HYDROPONIC GARDENS

​​What is it?

Hydroponics is simply the growing of plants without soil. Plants don’t need soil, but they do need the vitamins and minerals that soil can provide for them. Almost any kind of plant can be grown hydroponically, including veggies, herbs, fruits, and flowers. 

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Why use it?

Hydroponics provides an advantage over soil growing for several reasons. Hydroponic gardening is an easy and environmentally sound way to grow a wide variety of healthy plants. With hydroponics, gardening is possible in areas where it would normally be impossible. Plants can be grown year-round since climate conditions can be controlled in a greenhouse. Because their roots do not need to reach for nutrients, the plants can be grown closer together. The plants grown are significantly larger because of so many available nutrients and not having to waste time growing extensive root systems. This makes the yields bigger.

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The hydroponics system we are building will help us to start working towards year-round production.

 

How did we construct it?

Our hydroponics system consists of 32 towers, with each tower having 7 growing slots. In total we have the capacity to grow 224 plants. 

 

How are we using it? 

These slots will be planted with greens (Lettuce, Chard, and Kale), which we will be harvesting and using for our Shares Program.  Along with the towers we will be making 8 tub hydroponics systems. These tubs will be both for producing starts, and once we have the starts we need, they will shift into production as well. Each tub will have 12 individual growing slots, based on last year’s tests we should be able to go from seed to transplanting into dirt in 3-5 weeks from the tub system. 

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This project was supported by a Wyoming Specialty Crops Grant from the Wyoming Department of Agriculture.