Welcome to my Home Hydroponics and Gardening Blog! It's GROW Time!
I decided to spin off my home hydroponics and gardening posts to their own blog. This will help me organize my posts and allow me to keep my art and photography posts separated since they may not be appropriate for everyone. I will also have a more flexible schedule since I won't be waiting to post my gardening topics around my other entries.
For those of you who are looking for information on hydroponics and are just finding me for the first time, let me introduce myself. My name is Chris, I live in Florida and have many interests and hobbies including gardening and sustainable living. I have been growing food using hydroponics since 2013 when I made the decision to switch over from container soil gardening, which has increased our yield by 300-400% depending on the crop. This is huge considering the small amount of space we have for growing.
What is Hydroponics?
In case you're not familiar with hydroponics, it is a process of growing plants in a controlled, closed-loop, soil-less system. A balanced nutrient solution is circulated through channels or pipes to supply the plants with the required water, minerals, and nutrients they need to grow. Hydroponics is an extremely water-efficient way to grow, only using between 15% and 35% of the water that would be required to grow the same plants in soil gardens.
Fresh "ugly" tomatoes picked from our garden, most get to be over 1 pound.
Step-by-Step
I will use my @steempowergarden blog to post all my gardening-related articles and share with you the wealth of information I have learned over the years. I will share my home garden systems, show you how I built them, how I maintain them, how I start my seeds and transplant them, what I use for nutrients, whats growing or being harvested, and share any of the mistakes I've made over time to help you avoid them.
I have both indoor and outdoor hydroponic gardens growing food.
Saving Money $
The best part is the money you save from growing your own food at home adds up really fast. We save on average between $125 and $250 per month based on the volume of food our gardens produce that we then don't have to buy. We often grow more food than we can eat and share it with family and friends.
You will be amazed at how much these gardens produce in such a small space.
The obligatory proof of ownership :-) Just putting new plants in today.
If you are following me over on @steempowerpics, but are only interested in my gardening topics and not my photography or art, feel free to follow me here and unfollow me there - I understand and won't be upset, I promise.
I also reposted my indoor hydroponic lettuce wall garden entry on this account to keep things organized and start everyone off from the beginning, and will follow up on Wednesday with a seed starting post.
Let me know your thoughts in the comments below.
As always, please upvote this post and follow me if you are interested and want to see more.
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Thanks for reading!
Heya Chris ! This is awesome! Where in south Florida are you? I've wanted to get into hydroponics and grow a bunch of cucumbers. I eat mostly fruit... battling addictions until I remain 100% fruit :) welcome to Steem !
Hi Robert, I'm down in the Ft. Lauderdale/Miami area. Definitely follow along, I will be post lots of information on how I set up my systems and what I have learned over the years.
Following now! Can't wait to learn more :) Thank you!
That is a beautiful set up
Thank you @cryptohustlin, I have lots more coming - stay tuned.
Followed resteened.
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I just wanted to leave a comment here to verify to everyone that this is my other account for hydroponics and gardening.
Welcome to Steem @steempowergarden I have upvoted and sent you a tip
Thank you Chris! I'm interested in all of the topics you said you will write about. I'd love to see your pictures and articles to make sure I can learn everything you're going to teach us.
Upvoted, resteemed and followed!
Thank you @morseke1 for the support. I have lots more on the way.
This is so cool. Want to set up something similar once we move house in a few months! Great post!
Thank you Amy, follow along - I have lots of great information on the way :-)
Looking forward to learn more about it ;)
this is awesome. I used to grow hydroponic food but the cost of electricity was way too high compared to what you can buy from the grocery store. It was very interesting though.
Upvoted.
Hi @ajain, I suppose it will depend of your systems and how they were set up, we save on average between $125 and $250 per month based on the volume of food our gardens produce - compared to if we had to buy the same items at the store.
It was indoor system so very heavy electricity consumption for grow lights.
ok, I am on all LEDs now. Total pumps and lights run about $20/m here for electricity in Florida when I have everything running at capacity.
Yeah, LEDs are cheap to run but have a high initial investment. I think I had T12s. But I am glad it's working out for you. Congrats.
Hmmm , very interesting! Looking forward to read your blogs
Thank you @krypto101
welcome to the Community, @Steempowergarden !! Wish you much luck! Cheers! Follow me at @khunpoom