Proyecto greenBE

My girlfriend Chuy told me the other day:

We put a few tiny seeds on soil (of the backyard) inside an egg carton and some water. This is hydroponics, right?

I was shocked, I thought: What the fuck!

And told her: no Chuy:

Who cultivates hydroponics with soil (earth soil) is a fake.

Foto por mommamia

Yes, this sentence sounds very harsh and gives a severe context but is the truth. I have found out that my neighbors have taken hydroponic courses and they have been learning mistaken information about that, now is difficult to change their mind and the result of that is infected hydroponics or with plagues.

By now I have the fortune to know both types cultivating (horticulture and hydroponics) and in this post I’d love to share some points for considering in a hydroponic garden:

The word hydroponics

My studies in the high school did not included Greco-Latin etymologies but there’s something I’m sure of: hydro means water and ponos is work. Dr. Gericke coined the term to refer to growing in water as hydroponics.

Therefore hydroponics is just in water, till the beginning and the last minute of the garden is never mixed with earth soil.

Why should you never use earth soil in hydroponic gardens?

The earth soil is ground, this is where most of the plants, fungi, microorganisms and some animals live. It has three main layers:

• Superficial horizon
• Subsoil
• Rock mother

If you want to know more on these earth soil layers you can read this episode of the manuscript of Aimeé, which treats hydroponic subjects of horticulture and in the form of Literature.(it’s in spanish)

The superficial horizon is where we cultivate, most of the roots settles and is part of its digestive system. This last point is very, extremely important  because the earth soil it’s alive. It has a world in it’s interior that includes pathogens and bacteria that sometimes are the intestinal flora of the plants.

What happens if I use plants that were on the ground for hydroponics?

Even knowing that the Earth is alive, has microorganisms and you still want to use seedlings or plants that were on the ground then let me explain better:

A hydroponic system has the characteristics of being systems of greater cleaning and hygiene than will benefit in the disease transmission and contagion control and plagues.

When using plants worked in earth soil you are violating the first rule of hydroponics: water culture. And the two characteristics that I mentioned previously will completely be nullified.

This is because you can not grow from soil earth to hydroponics because you will carry inside the roots (no matter how hard they were washed in a tired and traumating cleaning event) microscopic pathogens that used to lived in the soil and that were the intestinal flora of the plants. With this you will be point of:

• Plagues
• Diseases
• Infections in all the garden (or plants in the sistem)

Maybe by some miracle you’re safe, but this is very unlikely to happen. So, I will say it again: hydroponics is a water culture from the beginning till the end of it.

With this, I would like to make the following recommendations for the hydroponic garden:

• Seedlings and plants that always were in hydroponics. In order to make the seedling it can be as simple as to germinate seeds in water, to directly do in the final growing medium (to which I like to call it’s home), in a mini greenhouse with hydroponic soil (if you want to know on the different options this post helps you). There are several options to make hydroponic seedlings where the Earth soil is not necessary factor.
• Own tools for the garden. If you have your food garden in horticulture but want to do a hydroponic one, you must consider that as well as the tools must be sterilized between plants in horticulture, it’s the same rule in hydroponics. The hydroponic tools stay for the hydroponic garden and those that are for horticulture are for horticulture. Don’t try to mix them because the microorganisms can infect your hydroponic garden.
• The fertilizers for horticulture remain in horticulture. Yes, you can use the nutrient solutions for your hydroponic garden in horticulture garden but doesn’t work the other way. Fertilizers for horticulture are made for them and just for them. They don’t work well in hydroponics just because they were made specifically for ground plants. For that reason, please be sure of only using hydroponic products for your water garden.

¿How do you see it, have someone ever tell you that hydroponics uses earth soil? Anyway, I hope this is useful info, fade away doubts and clarifies what a hydroponic system is about. Have a nice day and happy harvests!