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Posted on 12th Aug 2015
Is hydroponics gardening really better than soil-based gardening? Well, yes, in a lot of ways, it is. Here are five things that people really love about hydroponic methods.
A Year-Round Grow Center
One thing that hydroponics does that traditional gardening doesn't is give you a full 12 months of time to work with -- an around-the-clock, all year, season for growing. It's not hard to imagine how much more produce you can grow when you don't have to wait through winter. And while soil-grown plants can grow until near the end of the year, growers often have to wait until April or May to plant new stuff.
Micromanaging
With a hydroponics garden, it's easy to set precise levels for things like temperature and humidity. Plants grow in a carefully controlled environment, not the chaos of an outdoor climate, with rapidly changing temperature and humidity, wind, rain, hail and a host of potentially harmful insects.
Part of what appeals to the hydroponics grower is the idea of the grower as scientist who is establishing careful baseline conditions, controlling every aspect of the grow cycle, and working on a trial and error basis to come up with better harvests every time. Outdoors, Mother Nature is in control. Indoors, in a sealed hydroponic environment, the grower sets the stage for growth.
Cleanliness
When some people say they have a “black thumb”, what they really mean is that they don’t like to get dirty. Soil-based growing involves a lot of close contact with soil and everything else that's part of the outdoors. That doesn't appeal to everybody, and a lot of people just never get into gardening for that reason. But hydroponics is different -- it provides a more sanitary and isolated environment for plants, so that you can get harvests without the dirt.
Feeding and Soil Quality
Another big plus for hydroponics has to do with what plants eat. Hydroponics manufacturers have created specific nutrient packages with precise levels of things like nitrogen, potassium and phosphorus, to grow healthy, vibrant plants every time. By contrast, in soil-based growing, you're essentially limited to what’s in the natural soils, in addition to any fertilizing compounds you can apply.
Space
The above four benefits of hydroponics are pretty neat, but there's a fifth one that we hadn't even talked about yet. That's space. In soil-based growing, gardening requires a certain amount of arable land -- land that has good soil, that's well away from contaminants like lead paint structures and chemical runoff. These kinds of spaces are hard to find these days, especially in cities, and even in the suburbs. But hydroponic gardening can be done in any small space, and again, one that's controlled for optimal grow conditions and safe agriculture.
For more about the benefits of hydroponics and how you can get started, take a look at the Dealzer webpage to look at gear and equipment and get tips from other growers.