A Beginner’s Guide to Hydroponics
- Francis
- Apr 4
- 3 min read
Let’s be honest: gardening can be a messy business. Between the dirt under your fingernails, the mysterious bugs that appear out of nowhere, and the heartbreak of forgetting to water your basil for forty-eight hours, it’s a lot. But what if I told you that you could grow crisp lettuce and juicy strawberries in your living room using nothing but water and a bit of science? Welcome to hydroponics—the art of growing plants without soil. It’s basically a spa day for your vegetables, and you’re the manager. And the best part, you can even grow vegetables and fruits in winters! No more issues with lack of temperature or sunlight with hydroponics!
What is Hydroponics?
In traditional gardening, plants have to work hard. Their roots grow through the dirt to find nutrients. In a hydroponic system, you bring the nutrients directly to them in a water solution. Because they aren’t "working" to find food and we can regulate the amount of artificial 'sunlight they get', they grow faster with higher yield.
Getting started
If you look online, there are many guides to build your own hydroponics set-up. For those not so good at building stuff, there are also some pre-assembled ones like LePot, AeroGarden, Click & Grow, iDoo and more. We started with a LePot system and our experiences are based on their system.
Why Hydroponics Rocks:
The Reservoir: It features a water basin at the bottom. You fill it up with water and nutrients, and the plant drinks when it’s thirsty.
The 'Growing' Medium: It often uses a wick or a special porous/spongy growing to suck water up to the roots when the plants are small.
No Seasons: There are just a handfull of plants that can grow in late autumn or winter in soutern hemisphere. Unlike many DIY rigs that look like a plumbing accident, LePot systems actually look nice on a bookshelf.
Pro Tip: It’s almost impossible to overwater these. The plant takes what it needs.
The "Holy Trinity" of Hydroponics
To keep your floating farm alive, you need to manage three main things:
Light: Unless you have a sun-drenched south-facing window, your plants need a LED grow light, which is integrated in a standard hydroponics set-up.
Nutrients: You can’t just use tap water. You need "hydroponic nutrients"—a liquid or powder concentrate that turns plain water into a super-smoothie for plants.
Oxygen: Roots need to breathe! Whether it’s through an air pump or the "air gap" in a LePot or Kratky system, don’t let your roots suffocate.
5. What Should You Grow First?
Don't try to grow a pumpkin in your first water basin. Start small and win big.
Plant Type | Difficulty | Why it's great |
Lettuce | Very Easy | Grows fast; you can harvest leaf-by-leaf. |
Basil/Herbs | Easy | Loves water; makes your kitchen smell like an Italian restaurant. |
Strawberries | Medium | High reward, but they can be a bit picky about pH. |
Cherry Tomatoes | Medium | Requires more light and a bigger reservoir. |
What to grow next?
When it comes to hydroponic systems, certain species perform better than others. For smaller setups, there is a variety of dwarf species available; Letpot has an excellent article on this topic that I highly recommend reading. Over the next months we plan to publish a few articles abour our experience with:
Americal red-leaf lettuce
Red Robin mini tomato
Basket of Fire mini peper
Coriander
HF1 Balcony bell pepper / sweet pepper
Strawberries
Stay tuned for more information!
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