Hydroponic Gardening: A Winter Refuge for Gardeners

Gardening in the closet!

Hydroponic Gardening. Uh...that's produce grown without soil, for those who don't know. I certainly didn't at first. The good news is you can grow vegetables inside your home over the winter, which has hung on far too long in my opinion.

You'll have to forgive my obsession with winter, but with snow drifts still deeper than my boot tops and snow again the other night that left the roads icy, I'm a bit grumpy in my desire for spring. I need a convincing few days of warm sunshine but of course, it will come eventually. And Saturday I attend an all day master gardening class with three other Earth Angels. Winter doesn't stand a chance!

Meanwhile.... back to my winter gardening project. My interest in hydroponic gardening really began with a community course taken years ago on how growing food in water atop a fish aquarium. No soil, just water, grow lights, and best of all--built in fish fertilizer. It sounded perfect at the time, but without a basement or a spare room (or an aquarium) to set up this operation, the idea fell to the wayside as impractical.

Thanks to a new hydroponic kit ("Aero Garden"), a gift from my daughter at Christmas, I now have salad at my fingertips. Set up was easy. My kit came with seed pods, fertilizer, and LED grow lights. Add water, set the timer, and you are reminded when to add water and feed. Easy peasy. I’m growing lettuce, parsley, and dill, but you can grow other vegetables like tomatoes and peppers, as well as flowers.

One problem at the onset was the extremely bright light. The seedlings require 16 hours of light, which in my case destroyed the ambiance of the room at night. Easily solved... I now have vegetables doing quite well in a spare closet. 

To sum, here are the disadvantages: ‘too bright’ lighting, costly setup (although I didn't buy the kit), the need for electricity, and the occasional replacement when LED lights burn out. Some would include power consumption, which is high in large scale operations, but with only six seed pods in my unit, I haven’t noticed an increase in our bill.

Advantages are obvious: ready-to-pick salad ingredients when store-bought produce runs out, zero pesticides, disease free plants (so far), and high yield. I'm going on three months, which is about max for one seed pod. I’ll most likely keep this going over the summer too, as lettuce tends to bolt here in the heat.

Happy Gardening everyone! 

 
“I like gardening – it’s a place where I find myself 

when I need to lose myself.” (Alice Sebold)