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Posted on 21st Oct 2015
Hydroponics in some ways is all about turning small spaces into workable gardens. So how do you take a small wall space in a home or commercial building and turn it into a fully functioning garden area?
Here are some of the common steps that growers use to engineer a pretty nice garden on a vertical wall.
Plan the Space
First, figure out about how many plants you want to grow. Conceptualize how these plants will fit into a physical space. You can eyeball the space and estimate dimensions for wall shelves and how many plants you can get into a certain amount of square footage.
Build the Structure
After you've done this conceptual work, you'll start building the physical structure off of the wall. You can build shelves off of the wall, or you can hang hydroponic pipes or frames from a ceiling. Alternately, you can stack them up from the floor on a floor-standing array frame. Any of these can be feasible ways to set up your garden -- but the bottom line is that they have to support not only the weight of beginning systems, but the weight of the fully mature plants. This is very important. Think about how much the plants will weight at maturity, and how much pressure they will put on the structure, and build that into the structure, making sure that fasteners are secure, and the system is sturdy enough to handle the demands that will be placed on it.
Install Irrigation
When you have systems in place that will hold your plants, you'll need to plan for water to run up and around and through your garden area. Many growers simply use flexible piping and tubing and run it through each horizontal tray or pipe that's on the wall. The reservoir can sit at the bottom of the floor. This isn’t the only way to set up one of these wall spaces, but it's one of the simplest and easiest.
Germinate or Transplant Plants
When you have everything ready for your new plants, you can introduce them to the garden space. You can germinate them in the actual plant pot and the structure you've set up, but a lot of growers like to germinate plants elsewhere. You can simply put seeds between damp paper towels until they sprout, and then transplant them into the wall garden.
Maintenance
Maintenance should be relatively easy, because you have plants in an accessible wall garden area. Nevertheless, you have to spend a good amount of time monitoring plants, making sure their temperature, humidity and pH values are right, that they have the right nutrients and food, and that they have enough light. You also need to protect them from things like pests and bacterial infiltration.
For more on hydroponics, check out Dealzer and everything that we offer our world wide community of growers.