http://www.gropockets.com/About-Us_c_23.html
http://www.greenlifeplanet.net
http://trueaquaponics.com
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vDiWHe2Xy58&t=337s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yse-kre-AlI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NnlvN7dHQBA
What is so interesting about growing tomatoes? Well, I didn't wake up one day thinking, "Tomatoes tomatoes tomatoes." I'm interested enough in gardening that I have grown gardens, not just tomatoes, but other vegetables, two vineyards, and lot of flowers. I like to see the plants grow and produce. I often take the bottoms of onions and put them in water until they grow roots and then plant them. It's sporting.
But along the way I've run into problems. While you can ignore your garden for a day or so, if you don't tend your garden for two weeks, it's likely not to recover. All that effort for nothing! And how often have I had to ignore my garden? Well, things happen. And I became discouraged.
About five years ago I discovered sprouting, and the great thing was that I had lots of fresh produce for less effort than going shopping, and much less expensive. And it's a type of gardening.
So, I thought that I'd just quit trying to garden. It's hard work and a lot can go wrong. Everything has gone wrong. People make a beeline for your garden to tear it up, it seems. So do bugs, birds and deer. Two years ago I decided to grow a sunflower patch. The birds rejoiced. Then there's the weather and plant diseases. How many times has someone taken it upon themselves to rip out my irrigation system? Every stinking time I've bothered to put one in! Why?? How many times have my garden implements been taken? Over and over. And it takes space.
Others have had my experience, and so the gardeners of the world thought and thought. What shall we do?
Along the way I noticed that you don't actually have to have soil to garden. I first saw this on QVC where they were selling a hydroponic indoor vegetable system that grew herbs and tomatoes with no soil. Get out! And I grew wheat grass a few times to make wheat grass juice. The purists wanted to write volumes about growing it in compost, how to produce compose, the perfect soil, fertilizer, and on and on. And one should have a juicer that cost about $3000. But, having grown sprouts, I decided to grow my wheat grass in a sprouting tray in tap water alone. I had a nice crop. And also, someone told me that rather than juice the wheat grass, it would be enough to blend it up thoroughly in a blender. I really liked the fact that I could grow wheatgrass indoors without soil, since soil is dirty and messy. And I had no bugs or weeds. But why did this work? Because the miracle of life is contained in the seed. The seed has nourishment inside itself to grow a new plant. And while it is true that a plant will need minerals to mature, many of these minerals are in the water. The ones that a plant needs to produce new seeds and fruit are simple to supplement with a small amount of liquid fertilizer in their water. Other than supply the minerals, the main function of soil is to anchor the plant. Well, you can anchor the plant other ways, too.
And so I became aware that some of the effort, at least of a small garden, didn't have to happen. How much labor goes into tilling soil, composting, weeding? A lot. Hoeing. Watering.
And so it was that I was intrigued with aquaponics, aeroponics and hydroponics. Aquaponics I have just about nixed because it mainly is characterized by fertilizing your garden with fish dung, which means a fish pond and care and maintenance of fish and ponds for fish. That's a whole nuther can of worms. I think it's more expensive too. Aeroponics would be growing your plants out of the water, and watering them regularly with a pump system on a timer, keeping the roots watered. Hydroponics is actually putting your plants in a little raft in a tank of water. Some plants don't like it, but many thrive on this.
Now I'm studying over how to go about this form of gardening. Some people have claimed to have mountains of produce from aeroponic garden towers with a couple of hours of effort a week, compared to endless effort in a traditional garden. And it makes a nice urban or indoor way to garden because you can grow in a lot less space. I'm thinking of setting up shop in a greenhouse though. I could actually heat and cool it and use it all year. Oh yes yes yes, things are moving along with my plan.
The videos I posted here are about hydroponic gardening of tomatoes. I want to grow tomatoes. I also want to grow cucumbers, squash, herbs, pumpkins, lettuce, cabbage, onions and some other nice produce.
Stay tuned.
And you know what? It is brought to you by my favorite Greek friends, Mirella and Panos — true experts in Greek cuisine.
