Easy Hydroponics

Learn to make your own homemade hydroponics system to grow virtually any plant, vegetable and fruit without soil.

General Hydroponics:

• History of Hydroponics Growing
• Introduction to Hydroponic Farming
• Hydroponic Supplies 101
• Effects of Hydroponics on Vegetables
• Overview of Six Growth Systems
• Common Hydroponic Nutrients
• Types of Hydroponic Growth Media

Hydroponic Systems:

• Basic Concepts of Home Hydroponics
• Advantages of Major Growing Systems
• Finding the Best Hydroponic Systems
• Are Cheap Systems Worth It?
• Hydroponic System Buyer's Guide
• How to Save Money on Systems
• Pros & Cons of Ebb and Flow
• Hydroponics Drip Versus Ebb and Flow
• Advantages of Vertical Systems
• Lunar and Mars Hydroponic Systems

Hydroponics Growing:

• Hydroponic Tomatoes
• Hydroponic Lettuce
• Hydroponic Strawberries
• The Hydroponic Strawberry Revolution
• Pros & Cons of Strawberry Systems
• How to Build a System for Strawberries
• More Tips for Strawberries
• Using Hydroponics Year-Round?
• Florida's Hydroponic Strawberries
• How to Clone Plants with Hydroponics

Homemade Hydroponics:

• Why Homemade Hydroponics?
• Pros and Cons of Home Systems
• Making A Simple Hydroponics System
• 5 Free Hydroponic System Plans
• Building A Bottle Hydroponics System
• Make a 5 Gal Pail Hydroponic System
• A Build Using Hydroponic Planters
• 5 Steps to Building from Scratch
• What is The Cheapest System?
• 3 More Tips To Building Your System
• Building a Raft Hydroponic System
• The Beauty of DIY Hydroponics
• How to Build an Aeroponic System

Hydroponic Lights:

• Introduction to Grow Lights
• Types of Hydroponic Lighting
• Choosing the Right Hydroponic Lights
• Assessing Minimum Amounts of Light
• How to Maximize Light Efficiency
• Metal Halide Hydroponics Lighting
• Fluorescent versus HID Systems
• 5 Types of HID Hydroponic Lights
• Hydroponic LED Lighting
• Hydro Farm Hydroponics Grow Lights
• Importance of Color Temperatures
• Setting Light Timing Schedules
• Hydroponic Grow Lights Safety

PVC Hydroponics:

• PVC Hydroponics FAQ
• Hydroponics and PVC Pipe Tubes
• Advantages of Using PVC
• Using PVC in a Dutch Pot System
• How to Build PVC Pipe Hydroponics
• How to Build a PVC Hydroponic Tree

How to Build Cheap Systems Using Hydroponic Planters

Systems using hydroponic planters can work very well with many types of plants and they're often preferred by inexperienced gardeners, since they're cheap and they leave a lot of room for error. They're also very customizable, making them one of the top choices in today's hydroponic gardening.

New to hydroponics? Don't worry, you don't have to start out your new hobby with a $1000 investment; you can easily create your very own, cheap system using hydroponic planters. Admittedly, homemade hydroponic planters don't always have the same results that a quality system has, but they do offer a few great advantages:

• they're cheap
• they can be expanded easily, in case you need more plants using the same system
• they're low maintenance
• they don't require a lot of attention
• they work with all types of plants, small to large (but the size of your hydroponic planters will determine this of course)
• they're great for newbies
• they still work when you're an expert

Here's how a system based on hydroponic planters works: all you need is a central PVC manifold to hold everything together, a nutrient reservoir, a pump and some tubing to connect everything together. And of course, you will need the hydroponic planters themselves, which can be either purchased or made, but I'd go with the purchase if you ask me; it saves you a lot of trouble in the long run and you're safer this way.

The hydroponic planters will also need to be filled with growth media, the most common being perlite, rockwool, coconut coir and vermiculite. Your choice of growth media should be determined by your nutrient solution and the type of plant you're growing in the system.

You can just as easily grow plants from seeds or cuttings using a system based on hydroponic planters, the most common ones being small tomatoes, herbs, flowers and spice plants. Lettuce and cucumbers aren't bad choices either, but anything larger than that might pose some trouble, as you'll have a hard time finding hydroponic planters that can hold these plants.

Some planters are self watering, making them even easier to use and more efficient. The fact that you don't need to use any pumps or timers to get these hydroponic planters going is a great advantage, but this obviously comes at a higher price. Still, saving up that much space and time (and in the long run, you're probably saving money as well with the cutting down of power costs) might be worth it.

Using hydroponic planters instead of a compact system might not always be the best solution for a particular plant, but the level of customization that they allow and their ability to expand beyond their initial role is a great advantage that can be appreciated by a gardener that's just starting his work in the field, or by an expert that wants to grow his system as fast as he or she is growing the plants it holds. Besides, if anything goes wrong and you can't support all your hydroponic planters, you can simply take some off and you can focus on the rest!