Hydroponics Explained: Hydroponics simply means growing plants without soil. Food for the plants, called nutrients are dissolved in water and fed directly to the roots automatically. Plants form smaller roots and grow in inert media (i.e. gravel, sand, water or even air – but not soil or other decaying organic matter).

Imagine growing a vegetable garden without having to fight soil. No more worries about too much water; or too little water; or how much fertilizer; or when to fertilize; or the labors of cultivating and weeding to provide just the right soil consistency and texture; and how much space to give each plant to avoid competing for food and water; etc.

Hydroponic vegetables are healthy, vigorous and consistently reliable. Gardening is clean and extremely easy, requiring very little effort once your garden is set up and planted. A green thumb is not required.

In soil, vegetables grow a large root system to search for food and water. In hydroponics, food and water are fed directly to the roots. This enables the plants to spend more energy growing the part above the surface, thus growing much faster and producing more fruit. With small roots the plants may be grown very close together conserving space. We use inter-cropping to increase production from the same space. In general, hydroponic gardens require only about 20% of the overall space required of soil gardens for the same vegetable production

Basics of Building Your Own