As hydroponic gardening becomes increasingly popular more and more ideas are coming to the forefront. With growing plants in water and a nutrient solution, you can save time, money and space and enjoy year round fresh fruits, vegetables and flowers. Although there are many commercially produced nutrient solutions available to nourish and grow your plants, it is possible to create your own homemade hydroponics nutrients solutions, even if you have no previous experience.

Creating your own nutrient mixtures can be nearly as enjoyable as growing the plants themselves. It is quite possible to produce various kinds of solutions. Doing some homework is essential to determine which nutrients you need and in which concentrations to best suit your plant’s needs.

I found another good tip for your in home garden full of roses:

Many growers of roses use a baking soda solution to fight powdery mildew fungus. Mix one rounded tablespoon of baking soda with one tablespoon of summer horticultural oil in a gallon of water.

Spray this mixture on the plant as long as the temperature is not above 850 F. This will not stop powdery mildew once it has established itself. But it can be an excellent preventative.

Another treatment is sulphur dust. Apply either sulphur or lime sulphur about every seven to ten days.

Many quality nutrients provide beneficial microbes that colonize on a plant’s roots. This, in turn, will inoculate a plant for life against disease.

When purchasing products with beneficial microbes, remember that they are living organisms. Pay close attention to the shelf  life of the product you are considering. A long shelf  life, which most quality products provide, will help assure you of getting living, vibrant microbes that will go to work for you.

Quality nutrients also help to guard against insect infestation.  If your roses are attacked by pests, you’ll be giving them the ability to recover.

If roses are worth growing, they’re worth feeding with the best nutrient fertilizers.  If you want to grow quality roses, feed them quality fertilizers.

Generic fertilizers found at box stores and other gardening stores and supermarkets, generally lack two important things. One is the essential minerals needed to produce quality flowers. Even when a cheap product appears to have a complete formulation, don’t be fooled. Some manufacturers use cheap minerals which plants cannot readily absorbed. This will end up giving you disappointing results.

The other reason for shopping quality is to be assured of a well tested nutrient formulation that includes the proper balance of minerals. Too little or two much of a particular mineral can either starve the plant or set up a toxic condition.

The technique of growing in hydroponics has become very popular lately among indoor farmers. Hydroponics is nothing more than growing plants in water instead of soil. The water is pre-mixed with hydroponics nutrients that give the plants roots all the nourishment they need to grow big and strong as if they were in nature. Hydroponics nutrients are similar to the fertilizers that are found in nature coming from the earth. Plants grown hydroponically grow bigger and faster than plants in nature because hydroponics spoon feeds the plant everything it needs to grow at optimum speed.

When plants are growing in an hydroponics application such as a grow box for instance, plants will receive more light per hour than they would ever receive in nature. This is because you can keep a light in the hydroponic grow box system on longer than the sun would naturally shine in nature. The plants are being spoon-fed exactly the right amount of lighting in high doses.

I just read these interesting statistics in a news item.  Why on earth do we still do traditional farming to grow these foods?  Let’s do our best to spread the word and get everyone growing at least part of their own food at home in hydroponics.

“The yield in hydroponics is much greater than the traditional way of soil farming. Wheat yields 5,600 lb in soil farming, while it produces 8,000 lb in hydroponics. Potatoes yield 1,56,000 lb in hydroponics in contrast to just 18,000 lb in natural farming.

The pioneers of hydroponics were Boyce Thompson Institute for Plant Research, New York, New Jersey Agriculture Experimental Station, Alabama Polytechnic Institute and Horticulture Experiment Station, Netherlands. Hydroponics did not reach India until 1946. First research on hydroponics was done in Government of Bengal’s Experimental Farm at Kalimpong in West Bengal.”

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Often, home hydroponics gardeners miscalculate how much space is needed to produce the quantity of plant material they hope for. It will depend on which crops you intend to grow but the space must be large enough for the plants, reservoir, high intensity lights, ventilation fans, exhaust fans, electrical wiring and more. Certainly,there are very efficient hydroponics systems that fit on a counter-top but realistically, the smallest practical hydroponics garden will be the size of a clothes closet.

Hudro Huts, or grow tents, are about the size of a clothes closet. They are lightproof enclosures designed specifically for an indoor hydroponics garden. A Hydro Hut grow tentg can be erected anywhere there is sufficient space.   Made from 100% lightproof material, it will normally have a highly reflective lining with access holes for intake, exhaust fans and lightproof vents for good air circulation.

In influencing the yield of your hydroponic garden, one of the biggest factors is how many nutrients your plant is receiving. It’s not as simple to increase the amount of nutrients your plants receives by merely increasing them in your nutrient solution, because nutrient uptake may hit a plateau if the conditions of your root zone are not optimized.

Quality plant enhancers usually have several elements that help improve uptake and therefore increase your yield. For instance, some plant enhancers might contain specially designed enzymes that will stimulate root growth, enabling your plant to soak up more moisture and nutrients. Some others might have beneficial fungi that can break down the nutrients in your solution so they are more useful to your plants

All plants need oxygen for respiration. This enables them to take up water and nutrients.  Providing root systems with the maximum amount of oxygen possible encourages the quantity of nutrients absorbed by the plant. This results in faster growth and can greatly increase the size and quality of harvest.

When using a continuous flow or aeroponic system you usually don’t need supplemental oxygen.  For other systems, consider aerating your nutrient by bubbling air into the reservoir.  This can be done with an aquarium pump.

In order for plants to flourish, they must have certain minerals and fertilizers. In conventional gardening, these requirements are supplied by the soil along with manufactured synthetic nutrients or organic materials. The organic materials may be commercially supplied or natural substances such as manure or compost.

The basic minerals required are nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, calcium, magnesium and sulphur.  These materials are needed in large amounts.  Other mineral requirements in smaller amounts include iron, manganese, boron, zinc, copper, molybdenum and chlorine.

It’s important to provide a complete and well balanced formulation of plant nutrients. Many inexpensive nutrient manufacturers do not blend nutrients in a ratio that is most beneficial to plants. As a consequence, you can unknowingly create a deficiency of one or more minerals which will limit growth.

Be aware that some manufacturers will use a cheaper form of a mineral that plants cannot absorb. So become acquainted with the manufacturer of the nutrients you use and don’t hesitate to buy quality. It will pay in the long run with bigger yields.

If you are interested in starting an hydroponic garden, there are many solutions available to you.  You may be looking at a pre-made grow box or you want to design your own set-up.  Here is a little bit about how the hydroponic technique works.

At the heart of it, there are two basic methods for growing with hydroponics: solution culture and medium culture. Solution culture doesn’t use a solid medium for the plant roots to sit in, just the nutrient solution either continuously or periodically. Medium culture uses a media such as rock wool or expanded clay pellets to hold the plants and soak up or circulate the solution.

When you know which plants you want to grow, you should find out which method would suit them best.  Some are more likely to thrive in the nutrient/water situation while others will need the support of the rock wool or hydroton clay pellets.