Imagine going to a hydroponics store and happily buying supplies for your perfectly legal hydroponics garden in which you grow only gourmet, organic herbs and vegetables. You don’t know that someone is watching the parking lot, and has copied down your license plate number.
The organic industry sustained outstanding growth of 19% between 1997 to 2008 and 8% growth in 2010 despite the economy and how organics has faired compared to most industries during these hard times. No question there is an increasing customer demand for healthier food, produced locally by smaller producers. These small organic farms are opting out of the corporate agriculture production systems that are wasting our country’s precious resources and offering poor quality food. The top organic distributor, Whole Foods Market is literally betting on the farm - offering start up or expansion loans to crop producers and contracting for the product through the Whole Planet Foundation
There are so many benefits that hydroponics brings to crop producers. Hydroponics enables us to grow in nearly any environment - we can convert warehouses, parking lots, roof tops, and other spaces into vital, lush gardens. Hydroponics limits the amount of labor needed to produce a crop compared to conventional agriculture, requires less than 90% less water, and there’s at least 70% less threat from pest and diseases. Because of the increase in growth rate and vigor, hydroponics provides the grower more profit, so there’s a greater chance of success. Another big positive is that under-served communities can get involved in sustainable crop production through hydroponics, and prosper.
We love Archi’s Acres. Besides being a wonderful operation growing vegetables and herbs hydroponically, Archi’s Acres provides support for military veterans. Colin and Karen Archipley have nurtured 2.5 acres in southern California into a certified organic sustainable farm, where they train vets to start up and operate their own hydroponics operations. In other words, Archi’s Acres is making the world a better place.
Check out this video tour of Archi’s Acres, featuring Ralph Cox, who built the greenhouses the Archipleys use:
Get the latest issue of Rosebud Magazine, featuring an interview with Colin and Karen Archipley of Archi’s Acres, on newsstands and in bookstores now.
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As a hydroponics grower, you may have heard of compost tea as a way to bring an organic approach into your hydroponics indoor grow room. You may also have heard of adding compost itself to a hydroponics soil mix. Compost can be a super-potent blend of organic nutrients that are easily available to your hydroponics plants. But it has to be made from the right materials in the right way, or it can be useless or even harmful for your crops.
Last week RosebudMag.com published Part 1 of our look at Alberta’s Oil Sands (sometimes called Tar Sands), and the recent confirmation that the project is having a devastating effect on the surrounding area, as well as, the environment in general. We also highlighted the impact on the indigenous population of Fort Chipewyan who are afflicted with several times the normal rate of cancer, including rare strains of the disease. Hollywood super director James Cameron, the man behind Avatar and Titanic among others, recently paid a visit to the Oil Sands and spoke about his experience.
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I get a lot of emails from hydroponics growers concerned about problems in their urban garden, but one I got recently takes the cake: the guy was actually upset that he got too much maximum yield!
Seems the man is a hydroponics indoor gardener who also has what he calls an “edible landscape.”
Organic hydroponics gardening, synthetic hydroponics or synthorganic hydroponics nutrients…what’s it all mean for your indoor garden?
Of course, let’s agree right now that the term “organic gardening” is not easy to define.
For some growers, organic gardening means growing your plants in soil, and giving them nothing else other than light, water and air.
In our last episode, we talked about a grower who set up a comparison experiment in his hydroponics garden.
He engaged the proper scientific methodological steps to determine how six clones grown in rich custom-mixed soil with no water-added nutrients would perform in comparison with six clones grown in rockwool and fed synthetic base nutrients and synthorganic supplements.
Here we are with useful data obtained when a grower mixed his own custom soil and used it to do a comparison grow meant to examine how soil performs against rockwool.
This experiment featured 12 clones from the same mother: six in soil and fed only water; six in rockwool fed synthetic base nutrients and synthorganic supplements.
One of the main benefits to you, society and your family as you grow hydroponics plants for maximum yield in your urban garden is that you don’t have to use pesticides, herbicides and other poisons.
When you run a clean hydroponics urban garden using filtration and sequestration methods to screen insects, disease and pollutants out of your garden’s air, water and infrastructure, you can almost totally eliminate loss caused by insect or disease predation.