Backyard Urban Gardening - Grow Your Own Food: distilled water

Showing posts with label distilled water. Show all posts

Wednesday, April 11, 2012

Distilling Water

I took this picture last year at a winery in Florida. They use old wine bottles to distill water by using the heat of the sun. I wish I'd taken better notes so I knew how this actually works, but ran across it tonight and wanted to share.

Amateur Hydroponic Tips for Deep Water Culture

1. Wash your hydroton before using it. I didn't do that in my first project and ended up with a film of clay dust throughout the water chamber in my deep water culture bins.

2. Adjust your lighting before planting. It's very difficult to make adjustments after you've planted when using deep water culture.

3. Use a commercially produced nutrient. DIY is great for most things, but why not take advantage of professional research and development to flatten the initial hydroponic learning curve?

4. Shop around for the best prices. Some hydroponic shops are "friendlier" than others and it follows that some have lower prices than the competition.

5. DIY is cheaper than paying full retail for a "kit" system. You can look around on the Internet and find several examples at inexpensive, but effective hydroponic growing systems you can assemble yourself.

6. Buy a commercial quality air pump for aerating your deep water culture beds.

7. Kick start your basement hydroponics by maintaining temperatures at optimal levels for the vegetables you're growing.