Setting Up Hydroponics for Your Garden

You've probably seen those commercials for small hydroponics systems in your house. The problem with these devices is that they are small and expensive. It's a nice thing to have a couple of herbs but for the cost you could be much more effective. For under a $100 you can easily set up a garden big enough to keep you and your family with plenty of vegetables.

When people think of hydroponics they think of a crazy contraption. First you need to get a couple of buckets and black them out. They should be able to handle at least a gallon of water but they don't need to handle to much more. Then you need an aquarium pump and grab enough adapters to connect to each separate bucket. With each bucket you will run the air line from the pump to an air stone in the bucket. You want to place the air stone at the bottom of the bucket. The easiest way to do this is to use aquarium glue. You can try other glues but I guarantee you that they will fail quickly. Aquarium glue is the only thing that will last the test of time.

Now with your buckets you are going to cut out a small hole in the top. The hole should be able to securely hold a solo cup. Now take a solo cup you need to place holes in the cup on the bottom edges about the size of a pencil. Just put enough holes that the cup still is stable. Then fill up the bucket with water until it reaches an inch below the bottom of the solo cup. Turn on the air pump and water should splash the bottom of the cup.

In any gardening section you should be able to find lava rocks and starter cubes. Place your seedling or clone in the starter cube and place a small amount of rocks on the bottom. Place the cube on top and then cover the rest of the cube with rocks. This will be the stability of the plant. With the air pump on make sure that the cube is staying moist. You will soon see the roots grow out of the cube and into the water.

For light the easiest thing to use is a 70 watt HPS that you can find at almost any Home Depot or Lowes. Make sure it's an HPS and not something else. The only other option is a metal halide nothing else for indoor plants. Of course you could use natural sun.

For nutrients you can use any mix for hydroponics and follow the directions to start. You can get more advanced later on in your gardens life. Now for the cost of one of those small gardens you have a garden that can actually feed you.