HYDROPONICS PLANTS
Tips On Choosing The Best Crops

Hydroponics Plants


RED RIPE TOMATOES

Do you know how that red, ripe-looking tomato in your grocery store came to be?

Well, first it was bred to have tough skin so it would hold up during shipping. Then, it was harvested green and unripe and held in cold storage. Finally it was gassed with chemicals to turn it red and ripe-looking. Yum! Tasteless!

They look beautiful, ripe red and sweet... but they're not. That's what has happened to the taste of store-bought tomatoes, and many other vegetables, too. Hybrid strains are developed to favor safe shipping and long shelf life... at the expense of flavor and nutrition.

You can reclaim tasty vegetables and fruit for your family with a hydroponic garden. Pick a fragile but delicious variety--- give it all the proper nutrients--- let it vine ripen--- and enjoy your very own home-grown, tender sweet produce!
 

VARIETY... THE SPICE OF LIFE

Hydroponics Plants

We advocate that you start all of your hydroponics crops from seed. We have created a great page explaining how to start seeds properly here: Seeds & Seedlings.

Of course, you can always just go to the local garden center and pick up some vegetable seedlings (baby plants). You will likely find tomato, pepper, eggplant, and cucumber seedlings in spring, and baby broccoli, cabbage and lettuce plants in the fall. Although you can use store bought seedlings for your hydroponics plants, there are some drawbacks to doing this. You must wash off the soil from their roots, which can injure them. You also can be introducing diseases, pests and fungi into your sterile hydroponic setup, which might be very hard to eradicate.

You are also missing half the fun and one of the major advantages of home gardening--- variety. In buying nursery seedlings, you are limited to just a couple strains THEY chose. Instead of tough-skinned, tasteless C-322x strain of tomatoes, you can grow your own delicate, savory Burpee Big Boys from seed!

Get a few seed catalogs and study them. It's great fun to pick out the best possible varieties for your needs and growing climate. And you can get adventurous and try some really unusual or brand-new strains of plants.

These are some seed companies which put out colorful, fun and informative catalogs. Find 'em online and order their print catalogs. Poring over seed catalogs while it's snowing outside is great for lifting your spirits, and is a Great American Pasttime:
 

• Ornamental Edibles
• DeRuiter Seeds
• Stokes Seeds
• Richters
• Johnny's Selected Seeds
• Rijk Zwaan
• Burpee
   

*Tip: There's also quite a variety of Burpee, Parks seeds and other common brands available in seed racks right at WalMart or Home Depot. Most everything is suitable for hydroponics plants, other than the exceptions we mentioned.
 

At first anyway, try to stick to bush, self-pollinating, and special "greenhouse" varieties of vegetables. We list some "hydroponically-friendly" varieties to get you started on our  Veggies Page. And if you do ever need help with pollinating your indoor plants, there's always the  Pollination Page.

SPACE REQUIREMENTS

• Tomatoes, peppers, eggplants, broccoli, beans, peas-- 1 sq foot
• Cucumbers, cabbage, squash, melons------ 2 sq foot
• Basil, Bibb and Buttercrunch lettuce--------- 6" x 6"
• Looseleaf and Oakleaf lettuce----------7" x 7"
• Herbs------------3" x 3" or 4" x 4"

There is more "food for thought" about choosing what to plant and when, here:  What To Grow?
 

TRAINING & PRUNING

TRAINING VINING PLANTS

Hydroponics Plants

                   


When you first start out, we suggest you start with smaller varieties, like patio tomatoes and bush beans. But once you get a little experience under your belt, by all means go for the vining plants. Nothing like a pot of fresh steamed Kentucky Wonder green beans!

You can harvest an amazing amount of produce from one square foot of garden bed by growing UP. The vines of these plants (tomatoes, cucumbers, beans and peas) must be trained up and supported by strings or trellises. And they must be limited in growth to the max height of the light system. So it's a little tricky, but well worth learning how. The weight of these plants must be supported by clipping the vines to strings or wires attached to the ceiling or plant bed frame. They sell plastic vine clips to attach the vines to the string, but we just bought thin garden wire and formed a loop loosely around the stems to support it as it grows up.

Tomatoes, cucumbers, pole beans and peas, squash and melons all must be trained up or they will quickly take over your entire ponics garden bed. Grow your lettuces and herbs separate from the tall vining crops, or harvest your quick-growing lettuces before they are overshadowed by the tall vines.

You can increase the amount of veggies you produce by intercropping--- by alternating tall and short plants in the grow bed. Two bushy tomato plants planted right together get in each other's way. Put a head of lettuce or basit bush between them.

PRUNING

Hydroponics Plants

Don't let the tops of your plants get too far away from the root system. Hydroponics plants will grow larger than soil-grown ones, and will go crazy if you let them. Sometimes I get up in the morning, check on my garden, and it looks like Jack-in-the-beanstalk made a visit while I slept!
 

                       


For bush variety plants, like patio tomatoes, pinch off the tops of the plants at 3 feet or so. Cucumbers, pinch off after 7 sets of leaves. For normal vining varieties of crops, let them go, then prune when they get up too close to the lights. Pruning keeps the plants manageable, under the lights and transfers the plant's energy from vining into fruit production.
 

KEEP IT GROWING!

Hydroponics Plants

With a little effort and attention, you can keep your hydroponic garden producing constantly, and reap an incredible amount of produce from one small plot. The trick is to keep planting. Never let a productive inch remain fallow. Radishes are good for this. Once you havest that head of lettuce or cabbage, plant more lettuce or sow radish seeds to take it's place.

Once produce is full-grown and ripe, pick it, even if you have to give it away. If left on the vine, it signals the plant to stop producing. As far as lettuces and other greens, don't just pull the tough outer leaves. Occasionally harvest the entire plant and enjoy the tender, tasty lettuce hearts in a super gourmet salad. Re-seed the spot. And keep it growing...