times more from the same expanse of land.

It may not seem like a water-saving system because of the fact that it is water-dependent, but results displayed just the opposite. Only ⅓ of the water allocated for traditional farming was consumed by hydroponics. According to researchers, most of the water sprayed over soil-planted crops evaporate, thus leaving only half (up to almost a third, depending on the climate) for the plants to absorb. Plants in a hydroponic system, on the other hand, do not encounter the