Growing crops by hydroponic farming, or on water, has been practiced since the ancient Babylonians planted their legendary Hanging Gardens of Babylon. These were the world’s first vertical farms concept.
Hydroponic water gardens also include roof top gardens in Middle East cities like Beirut and Cairo as soon today/
In fact, the practice of hydroponic, water based farming for smart city farms is becoming so popular, that people living in urban environments can benefit from internet databases to obtain “how-to” information for turning their balconies, back yard terraces; and even spare rooms into flourishing hydroponic agricultural wonders with the right equipment, nutrients and lighting.
Even a small terrace can produce good growth yields if there is adequate light and the proper nutrients.
Depending on how much you want to invest in your hydroponic water farm project and what type of plant or vegetable to grow there, you can start a hydroponic garden with a few pieces of plastic piping; or for those wishing to plant “secret gardens” requiring indoor lighting (for cannabis or similar plants) the equipment and work involved can be considerably more.
The actual growing process will need to formulate the right combination of water, lighting, oxygen and nutrients to enable proper plant growth and yields. There are plenty of guides on what is required; including a site called High Times (you figure out the meaning).
According to High Times, it’s important to use the best quality water. Using tap water that has a lot of impurities will “lock up” nutrients, creating deficient plants that yield poorly and are susceptible to diseases and pests. The chlorine in tapwater also kills off the beneficial microbial life that helps plant roots. This is also true for growing in soil as well.
Water used for hydroponic water farming can be purified successfully by using filtering systems like reverse osmosis which involves a special membrane to filter out impurities. This is essentially the same reverse osmosis process that is used in desalination to create clean, fresh drinking water from seawater.
Author: Maurice Picow
Maurice Picow grew up in Oklahoma City, U.S.A., where he received a B.S. Degree in Business Administration. Following graduation, Maurice embarked on a career as a real estate broker before making the decision to move to Israel. After arriving in Israel, he came involved in the insurance agency business and later in the moving and international relocation fields. Maurice became interested in writing news and commentary articles in the late 1990’s, and now writes feature articles for the The Jerusalem Post as well as being a regular contributor to Green Prophet. He has also written a non-fiction study on Islam, a two volume adventure novel, and is completing a romance novel about a forbidden love affair. Writing topics of particular interest for Green Prophet are those dealing with global warming and climate change, as well as clean technology - particularly electric cars.
Hydroponic gardening is the future! This way of gardening can provide big cities with fresh vegetables! It is amazing! Thank you for the post! It is very interesting and educating!