The majority of indoor gardeners in North America use 1000 Watt High Pressure Sodium (HPS) lamps to light their plants, and many growers still use magnetic ballasts. Urban Garden Magazines looks ahead with an exclusive preview of cutting-edge, alternative grow light technologies.
Intrepid blogger and product tester Curtis reports back on his experience with Hydro Innovations’ CO2 Monitor.
Compact. Self contained. Inexpensive. Easy to set up. Virtually no growth media required. No need to dial in complex irrigation schedules. Total control over a hyper-oxygenated, thriving root zone. Our main man with a high yielding plan, Everest Fernandez, takes a first look at NFT Gro-Tanks and shares some of his hands-on experience.
Grubbycup updates us on the results of his topping/pinching experiment, with his catnip control plant now in the flowering stage.
Is your back aching from lugging endless sacks of soil, coco or other growth media in and out of your indoor garden? Then check out our latest blueprint, aptly named “The Water Room.” The idea is to grow monster tomato plants directly in a nutrient solution using a cutting-edge, modular Deep Water Culture (DWC) system called The Under Current™. But the liquid theme doesn’t end there. Water is also used to cool the garden using an ingenious chiller-based system created by Hydro Innovations.
Last issue, Michael Christian discussed the fundamental fluid of a recirculating hydroponic system… water. Without pure clean water (low EC), we are going to be scratching our heads when it comes to troubleshooting problems when they occur. This time, we look at water analysis, maintaining nutrient balance and strategies for managing pH in a recirculating system.
Novice growers are notoriously wary about pruning. Maybe it’s because it seems wrong to hack away at a perfectly healthy plant – or perhaps pruning is mistakenly associated with pure aesthetics? Whatever the reason, pruning is arguably more important indoors than anywhere else. So we asked Kevin Anderson, a hobby grower in British Columbia, Canada, to share his wisdom on the art of manipulating light-loving plants indoors.
Curtis reviews Hydro Innovations’ 1/2 HP ChillKing water chiller and 6″ IceBox reflector-cooler.
Michael Christian, an expert consultant to the commercial hydroponics industry, shares his insights into recirculating nutrients effectively to achieve high performance plant growth while conserving water and nutrients.
The Top 10 Mistakes That Drag Your Yields Down: Everest shares some time-honored heuristics to help beginner growers increase the productivity of their indoor gardens.
© 2009 Urban Garden Magazine