I saw the Martha Stewart show from Moscow last week, and she visited a huge hydroponic farm outside Moscow. Hydroponics offers some neat advantages (over soil-grown crops)-like: no dirt on the plants, optimum growing conditions, no bugs (or peticides necessay), and no weeds. granted, it is expensive-but don’t the higher yields compensate? Anyway,it looked like the vegetables produced were of very high quality. so is the process much better?
No bugs? Don’t you believe it.
No dirt on the plants is an advantage?
They use it at Orlando,Disney for the veggies in their restaurants. I took a back stage trip through the gardening area and it was quite large.
I believe hydroponic farms are found in more densely urban areas with little arable land. Singapore has been making small strides on placing these farms on rooftops.
Hollands high-tech produce farming in greenhouses is mostly hydroponic. IIRC, plants grow on rock wool.
This picture shows lighted greenhouses at night, taken from a plane coming in to land near Amsterdam.
They’ll become more popular when gas prices get higher and the transportation costs become a bigger percentage of the cost of the product. See this New York Times article about high-rise farms.
puff
Hydroponics?
puff
blinks
Hydroponics is pretty common in greenhouse production of high-value crops such as tomatoes (to be sold as produce, that is - the ones destined to be ketchup are still all field-grown). But the expense is such that it doesn’t make sense for anything but the high-value crops. Cereal grains and the like just aren’t worth enough that the increase in production would even come close to paying for the capital investment.
I just got 4 aerogardens …3 of them as factory refurbs at $100 off the regular price …
I have the first of them set up now, planted with genovese basil, mint, red shiso, thyme, chives and oregano… i have the first sprouts just popping above ‘ground level’
I have one of the pro series, with the ability to grow tomatoes, and 3 of the ones with 6 holes, for herbs and salad greens.
What I would love is a 45 hole hydroponics unit for cute little heads of butter lettuce, they take 45 days, so i would need to plant them so i would harvest 1 a day and replant it when i pick it so i would always have salad for lunch =)
but my bank of aerogardens will make me happy=)
In Niagara Ontario we have quite a bit of hydroponics. I’ve got to tell you that the water that comes out of those operations is toxic waste with all the chemicals and pesticides in it. That idea does not turn my crank.
Yep. You don’t have to pay someone to wash them off at harvest time.
I don’t know how common this is, but I do know of one operation in Rotterdam where the carbon dioxide in the waste stream from an industrial plant is separated out and routed right to a nearby greenhouse.
I have three AGs a 3 pod AG3, a standard AG6 6 pod, and an AG3 Elite Plus (2’ tall extended arm, three bulbs for more light/faster growth)
the AG3 has a Golden Harvest yellow cherry tomato plant in it that refuses to die, I planted it back in November '08, and it’s still producing tomatoes, it’s slowed a bit, but just this week, it set out it’s fourth set of blooms
the AG6 standard has a mix of my own seeds, Stevia, Lemon Balm mint, Flat leaf Parsley, Thai Siam Basil, Bee Balm mint, and a Micro Tom cherry tomato plant (it’s about 4" tall, and is on it’s third batch of tomatoes, and it’s supposed to be a “produce all at once” determinate plant), all healthy and thriving, the Thai basil (which has an interesting anise/licorice taste to it) is trying to take over the garden, huge leaves and very light-greedy, but the Stevia has other ideas on the taking-over-the-garden thing, it wants the entire garden to itself , stupid megalomaniacal plants, I should just eat them both, that’ll show them who’s boss…
the AG6E+ has another of my original cherry tomato plants, this one a Red Heirloom, it’s on around it’s fourth production run too, like the Golden, shows signs of slowing down slightly, I also have a full-size Beefsteak tomato plant in it as well, almost 2’ tall and nice and bushy, it’s just started producing flower buds for tomato production, it’s very thirsty and greedy, it’s capable of draining the one gallon resivoir bone dry in two days, and it can strip nutrients from the water just as quickly, I refilled the garden two days ago, dropped in the fertilizer tabs, and in one day, the nutes were gone (I use an Electrical Conductivity test, plain water meters 200k, fertilized water meters 90-100K, yesterday, the water metered out at 100K, today, it was back up to 200K and the plant was showing signs of Chloriosis (yellow mottling of the leaves), I’m still trying to figure out how much food my own personal “Audrey II” tomato plant needs (no, I do not plan to feed it blood 
)
I also build my own homebrew hydroponic rigs, my biggest so far is a 13-pod unit, using a 35 quart (8 gallon) Sterlite “under the bed” container with 1" holes drilled in the lid, illuminated by 2 twin-tube shoplights (40 watt bulb models), and with a Whisper 60 air pump, a 8" flat airstone, and a Penguin 550 powerhead for water movement, I have a healthy crop of leaf lettuce, some dill, and a few empty pods available for some more plants as my needs change, building your own homebrew hydro rigs is cheap and easy, you just need the container, the seed support baskets and media (I set mine up based around the Aerogrow pods), some form of aeration/water movement, and light, just as effective as the Aerogarden, but both cheaper and able to support more plants than the Aerogarden
Hydroponic growing works, and as long as you grow from seed, and keep all dirt plants away from the hydro rig, you should have very little problem with bugs/diseases, my Aerogarden room has had NO diseases, illnesses, or fungal problems with any of the hydroponically grown plants, and yes, they do grow much faster than the equivalent dirt-grown plants, they’re also tastier, i can snack on my lettuce leaves and they have so much flavour that I don’t need to use any dressings, Romaine has a different taste than Red Sails, or Oakleaf, or Outredgeous, or what we refer to in the AG hobby as “Red Warty Leaf”, the tastiest of the bunch
[QUOTE=MacTech;11244025
the AG6 standard has a mix of my own seeds, Stevia, Lemon Balm mint, Flat leaf Parsley, Thai Siam Basil, Bee Balm mint, and a Micro Tom cherry tomato plant (it’s about 4" tall, and is on it’s third batch of tomatoes, and it’s supposed to be a “produce all at once” determinate plant), all healthy and thriving, the Thai basil (which has an interesting anise/licorice taste to it) is trying to take over the garden, huge leaves and very light-greedy, but the Stevia has other ideas on the taking-over-the-garden thing, it wants the entire garden to itself , stupid megalomaniacal plants, I should just eat them both, that’ll show them who’s boss…
the AG6E+ has another of my original cherry tomato plants, this one a Red Heirloom, it’s on around it’s fourth production run too, like the Golden, shows signs of slowing down slightly, I also have a full-size Beefsteak tomato plant in it as well, almost 2’ tall and nice and bushy, it’s just started producing flower buds for tomato production, it’s very thirsty and greedy, it’s capable of draining the one gallon resivoir bone dry in two days, and it can strip nutrients from the water just as quickly, I refilled the garden two days ago, dropped in the fertilizer tabs, and in one day, the nutes were gone (I use an Electrical Conductivity test, plain water meters 200k, fertilized water meters 90-100K, yesterday, the water metered out at 100K, today, it was back up to 200K and the plant was showing signs of Chloriosis (yellow mottling of the leaves), I’m still trying to figure out how much food my own personal “Audrey II” tomato plant needs (no, I do not plan to feed it blood 
)
[/QUOTE]
I got 2 of the assorted salad greens, just waiting to get the 2 AG set up for them … and one of their heirloom tomato, though I ordered black krim heirloom tomato seeds mostly for outdoors gardening but one for inside =) I cant find the webpage I ordered my krim from, but it is a US site, not a british site [im not on my normal computer=)]
I am really looking forward to playing in my garden. Being stuck with foot issues that prevent me from walking on non paved surfaces sucks, and crutches makes it hard to hoe … so the aerogarden is perfect.
If this works out well for me, I am thinking of asking mrAru to build me the 45 head butter lettuice farm next summer. Not sure where I would put it …
A few things to keep in mind about full-size tomato plants in a “tall” Aerogarden…
1: you will have to keep them pruned, as most full size tomato plants want to grow taller than the garden, I have a beefsteak plant in my 6E+ and the hood is all the way up (2’) and it’s still burning itself on the lights, I almost have to prune every other day
2: big tomato plants get very thirsty, and can suck the 1 gallon resivoir dry in one to two days
3: if you’re using the Aerogrow nutrient tablets as your main fertilization source, full size plants will suck the nutes dry quickly, watch out for chloriosis (yellowing leaves)
4: go to your local garden supply store/hardware store and pick up some Phosphorous boosting ferts (bonemeal, or Schultz Bloom Plus), once tomatoes start flowering and fruiting, their phosphorous needs go through the roof, signs of phosphorous deficiencies include purplish-reddish spots on the leaves
5: you will need some form of trellising system to support the tomato plants, I think the Pro 200 comes with it already, if not, go to Radio Shack, pick up some of that hard plastic industrial “velcro” then go to an office supply store and pick up a package of I.D. card reels, use those to support the plants
Very good advice=)
I got the pro with the treliss, and the cute little pruning scissors and the book that comes with the tomato seed pod shows how and when to prune…
I figure in a pinch I can always pot the damned thing in dirt and give it to the roomie =)