hydroponics -gardening,not weed!

[pawpawdiv9]

My dad had been trying to do this, this year. Growing from seeds. Tho we dont have a greenhouse, he is doing this in our small workshop.
He had a table setup with lights and fans on a timer.
He now has them in like red solo cups or bucket pals.
He was wanting to do a systems with pvc pipes and stuff, but would cost $ to do this from HomeDepot. We did look at online suppliers and may do it at some later point. We dont have access to a hydro shop near us, mostly in the Atlanta area as it is slowly catching on. We do a someone with a farm that does this, thinking of visiting it and read that Berry College has students doing this too.

Long story- but i would like to hear from people with their experinces.....probably BNorth will chime in, as i know he greenhouses.

[bnorth]

Pipes work but unless it is for fun it is a waste of time/money for the most part. I grew strawberries using that type of system to try it out. Wasn't impressed with the results compared to putting them in the ground.

When done correctly you can GREATLY increase your yields. At a minimum you need a clear plastic roof and overhead wires. The roof is to keep out any useless rain water. The overhead wires are so you can prune the plants properly and hold them up.

If you want the best bang for your buck the wires and proper pruning will greatly improve yields. Even when still grown in dirt.

I had a commercial hydroponic greenhouse for 5 or 6 years. I retired really early and done it because it was something I always wanted to do. The money part wasn't real important so I tried a lot of different stuff in that time.

I found grow bags with perlite was by far the best way for hydroponics for many reasons.

All the automatic watering can be done fairly cheap. If you have any specific questions just ask.

[Michael B]

You may wish to check out MPT.org (Maryland Public Television). They have a weekly show called "Maryland Farm and Harvest". The did several episodes about hydroponics; including one in a Baltimore high school. You are able to watch every single episode on their site. The link is about halfway down on the left. I stumbled across it years ago while channel surfing and have been watching episodes ever since. Each episode covers 3 stories or so and is about 27 minutes long.

You can hover over the episodes to see the subjects. Here is one on vertical farming from season 8

https://video.mpt.tv/video/episode-806-rbu3ev/