subject: How To Grow Plants In Water The Easy Way [print this page] How To Grow Plants In Water The Easy Way How To Grow Plants In Water The Easy Way
There are many advantages to growing plants in water without soil. When growing plants in soil, you eliminate the labor of working with soil and all the soil born pests. Plus you don't have to make the plants work as hard to extract water and nutrients form the soil, instead you give it to them directly. Here is the easy way to grow plants in water.
Most plants naturally grow in soil and that is what they are adapted to do, but plants don't actually require soil. Roots go into the soil to absorb nutrients and water out of it, but they could care less about the soil itself. People have been growing plants in soil for thousands of years, mostly because that was just the way they knew how to do it. But working the ground involves a lot of back breaking labor, or expensive machinery. Not only to till and fertilize the soil, but to also control weeds and other pests. And that is assuming you even have soil worthy of growing anything. In the modern world, many advancements have been made for growing plants in water without a need for soil, from commercial farming to growing a single plant in a jar at home.
One of the biggest problems with growing plants in water is maintaining nutrient levels. With soil, nutrients can get absorbed into the soil where they can be released to the plants over time. But with water only, you have to pay more attention to maintaining proper nutrient levels. This is one reason why hydroponics (growing plants in water without soil) has not caught on as fast as many people expected it to. But there is a form of hydroponics that is quickly becoming very popular because it is such an easy way to make plants grow like crazy, and it is all organic.
Aquaponics is a way to put fish to work for you, and let them take care of all the fertilizing of the plants. Fish are excellent sources of plant nutrients. The waste materials they release into the water through their gills and excrement are full of plant nutrients. And unlike manure and other forms of fertilizer, it is released directly into the water. Friendly bacteria turn these wastes into forms that plant can use, and the plants clean them out of the water like a filter.
If you have ever had a fish tank, you probably know that changing the fish water often or having a filter is important. But with this kind of system, the plants are your filter, so you don't need a mechanical filter and don't need to change the water. This is a natural balance that will grow healthy organic plants and will also produce fish, all with much less work than growing plants alone in the soil.
Learn more about aquaponics with this aquaponics how to guide.
