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I have pipes running through my backyard. Hydroponics seems more feasible for me.
great logic, great points. appropriate technologies and decentralized farming for the win!
In my greenhouse, I settled on watering with hydroponic solution for plants in pots. man did I get fast growth.
I don't the food produced by hydro or auqa ponics is as healthy as food grown in good healthy soil.
I ran a NFT hydro for 8 years and soil is so much better unless your growing plants like lettuce
i hate lawn
I ran a 2000 sqft hydroponic greenhouse the last two years. Its way to much work and overhead is ridiculous. Don't get me wrong, it produces superbly and grows extremely fast. I was getting 600-700lbs of tomatoes a week. As curtis mentioned, start up is very high and if a main components malfunction your dead in the water. Im finding that growing as organic as possible using the 30" bed system is extremely better in terms of ease and cost.
It obvious he's never spent time learning and actually building the working knowledge that come from doing. hydroponics. Nothing wrong with that at all. He can't say from experience just what volume or quality of product based on the effort applied is produced between the two. A better or more accurate answer is I've never done hydroponics so I have no hands on experience to base a comparison on other than what I've read or heard. Perhaps I'm wrong but I didn't hear he ever tried it.
cheap hydro with free or readily available/building center materials is quite feasible, and ideal in tight spaces. Context is really important however, could't agree more.
Mic's greens, very nicely done. and very informative information. I am just starting, and you are a great help.
Plants have learned well how to efficiently extract the necessary nutrients out of soil.
Most natural soil are a low energy, high entropy (ie. high randomness) result of natural erosion and dispersion processes (ie. from bedrock to soil).
Compost (eg. manure) which is added to natural soils is symbiotic, a "close the loop" link between animals and plants. Plants are a food input to herbivore animals, producing manure as a waste. Carnivore animals eat herbivore animals, producing manure. In turn, the waste manure of both herbivore and carnivore animals naturally become the high energy, nutrient dense feedback input to plants as a soil amendment and fertilizer.
Hydroponics is based upon artificial, high tech, high energy, high capital $, chemically based nutrients that are derived from high energy mining (enabled by fossil fuels) and petrochemicals based on fossil fuels (diesel fuel, natural gas, and crude oil derived chemicals). Alternatively, manures can be used as an input to create manure teas that can be used in hydroponics through significant effort, equipment, and capital $. Therefore hydroponics is only enabled by fossil fuels and significantly more capital $.
I agree that we should do soil based plants whenever possible, hydroponics when we are forced to do so (ie. only when soil-based growing is not feasible).
My startup for hydroponics was about $25. I had a fishtank that I didn't use, just had to buy the foam insulation board, the goldfish, a pump, a cement mixing tub and seeds. Oh, and the light. The light is what cost the most, running it….if I could get it set up on a solar system, I would have fresh veggies all winter.
I love how you bring up the front yard with people complaining there's not enough food possibly later all front yard should be ripped out and replaced with Gardens grass is a waste of space thank you for making videos
Really well said
I soil farm and in the winter (I'm from New England, USA) I grow using hydroponics. I find the labor is less per capita for hydroponics because of the increased yield and number of turns I can get in a "season". The initial investment can be large if the farmer is not capable of building reservoirs and other infrastructure. I use programmable LED's which were costly up front, but my monthly electric bill is very low, which allows me a faster pay off of the initial cost. The main exception I have with any of the criticisms has to do with the flavor. The lettuce, spinach, bok choi and culinary herbs I grow have as much flavor as my soil garden (which is exceptional). I am not sure what nutrients and light recipes are being used in the production that people complain about as being poor quality in taste. I use a good quality lettuce nutrient mix for all my greens, and the flavor is excellent. I have conducted blind taste tests with my friends and clients and they cannot tell the difference.
I see your points! I want to do a hybrid of soil for fruits — peppers, squash, and the like — hydroponic for leafy greens, long Island lettuce and things
do a video about aquaponics
Another reason one might not get into hydro, is because there seems to be a taste difference. At least in my expereance, folks like the taste of my soil grown tomatoes much, much better. I'm sure hydro could be "dialed in" scientifically (Ph, fert, etc) but wow, how much time would that take??? I Agree with You!
i like hydroponics in my commercial setup. i use solar to power my pumps for my tomato bucket lines and kratky rafts for my lettuce growing. so no power for that part. i think like curtis said use what you have. well i use my soil, hydro, kratky and NFT rails. and maximize the products that i grow how i think they grow best. i don't think hydro is that expensive if you are handy at building. 1$ buckets and 1$in parts, i have tomato and cucumber bucket line. 6$ per 4×8' lettuce raft. and nft rails were on 11$ per 10'. i guess its context per situation
I have worked in agriculture and countue to do and what hydroponics I have worked with and still to do, the biggest draw back besides the cost is it's way less forgiving. I have not yet seen one not go major wrong for a whole season.