Have you ever thought of growing mushrooms and selling them?  There’s good money in it if you have time to be a part-time grower.  You can even buy a mushroom growing kit.  We all know that mushrooms are a tasty ingredient for any meal. They’re a popular item at restaurants, farmers’ markets and super markets.

The Oyster mushroom, a type of exotic mushroom, is enjoying a high level of demand at the moment. Last year in the United States, more than a million and a half pounds of exotic mushrooms were grown. This high level of demand isn’t expected to drop off anytime in the near future.

Additionally, oyster mushrooms are fairly easy to grow. They take about six weeks from start to harvest. This is one of the reasons they’re the perfect mushroom for the part-time grower. It’s not necessary to do this full-time to be a successfully grow oyster mushrooms. If you can spare a few hours a week, then you have enough time to be a mushroom grower and sell for extra income.

Do you have some good window space in your house?  You can cover it with little plants growing in hydroponics with this unique idea.  What will people think of next?

From the blog posts, it seems that there are a few problems to work out yet but the idea is there.   Growing plants indoors is such a life affirming thing to do, I find.  Bring on the new ideas!

How to Build a Window Farm

I’ve just discovered “The Emerald” Supper Budding light. It’s apparently the only 90W five Band Grow light.  These new LED grow lights produce a better yield per watt at a lower cost. They save 90% on electricity and 100% on landfills.  All lights are 100% recyclable and you can replace your regular light bulbs and CFL’s . Using these lights will eliminate truly toxic gases like argon and vaporized mercury from your home.

Low heat emission eliminates the need for ducting and heat exhaust fans.  The replacements for your standard bulbs and fuorescents come in any required wavelength from 2500k to 7000k depending on your lighting requirements.

After the first successful application of hydroponics techniques in the 1930s, the stage was set for a shift in crop production from conventional cultivation in soil to hydroponics or soil less cultivation. Among the first crops to be commercially harvested included tomatoes and peppers, but the techniques were soon successfully extended to other crops such as lettuce, cucumbers and more. It was not long before successfull hydroponics techniques were adapted to cut flowers production. In fact, any plant can be grown hyrdroponically.

The extended growing season is not the only advantage to the soaring popularity of hydroponics production with both growers and consumers. Other advantages include the consistent vegetable quality and superior taste, plus the elimination of the use of pesticides and herbicides. Pesticides and other chemicals used in conventional agriculture have an adverse environmental impact; the run off from these chemicals contaminate groundwater supplies. Commercial hydroponics systems eliminate these toxic chemicals and contribute substantially to keeping the groundwater free from contamination.

Indoor gardening can brighten up the drudgery of long northern winters, bringing the delight of fresh tomatoes, peppers, greens, or herbs in the middle of the worst weather.

This can be done by setting up your own hydroponic in home  garden. The advantages are numerous compared to soil based gardening.  For instance, you don’t need to purchase any expensive pesticides. The majority of pests are attracted to soil so they have no interest in your hydroponic plants.

Indoor hydroponic gardens costs are around 20% lower than traditional gardening after your initial set up and you will be able to fit more plants in a smaller area. Your plants will grow larger in most cases because the roots don’t expand as much in hydroponic gardens as they already have all the nutrients they need.  The yield will also be higher.

There is no need to water as they already have all the water they need.  There’s not even a need to weed an indoor hydroponic garden. In fact, all you need to do is pick the fruit or vegetables as you need them.

Hydroponics, a Greek words meaning water and labor, is a way of growing plants using mineral nutrient solutions in water without soil.  Plants can be grown with their roots in mineral solutuion only, or in an inert medium such as perlite, gravel or mineral wool.

In the 19th century, researchers discovered that plants absorb essential mineral nutrients as inorganic ions in water.  Under natural conditions, soil acts as a mineral nutrient reservoir.  The soil, itself, is not essential to the plant growth.  As long as it can have soluble nutrients available, it can happily grow and thrive.  Almost any plant will grow in hydroponics.  It’s the way NASA feeds astronauts fresh food in space.

The use of a foliage sprays to increase the number of nutrients your plants receive is a powerful, proven way to enjoy healthier plants. At the same time, many hydroponic gardeners have probably heard of instances where people seemed to experienced very little benefit. In most of these cases, the fault was not in ingredients in the spray itself but rather how it was applied.

You must carefully consider every aspect of proper application of the foliar fertilizer so as to reap the greatest benefits.  Fortunately, careful application does not have to involve a lot of time or effort. Through a few small tweaks, you can easily make the most of your foliar spray feeding.

The practice of hydroponics gardening uses grow lights to light the plants properly in order for photosynthesis to occur. This allows the plants to grow and thrive. Lighting is crucial to every kind of indoor gardening situation. Without adequate light, the plants will be stunted and not grow to their full potential.

LED grow lights can be used to good effect in an indoor plant growing situation. They out-perform conventional lights every time. LED refers to light-emitting diode. A diode has two terminals and it allows current to flow in one direction and not in another. It is a simple semiconductor.

Hydroponics systems can be either closed or open. In closed systems, the same hydroponic nutrient solution is re-circulated and the nutrient content is monitored and adjusted.

Keeping the nutrient balance in such systems is easy and the hydroponic nutrient solution should be sampled and analyzed every week. The nutrient solution composition has to be adjusted according to the results.  Closed systems are more appropriate for indoors.

In open systems, a fresh nutrient solution is introduced for each irrigation cycle.  This is usually a technique for outdoors.