Growing Vegetables Indoors by Hydroponics Gardening

[MossRoad]

I was in a gardening center last weekend and saw an equipment kit for hydroponics gardening. Grows vegetables inside over the winter using media in tubs for plant rooting and lights to help growth. The lady said her customers grow fresh tomatoes and lettuce all winter long. Has anybody tried this, and is it worth the effort? Kind of expensive to buy the equipment .

Yes, I tried it. For me, it was a fun experiment, but not worth the effort and cost of start up equipment. The lighting is the biggest issue to growing plants indoors. You either have to keep the grow lights directly over the plants and only a couple inches away, OR, you have to use so many that it eats electricity. If you keep the lights too far from the plants, they become long and spindly. Also, I got white and red mites. Where from? I have no idea, but they showed up. And then they spread to all corners of the house. So be warned.

On that note, I did see something interesting at the fair last year. They had 4' square tubs about two feet high. They had an aquarium type filter running and were growing talapia in the tubs. On top of the water, they floated three 2' x 2' squares of some type of foam with 4" squares in them for planting vegetables. The bottoms had holes, so the soil stayed moist. They left one 2' x 2' are open for aeration and light for the fish.

The theory was you feed the fish.
The fish grow.
The fish poop in the water.
The water feeds the plants.
As the fish get bigger, the plants get bigger.
The aquarium filter keeps the water clean and areated.
You eat veggies and fish and start over.

Or, as what would probably happen to me....

You invest several hundred dollars in hydroponic/fish equipment and manage to grow $35 worth of veggies and fish. :laughing:

 

[tcreeley]

Our local voc/tech high school teaches the kids how to do hydroponics using the greenhouse built just for that purpose. It is a pretty impressive program. (2 year program)

 

[HillStreet]

Well, after all this conversation I may just visit the garden center again and get more details. We now grow tomatoes in pots outdoors and have a pretty good yield. Small scale, just something to tend and follow our success.

I thought the hydroponics would be a nice hobby, but fish--- no way.

 

[forgeblast]

MossRoad those are aquaponics, http://www.backyardaquaponics.com/Travis/IBCofAquaponics1.pdf is a great read.