Hydroponics: Growing Food and Herbs Indoors

Have you ever wished your house plants would produce more blooms or foliage? Or have you wanted to grow lush salad greens, tomatoes and bell peppers right in your kitchen alcove? The solution could be hydroponics: the growing of plants without soil.

Hydroponics, defined as “water working” means the plants get all the necessary plant food directly through the water supply. This means they can be grown in smaller containers with less space, making hydroponic gardening highly suitable for apartments.

Now plants typically grown outdoors can be grown inside, provided they have enough light. Lettuces require very low light levels and can often be grown indoors in south facing windows. However, light loving plants like tomatoes and many blooming flowers, will require additional lighting to thrive indoors.

In my Corvallis apartment, I grow medicinal and culinary herbs on the bathroom counter. I always have a ready supply of basil, thyme, and chives for fresh herbs. Since I pick the herbs just before I use them the flavors are wonderful. It makes all the difference in the world in flavors for pesto and gourmet dishes.

I also use fresh mint for a wonderful evening tea. I just pick three small springs and place them in a cup with hot water and greek honey. Wonderful evening drink. I also make feverfew and mint tea every few days to prevent migrane headaches. My life was pretty miserable before I found feverfew. Research shows it helps about half of the migrane sufferers. I know it helped me. I also keep aloe vera handy for burns. Just open up a leaf and apply the gel to the burn.

When plants are grown without soil, they require a slightly modified container. While most soil grown plants use containers with holes cut through the bottom for drainage, hydroponic plants require a daily available water supply. So the container now has a hole in the side of the container about an inch from the bottom. This allows for a inch deep water supply to remain in the container, and allows all excess water to drain from the pot, preventing overflooding.

All hydroponic containers I use in my home are homemade using plastic household containers. The bathroom herbs are grown in three recycled five quart ice cream tubs. Each has a drain hole cut near the bottom and a drainpipe placed in the hole. All extra water is drained below to another container I use for water the next day. Each grower is hand watered each day to keep water supply replenished.

The side hole means that each grower needs a collection vessel for any extra over poured water. All the hydroponic containers through the house either have a collector, or have their drain holes connected with tubing to a collection tank. Any recollected water is reused on the plants, creating a total recycle system – no wasted nutrient water.

A collection of so many plants increases possible insect attack. To prevent the insect attacks I spray all plants with a homemade hot pepper spray and a homemade garlic spray. Each spray is made by crushing a garlic or a hot pepper, mashing it in water and then spraying with a hand sprayer.

In the living room, an ever blooming flower arrangement sets a mood with white and offwhite flowers. The flowers are lighted from above by a 250 watt high pressure sodium lamp that promotes flowing and blooming in plants. The flowers also receive a special “bloom” nutrient that had reduced nitrogen. This keeps the flowers producing, long after “normal” seasons. The flowers are shade tolerant tuberous begonias to also bloom in reduced light.

When growing plants indoors, lighting is always an issue. Most plants do better with natural light and so when possible, locate plants in a south facing window, or under a skylight. When there is not enough light to grow plants, there are several options in grow lights. The normal room lighting of incandescent and flourescent light does not usually put out enough light (measured in lumens) to allow plants to thrive and grow. A flourescent light may work for small seedlings, and even then it should be placed from 6” to one foot above the plants.

Just what are these lumens? A lumen is a measure of light. A dinner candle shines at about 12 lumens. A 60-watt incandescent light is about 600 lumens. That is the amount of light measured at one foot away. If the candle or incandescent light is just a few feet from the light, it receives far less lumens.

The usual incandescent lamp or fluorescent light used for household lighting do not normally provide enough lumens to be of much benefit for plants. While providing enough light to see, they are not enough for many plants to photosynthesis enough energy to thrive and grow. While an incandescent light might give 600 lumens for a 60 watt bulb. When placed in a ceiling, the tables below probably will receive 100 lumens or less, below the numbers required for most plants. Even lettuce, that requires less light than most vegetables, demands about 300 lumens a day.

There are lights specially designed to grow plants indoors. They can be used in rooms with no sunlight whatsoever or as a supplement to areas that have some daily sun. They are called high intensity discharge lamps (HID), and two common types are high pressure sodium and metal halide. These lamps can provide enough light for outdoor plants to grow indoors.

The plant growing lights are offered in several sizes, usually from 100 to 1000 watts. All of the lights are fairly spendy, because they require special fixtures made for either type of light bulb. The 100 watt light fixtures sell for about $125.00 and the 800 watt fixtures go from about $300.00 to nearly $500.00.

When using HID lamps, they range in size from 100 watt to 1000 watt, and the size of the lamp determines how much lumens are delivered to the plants below.

The bathroom herbs are in containers that occupy a total space of about one by 1.5 feet. I use a metal halide lamp, to promote green growth rather than flowers. The 100 watt bulb and is placed about 22 inches above the plants and provides about 1200 lumens a day, enough for fast growth of green herbs. If the light is placed higher, there will be less liht for the herbs and they will grow more slowly.

The living room live blooming flower arrangement is supplied with light from a 250 watt high pressure sodium lamp placed three feet above the plant surface. This light will give the plants about 1500 lumens of red based light, best for blooming plants. This light will supply plants in a surface area of about one square yard. That is just about the area under one half of my living room coffee table. The light also gives off a bright light and warmth. While this is welcome and wonderful in the dreary Corvallis winter, it is not so welcome in our hot summers. So I only use the living flower arrangement in the winter, replacing it in the summer with a marble sculpture and candles.

Spare room garden. The south facing windows of my design studio are used for a small growing area. I converted a used loft bed into a growing area, and added a special light to ensure vegetable growth in the winter. I do not use the extra lighting in the summer at all. The three by six foot growing area is devoted to a floating bed for lettuce, an onion scallion bed grower, tomato and bell pepper plants. The loose leaf lettuces can be harvested a leaf at a time, rather than pulling an entire plant. When harvested this way the plant will produce about eight times the greens and lasts for about a month. The area is also used to start all new herb and flower plants.

The light used in this growing area is an 800 watt fixture with one 400 watt metal halide and one 400 watt high pressure sodium light. This gives a full spectrum of light, supporting green growth and blooming. The plants seem to really love the special light. It is hung about four feet above the plants. This use of both lights allows for a spectrum much closer to the sun and better able to grow both green growth and blossoms. The garden is in a south facing window and the light is used only in the winter to add four hours to a day, and then in the summer evening to add some light to speed the growth of plants.

The 800 watt super spectrum light costs about $0.62 a day to operate in the winter, so it increases my light bill by about $18.60 per month. That is if I operate the lights for the whole day. If I operate only four hours it is only $2.40 per month, well worth the $50.00 worth of fresh foods it produces each month. I only use the light in the winter months, to provide extra light and increase the day length to 12 hours per day.

The hydroponic growers and the supplemental lighting in my apartment literally chased away drearyness in the winter. I have heard that the scientists in Antarctica that are growing their food hydroponically will take turns going into the grow room and lay down under the lights to read a book. This higher light level seems to chase the blues away. Of course the fresh living flowers, herbs and vegetables also help morale as well.

About the author: Peggy Bradley is the owner of Bradley Hydroponics located in Corvallis, Oregon. The company has an internet site at www.hydrogarden.com.