Feels Like a Good Day to Learn About Aeroponic Gardening!

I've thought about hydroponic gardening for a few years now, and it always seemed like an epic chore to keep all of the pumps working with timers and keep a huge reservoir of water sitting around. It really seems better suited to a large scale, so a setup in a small apartment didn't seem feasible. A year or so ago, though, I stumbled across an article on how Singapore has been solving its vegetable import problem with aeroponics. Likewise, NASA is all over that, since they also suffer from a lack of arable soil in their tin cans. I anticipated and was correct in assuming that I would have a tiny apartment right now, so I began to study the topic online. What did I find? Cannabis. Lots of cannabis. Happy 4/20, everyone (here in Michigan, anyway, even if Blogger wants to suck and be on west coast time). Just to reiterate, vegetables. This is for VEGETABLES.

NO. That is NOT what I meant.

Anyway, the basic design of an aeroponics system is as follows: Get some nutrient-rich water into a reservoir, pump it through nozzles to mist plant roots in a soilless medium, and the mist is recycled back into the reservoir. Of course, the benefits of aeroponic gardening include the facts that disease is less of a problem, growth is fast, conditions are tightly controlled, and it can be done easily indoors. Sounds like an ideal setup for something. Chia Pets, perhaps. In the image below, basket pots are suspended over the reservoir, surrounded by nozzles. This is a relatively common design.

If you look at this decidedly non-sketchy gardening blog, the system it proposes looks strikingly similar to the one above. This is a nice design for a single plant. I particularly like the power cord hole. A grommet (apparently a real word outside of claymation) will keep your pump cord from getting frayed. Also, this plan actually gives you a suggestion for a pump. They suggest an ActiveAqua PU250 pump. Of course, there are problems with this. It looks well-suited for one very nice tomato plant, but If we wanted to grow some radishes or herbs, that one large basket is kind of crappy. Bit ironic that someone would use something as utilitarian as IKEA furniture to grow a $100 tomato plant. Anyway, you demand a stable supply of varied vegetables so you don't have to subsist on raisons and baby carrots, and with great vegetables comes great need for a bigger pump than that PU250. Most sites recommend no less than a 350-gallons-per-minute pump. Overall, the design could be a little more practical. As for the problems, no need to worry, because business hippies have your back: There is a great design here with in-depth instructions. When looking at graduate programs in ecology, I saw pictures of almost the exact same planter in botany labs, from the outside at least. What is really great about it, though, is the guts. There's a simple but elegant, H-shaped branching of pipes that can hit a lot of basket pots at once, allowing you to grow many plants.

You know, those plumbers down the street always smell like patchouli. (Really, I can do this all night.)

Assuming you don't buy a light, you can put this whole contraption together for around $100. A light can be bought for another Benjamin (yes, I just said that). Seriously, if you've grown herbs and veggies with soil planters before, the costs build up on you quickly, so this is actually a pretty cost-efficient system. If you keep it clean, you can probably reuse it from year to year without replacing much but the pump. Also, it is possible to keep this organic. There is a liquid, organic fertilizer called compost tea. It's basically just like brewing tea, except instead of vitamin-rich, aromatic tea leaves, you use moldy plant trash. If you want to get really fancy, there are ways to incorporate aquaculture into the system, but that's for another day. If you want to see what this looks like scaled up, and why it could very well be the future of urban agriculture, check this out.