Growing Healthy Hydroponic Vegetables: Preparing a Greenhouse for Hydroponics

Ready to start growing with hydroponics? Growing hydroponic vegetables is a great green business idea and a great way to produce healthy food for you, your friends, and your family! Beginning to grow with hydroponics means making time to start cleaning. The best environment for hydroponics is a clean one. Dirty growing environments equal problems for those who are growing healthy hydroponic vegetables in a hydroponics greenhouse or indoor growing system. If you want to get the best yield from your crops and minimize problems for your plants and flowers, here are some tips:

• Clean, Clean, Clean and then sanitize with at least a 10% solution of bleach and water, then rinse well with good water. Hydrogen peroxide is also an option for sanitizing hydroponic systems as its residue will be less harmful to plants growing in the set up.
• Problems can spread rapidly through a hydroponics growing system. Sanitizing all equipment between crops can save you a lot of trouble with bacteria and viruses which can spread through your whole crop of hydroponic vegetables or flowers in a very short time.
• Use a sterile growing medium or media such as Sure to Grow, coco-coir, hydroton, lecca, perfect starts, or rapid rooter plugs.. Keep it free from contamination by dirt or any foreign organic matter.
• Keep pets and pests both away from your hydroponic growing systems. They can introduce contaminated particles of organic matter as well as physically damage the plants, vegetables, or flowers growing in your set up. You also would not want to pay for Fido to get his stomach pumped after he decided to taste test your hydroponic nutrient.
• Loose dirt and wind blown organic matter can also cause your hydroponic plants problems, try to use screens on vents which will also help to keep out pests. Thrips are small enough to pass through a regular window screen so look for special greenhouse vent screen that is designed to keep pests out.

After thoroughly cleaning and sanitizing it is time to mix your hydroponic nutrients into a nutrient solution. It is wise to have a water analysis done before choosing your hydroponic nutrient formula. If possible, use rain water or water purified by reverse osmosis. RO filters can be expensive, but they can clean your water well enough to avoid building up minerals in your nutrient to levels that can be toxic to hydroponic vegetables. If you have to use a water source that is not as clean as you would like, hydroponic nutrient supply companies can make nutrient solutions that are specifically tailored to your water and plant needs.

God Bless and Happy Growing!