Hydroponic Gardening Supplies

The earliest published information regarding growing plants [ culture hydroponique, systeme hydroponique ] without the, until then, conventional soil medium, was in the seventeenth century. The book, printed some months after his death, was written by Sir Francis Bacon. Following his publication, water culture became a popular technique carried out and investigated by many scientists and botanists.
The investigations by these researchers concluded that plants propogated in water, less pure than distilled water, grew at a more satisfactory rate. By the mid-nineteenth century it became apparent that certain elements included in the water supply, and believed necessary for satisfactory plant growth and the successes obtained, encouraged further research into soil-less culture.
The growth of plants, without soil or other inert growing medium, in a nutrient solution, became known as solution culture and more commonly known today as hydroponic culture. See further detals below.
General Hydroponic Gardening Supplies Grow Kit Items

In this website we have endeavoured to give some history of the hydroponic growing of plants and also to detail the differing methods of growing. Clicking on the product categories opposite will take you to the various category pages and will show all the items currently available on eBay where you can purchase in confidence using their secure payment system.

In the video below is a typical illustration of how simple a hydroponic system can be.

Today millions upon millions of all types of plants are grown in this manner and is now a well established branch of Agronomy which is the science and technology of utilising plants for food, fuel and feed and shows to have many advantages over conventional horticulture.
The two main advantages of this soil-less propogation of plants are, firstly, higher crop yields and, secondly, hydroponics produces superb results where other methods of agriculture can not be used.
The modern methods and techniques of hydroponic growing mean that city dwellers or others with restricted garden or growing facilities can grow regular supplies of fresh vegetables, spices, herbs and fruit rapidly and in abundance.
As an example many people use grow boxes in their apartments, garages or cupboards where it would be totally impossible to utilise conventional methods.

Hydroponic gardening can generally be divided into "Medium Culture" and "Solution Culture".

Solution culture, as the name suggests, does not use a solid medium for the roots, just the liquid nutrient solution. Three main categories of solution culture are "Continuous" flow culture, "Static" solution culture and the so called "Aeroponic" method.

The medium culture method uses a solid medium for the roots and is usually named after the type of medium used, e.g. gravel culture, sand culture or rockwool culture.

There are normally two main variations for each medium, "top irrigation" and "sub irrigation".

For these techniques, most hydroponic nutrient reservoirs are these days built of plastic but other materials have been used including concrete, glass, metal and wood.

The nutrient reservoirs / containers should exclude light to reduce the possibility of algae growth in the nutrient solution.
Static solution culture

Plants grown in the static culture environment are grown in a container of nutrient solution, such as glass jars, plastic buckets or tanks (typically a fish aquarium). The solution is usually aerated but may also be unaerated. Where the unaerated way is adopted, the solution level is kept at a level low enough that the roots are above the solution in order that they are exposed to adequate oxygen. A hole is cut in the top of the reservoir for each plant and the plant contained in a supporting frame. There are usually severalplants per reservoir. Where necessary the reservoir size can be increased as the plant size increases.

A homemade system would typically be constructed from a domestic type aquarium with aeration provided by an aquarium pump supplying air through a diffusion stone. All tubing and valves would be of the type used in a normal aquarium installation.

Where clear containers and pipework are used care must be taken to exclude light from the nutrient solution, thus helping to eliminate the formation of algae within the system.

The nutrient solution should be changed on a schedule, such as once every 7 days, or when the concentration drops below a level acceptable for a satisfactory result. The strength of the nutrient solution can be determined by using a suitable instrument. [describe type of instrument]

Whenever the nutrient solution strength is outside of it's normal setting then either water or fresh nutrient solution should be added.
The following are general items for sale - for a full hydroponic gardening supplies component list see the right hand side menu - Items For Sale