Hydroponics and the Benefits

Hydroponics is the process of growing plants in a water and nutrient solution, without the use of soil.

There are many advantages of hydroponic growing.
These include:-

Hydroponic gardens are less physical work than soil gardens because the only thing growing in a hydroponic garden is the plant you want - no weeds to remove or soil to till and keep loose.

Soils often contain disease and fungi, thus by eliminating the soil in a garden, you eliminate all soil borne disease

A hydroponic garden uses a fraction of the water that a soil garden does because no water is wasted or consumed by weeds.

Hydroponics allows plants to be placed closer together for providing higher yields when measured against a similar soil footprint.

Hydroponic gardens needn't be big, even a small one can produce salad crops for home consumption and need not take up much more room that a conventional flower pot.

When you grow plants using hydroponic methods you have exact control over the nutrient content they receive (it helps to use a Hanna conductivity pocket tester for this too!). In addition your plants are not subject to the extremes of the weather meaning better, stronger, and faster growing plants with generally higher yields than soil grown plants.

Due to the complete control over the nutrient, lighting, temperature and humidity conditions, the nutritional value of Hydroponically grown crops is often better than those grown in field conditions or in the garden.

One last benefit of Hydroponically grown crops is the reduction or complete removal of pests such as slugs, snails etc.