The magazine I’ve come across covers such a wide range of gardening subjects; everything from diagnosing what’s wrong with crops or an individual plant to tips on hydroponics.

When you subscribe, the copies are free.  On line, you can read issues going back three years.  I think paper magazines are still such a comfort to read and keep around the house.  Here’s a snippet from the latest edition:  “A Diagnostician’s Does and Don’ts”, written by J Benton Jones, Jr., an expert in hydroponics:

“A greenhouse tomato grower asked me to make a visit to determine why some tomato plants had leaves with dark “scars” on them. The greenhouse was glass-covered, the crop being grown in a home-made NFT hydroponic system. There were open water surfaces and the air in the greenhouse felt “humid.”  What was happening? With night cooling, condensation accumulated on the interior structure and water dripping from the joined structural pieces was falling on the leaves, causing the leaf “scaring.” The grower thought that there was a disease condition developing and was prepared to apply a fungicide to his tomato plants.”

Read more……..

The technique of growing in hydroponics is taking off in many places.  I encourage you to read this article and start thinking about a space in your home where you can set up an efficient, small in home garden and enjoy the nutritious benefits of home grown food.

Written by Danny O. Calleja / Correspondent

Monday, 28 December 2009 18:34

PILI, Camarines Sur—Even urban areas in the country can now produce in commercial scale high-quality vegetables and other agricultural crops through a revolutionary approach in farming called hydroponics. This newly introduced urban-farming system is a potential approach to revitalize agriculture by fundamentally altering the manner of how crop is produced. This included eliminating the dependence of plants on soil by completely changing their growing medium. The concept of hydroponics proves that soil is no longer crucial for the plant to thrive when the required mineral nutrients are artificially introduced into the plant’s water supply and plant roots absorb them, said Jose Dayao, the regional executive director for Bicol of the Department of Agriculture (DA) based here. Dayao explained that hydroponics makes use of crafty facilities, and resource-efficient and cost-effective cultures and systems to allow the effective use of land, nutrient, water and labor in a comfortable and sanitary working condition. Read more………

It seems that peppers are an extremely successful plant to grow in an in home garden in hydroponics or outdoors anywhere in the world.  Whether you’re in a hot or a cold climate, there is always a good chance you will be able to grow great tasting peppers without much trouble.

Choices of peppers are unbelievable at the moment.  With at least 2,500 new species being created each year, and with many of them there not even being time to give them a name, your perfect pepper isn’t far away.

As for seeds, the best place to get them is normally at garden centres or seed specialists.  If you’re lucky enough to have either one close by, these people will give you a huge choice of seeds for different peppers and each will have a good description on the back of all the things the pepper will need to flourish.  Also, a description of what the pepper tastes like can help you make your choice.

People are coming up with new ideas for growing everyday produce in hydroponics and in home gardens all the time.  It’s a “growing” industry that will feed the world one day.

Here’s an excerpt from a news report:

………”Mr. Fitzpatrick and his friend, an adept student of hydroponics science, began conducting some edible experiments which, after some time and nourishment, yielded a gold mine of an answer. “Anything that doesn’t grow inside the ground, we can probably grow it. We worked with some strawberries and these strawberries turned out to be the best-tasting, juiciest strawberries I’ve ever eaten in my life,” Mr. Fitzpatrick said.

“We tried basil. It was like a weed. It was phenomenal. You couldn’t keep up with it.”……..”

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Ivanhoe Junior and Infant School is growing its own vegetables with help from £5,000 from Local Food, a new programme supported by the Big Lottery Fund.

The £50 million scheme is funding food-related community projects across the country.

The Ivanhoe Gets Healthy project is a new education and growing scheme which will provide food-related activities for children, young people and adult volunteers to develop their horticulture skills.”

Read more….