Fall Gardening Harvest

[betterthanabox]

Originally Posted by Timothy

Mother Nature sometimes makes it as difficult as can be to grow our veggies! Here in North Florida, there are so many critters that love the veggies too, that sometimes I feel more like a zoo keeper than a veggie grower!

It's a major reason I love hydroponic gardening a thousand times more than traditional gardening. Pests, rain, and super hot summers are no longer a concern. I can even extend the growing season for an extra month or two very inexpensively.

I've never really given much thought to hydroponic gardening. I guess I was always worried my house would get raided after buying a bunch of grow lights and hydroponic growing medium. Not to mention I don't have a lot of space for a garden like that.

[Timothy]

Originally Posted by betterthanabox

I've never really given much thought to hydroponic gardening. I guess I was always worried my house would get raided after buying a bunch of grow lights and hydroponic growing medium. Not to mention I don't have a lot of space for a garden like that.

Pound for pound of produce, an outside hydroponic garden takes much less space than a traditional garden.

You don't need lights or any special growing medium.

The myth of hydroponics and illegal drugs is overblown. Sure, people who grow illegal stuff will use the best way to grow it. That is hydroponics. However, hydroponics was, and is being used for FOOD production billions of times more than the druggies use it for their habits.

Hydroponic gardening goes back more than 2000 years.

[Timothy]

Originally Posted by Timothy

The myth of hydroponics and illegal drugs is overblown. Sure, people who grow illegal stuff will use the best way to grow it. That is hydroponics. However, hydroponics was, and is being used for FOOD production billions of times more than the druggies use it for their habits.

Hydroponic gardening goes back more than 2000 years.

Plus, to equate hydroponic gardening with drugs is much like equating drugs with automobiles or kitchen matches.

Cars *are* used by people to transport drugs. Kitchen matches *can* be used to light a marijuana cigarette. Hydroponics *is* used by some people to grow some drugs.

However, billions of cars have nothing to do with drugs.

Kitchen matches are used by the billions to light everything from furnaces to BBQ's.

Billions of pounds of food are grown using hydroponic gardening every single year.

Hydroponically grown food can be as much as 10 times as nutritious as soil grown produce and has a much better meat-to-pulp ratio than soil grown veggies. It also tastes WAY better and has a much longer shelf life.

[blissful]

Timothy, I saw a video on one of the Disney properties, where they grew things hydroponically.

What kind of a hydroponic operation do you have? (how do you do it?) Could it be done in the northern states?

When I grow things hydroponically, it means, I turned on the sprinkler... (apparently I don't know hydroponics)

[Timothy]

Originally Posted by blissful

Timothy, I saw a video on one of the Disney properties, where they grew things hydroponically.

What kind of a hydroponic operation do you have? (how do you do it?) Could it be done in the northern states?

When I grow things hydroponically, it means, I turned on the sprinkler... (apparently I don't know hydroponics)

Ha! Well, you're on the way with your sprinkler! It's a large part of hydroponic gardening!

I've been using hydroponic gardening for growing my own veggies for going on three decades.

During that time, I've used almost every type of method that exists. My favorite for vine crops is called "Fill and Drain" or "Ebb and Flow". For plants that take up less area, I use "Nutrient Flow Technique" or "Nutrient Film Technique".

I'm currently building a new greenhouse in my front yard that will enclose my hydroponic garden within a screened enclosure with a clear panel roof. This will keep rain and critters from being a concern and allow me to grow without using any pesticides at all.

You can use a screened in hydroponic garden anywhere that you can grow outside, and usually for a month or two longer than you can using traditional methods.

If you use pesticides, (I don't), you don't even need a greenhouse. All you have to do is cover the nutrient reservoirs and create drip-loops on the stems of the plants that grow to each side of the nutrient reservoir.

Soil temps are meaningless, so by heating the reservoir water, you can greatly extend your growing season and planting dates for most crops.

I don't want to start slapping my web-page link all over DC, but all of these techniques can be discussed in depth on my Hydroponic Site that is listed in my profile. It's free, it has no spam and there are no hidden costs or fees. Ask any question you have and someone, (probably me), will answer you in depth.

Most of the Disney Epcot Center Hydroponics are very old methods dating back to the 1950's. Cool systems and they still work, but many advances have been made that aren't shown at the Epcot Center.

I've been studying and using hydroponic gardening for most of my life. As of the year 2000, I had read every book ever written on the subject. The only book I update now is Dr. Howard Resh's book; "Hydroponic Food Production", which is considered by many in the field to be the "Bible" of Hydroponics.

[Fabiabi]

Green tomato chutney with the unripe ones