13 Reasons Why Hydroponics Is Better Than Soil Gardening

Here are some of the main reasons why we believe that hydroponics is a better option for gardening than the traditional soil method.

1. Space-saving

Nothing can be as space-saving as hydroponics. When you set out to garden, you need plenty of space for seedlings, for every phase of growing your plants.

It’s different when you’re performing hydroponics. You can stack trays, use different kinds of reservoirs to increase the amount of plants per square meter.

2. Literally no soil

Working with soil has its benefits, but many disadvantages, too. You need to till the soil, precondition it, until it is ready for planting.

If you happen to live in a locale with soil that isn’t ideal for planting, you’d have to buy soil to mix with ground soil to make the soil more arable.

3. Saves your back

Conventional gardening is all about squatting, bending and reaching for the ground.

The only time that you’re not on the ground is when your watering your plants – but for important maintenance and inspection, you need to be where the plants are – down low, on the ground.

That’s the main challenge, especially if you have a weak back. With hydroponics, you can design your setup so everything is waist level. This can be accomplished with racks and frames easily.

4. Scalable

Every new hydroponics grower starts off small. There is nothing wrong with starting small, since you’re only beginning to master the technology.

And hydroponics is a type of technology that needs mastery before you can head over to larger scale systems. But nothing goes to waste.

All the piping and gear used in a smaller system can easily be added to a larger system to support it.

So don’t worry about being stuck with plumbing and motors from an old setup. Chances are you will be able to use those old plumbing and pumps for an advanced and larger system.

5. Wide variety of crops

It’s not true that the only thing you will be able to plant are herbs.

People have been growing strawberries and other great crops using hydroponics systems for decades now.

Unless you want to grow pumpkins the size of a small shelf, you will be able to grow what you like in your indoor setup or outdoor greenhouse.

Just make sure you’re up for the challenge of growing the plants, since hydroponic s is still farming.

6. Virtually unlimited upgrading

As we mentioned earlier, there is no limit when it comes to scaling up your system.

It’s not just the size of the tanks that you can improve. Whenever you detect a failure in the system or something that can be improved, there is always a design or a piece of technology that you can add to the equation to increase the effectiveness of the system.

Always think of hydroponics as a integrated system, with components affecting one another.

7. Environmentally-friendly

Hydroponics is indeed environmentally-friendly because it vastly improves upon conventional farming. First, you don’t need a lot of space to farm.

Your small basement can be the birthplace of something big – all you need to do is start.

An environmentally-friendly system doesn’t use lots of chemicals and other agents that can potentially harm nature. People are using biocides and other agents to control weed and other farm pests.

These won’t be necessary with your hydroponics setup because we highly recommend preventive measures and using more natural means of controlling pathogens and pests should they come.

8. Great for teaching kids about nature

People should definitely be more aware by now of how nature actually works. There is this huge gap in the knowledge of how our food is sourced.

Exposing kids to all kinds of hydroponics system will teach them just how difficult it is to grow food and how challenging it is to create a balanced system that will support plant life.

There are hydroponics systems that are fit for teaching kids – these are called counter-top, passive system that only use a few gallons of water to grow a limited number of plants.

9. Can be done indoors or outdoors

If you have extra space outside, you can definitely build a greenhouse and set up a larger-scale system.

That way, you will be able to grow multiple species of plants and see how a well-balanced system can support a large multitude of plants all at once.

If you don’t have space outdoors, then create an indoor system. The only difference is that you will have to set up a reliable indoor lighting system for your plants, because they need light in order to thrive.

10. Can be transformed to a commercial enterprise

When you’ve mastered the basics and you can grow pretty much everything with your system, you may be ready to move one rung up – to commercial production.

Since your system is scalable, you can increase the number of grow beds, the volume of your nutrient reservoir and increase your overall production so you can market and distribute your organic crops to the public. Dedicated hobbyists do this all the time.

11. Safer for the grower

We can say that hydroponics is safer for the grower because we don’t have to apply harmful chemicals to a hydroponics system in order to get good results.

All you need to do is to monitor the nutrient solution, balance the pH and voila – the system will virtually take care of itself.

12. Say goodbye to conventional farming problems

Conventional gardening or farming poses plenty of problems – fungal infestations and bug invasions are just one of them.

By separating your plants from the soil itself, where the bugs and pathogens are, you’re reducing the chances of infection and in the end, you won’t have to deal with these problems precisely because hydroponics is a soil-free system.

13. Say goodbye to conventional pest management

For the most part, conventional pest management means you’re going to spray chemicals on your plants.

But since the environment has changed and the bugs are mostly gone, you won’t have to be exposed to pesticides anymore. Isn’t that great for your health?