Even if you don’t have land space to start gardening, you can still grow plants at home using simple budget-friendly hydroponic systems.
Yes, you can start your own garden without land, without dirt, without messing with soil, and without having to deal with weeds and pests that inhibit the growth of your plants. And you can do everything right inside your home.
That’s the beauty of hydroponic gardening. There are so many reasons why you may want to go into hydroponics.
It may not be that you don’t have land. It may just be that you simply just don’t like digging into the dirt, or you don’t want to work with heavy machinery or tools required to work on soil.
With hydroponic systems like this, you eliminate all that obstacle, and go straight to planting and watching them grow, instead of spending days or even weeks preparing the soil for planting.
How Hydroponic Systems Work
All hydroponic systems are all designed to do one thing – to replace soil as a medium of growing plants.
Instead of planting in soil, you plant in a nutrient-rich water solution that delivers everything the plant needs to grow such as water, nutrient and oxygen directly to the roots of the plants.
These systems are great for farming all types of crops throughout the year, because you can basically control everything that your plants need to grow. They can be used for both large and small scale farming.
In this article, I’ll be recommending some of the best hydroponic systems you can use for starting a small garden in your home. These systems are ideal if you live in an apartment complex where you don’t have access to land or maybe you just don’t want to cultivate the ground
Types of Hydroponic Systems
There are different types of Hydroponic systems for growing plant. Each system is defined by the medium in which the plant root is grown or how nutrient-rich water is passed on to the roots.
The following are the most common systems out there.
Deep Water Culture
This is one of the most common systems you’ll find out there. Here the plants roots are suspended in nutrient-rich oxygenated water. This provides a constant supply of nutrients which helps the plants grow.
Nutrient Film Technique
In this system, the plants are grown in channels, and thin film of nutrient-rich water is supplied to the roots via the channels where the plants are grown.
Ebb and Water Flow – Flood and Drain
This system functions by periodically flooding the root of the plants periodically with nutrient-rich water, and then draining afterwards.
Aeroponics
Here, the plants are grown with the roots suspended in air, and a nutrient-rich mist of water is supplied to the root region.
Drip System
In a drip system, the nutrient rich water is slowed dripped periodically in the base of each plant.
Budget-Friend Hydroponic Systems We Recommend
The following are the budget-friendly and easy to use hydroponic systems we recommend.
DWC Bucket Hydroponic System
This is a deep water culture hydroponic growing system from Vivosun you can use to grow different types of plants, flowers, fruits and veggies.
As you can see from the picture the plants are grown in a bucket with a top drip kit made up of irrigation sets, air stones, clay pebbles, an air pump and tubes to circulate nutrient-rich water needed for the plants to grow.
This is one of the most budget friendly systems you can go for. As a beginner, you can start with one bucket, and go from there. You can get additional buckets later to grow more plants.
You can place the system anywhere like your balcony, inside your home, office, in a tent or even out in an open garden.
Tower Growing System
Most of the hydroponic systems you’ll find around are designed for the plants to grown on a flat horizontal surface.
Tower systems like the one shown above make use of a single vertical space, instead of a horizontal plane that takes a lot of space.
That means, with a simple tower like this, you can grow a large variety of plant in a single vertical corner of your room or your balcony without taking a large floor space.
Idoo Hydroponic Growing System
This is a portable Hydroponic system you can use to grow plants and veggies just about anywhere in your house.
It’s small and portable, and you can place it right on top of any table, in a corner or anywhere you’re comfortable with. It takes just 3 steps to set it up. Once set up, you can plant your starter seeds and watch them grow.
It has it’s own light, watering pump to circulate water, and a fan to circulate air. The who system is designed to simulate natural growing conditions so that your plants grow naturally.
