How to Grow Vegetables Indoors Using Hydroponics

Growing vegetables hydroponically is an excellent choice for gardeners who want to be able to grow produce indoors year-round. It's also popular with those who live in climates that have a short growing season or periods of extreme heat and or cold. Additional benefits of hydroponics include the ability to grow a relatively large number of plants in a fairly small space and being able to control the water and nutrient levels that your plants receive.

Difficulty:

Moderately Easy

Instructions

Things You'll Need

• Indoor hydroponic system
• Indoor grow lights
• Vegetable seeds
• Fans or ventilation (for use with HPS lighting setups)

1. Determine how much money you want to devote to your hydroponic vegetable garden. Hydroponic kits come in everything from economy desktop models to bigger, higher-end types. The kits range in price from less than $100 to many hundreds of dollars, depending on the size, design, complexity and available features. They typically include everything you need to get started except for grow lights. Larger-scale, technologically advanced hydroponics setups can easily sell for several thousand dollars each.

2. Consider using the more affordable "aeroponic" method of vegetable gardening instead of hydroponics if you're on a budget. Aeroponics is not quite the same thing as hydroponics, but it borrows several principles of soil-free gardening and depends upon water, nutrients and air vapors for food and plant hydration. Typically in this type of gardening, the vegetable plants are suspended above a water source where they are exposed to the oxygenation process to promote steady, successful growth. The Aerogarden, perhaps the best-known aeroponic system on the market, has gained quite a following, both for its ease of use and the fact that it includes an automatic, timed lighting system that makes it an all-inclusive, easy-to-use package.

3. Educate yourself about the different types of hydroponic methods to see which one best suits your needs. Most hydroponic vegetable gardeners use the water culture method, a drip and ebb system or a wick system to grow their plants. Water culture systems are the oldest type of hydroponics. They work by suspending the plants in a growing medium while the roots are in contact with water and nutrients via a reservoir system. Both drip and ebb systems are perhaps the most readily available form of hydroponic systems, and they function by using a pump to recycle water and nutrients to the roots. Wick systems, on the other hand, are very basic and essentially use a simple wick to automatically get the nutrients to the plant. To help determine which type of hydroponics setup is the best match for you, speak with a hydroponics store employee.

4. Learn as much as you can about the key elements of successful hydroponic gardening. Study the various growing mediums, plant nutrients, supplemental nutrition, pH levels and possible plant pathogens that you may encounter. Knowing as much as possible about the ins and outs of hydroponic vegetable growing will give you the best advantage.

5. Choose grow lights for your hydroponic vegetable garden. There are three main types of lights. Fluorescent lights are popular because they're inexpensive, easy to set up and can be found at any hardware store or garden center. They're ideal for small, low-growing plants such as loose leaf lettuce. However, they don't emit sufficient light to grow most other vegetables. High-pressure sodium lights, also called HPS lights, provide very bright light and unparalleled efficiency. These lights help to stimulate growth in flowering vegetables, such as tomatoes, zucchini, peppers and eggplant. The primary shortcoming of HPS lights is that they give off high levels of heat, which means that some form of ventilation system is needed with their use. Another type of lighting, Metal Halide lights, provide full spectrum lighting that's the most similar to natural sunlight. Metal Halide lighting is ideal for plants that require dense growth like spinach, lettuce and cabbage.

Resources

• More information on growing hydroponic veggies
• Hydroponic kits
• Gardening info