Thanks! Sea of Green is one of my favorite stores! I signed up for the drawing.

Awesome! I am glad I could help out. :)

Here is a link that might be useful: Win a Deep Water Culture System

I built my own drip system using 2 19 gallon totes from Walmart. Put one on top of the other, cut holes out, and put a pump in the bottom one, pump up through a pipe and split 4 ways. Cut holes in top, put 4 baskets with grodan in it and you are good to go. Works amazingly for tomatoes.

Wow ~ Great info @euqruob, thanks! It's always fun to see what solutions people create.

Drip systems are very easy. Building flood systems is easy, but you need a good timer that will turn on every 15 or 30 minutes to flood the roots. My system runs 24/7. Nutrients pump up, drain into the plant, top tote contains the roots, bottom tote contains the nutrients. Change nutrients as the plants go from grow stage to blossom stage.

What kind of nutrients do you use?

Here is a link that might be useful: Win a Deep Water Culture System

Believe it or not, especially for hydroponics, sites specialising on certain... herb strains.. are going to give you excellent information.

These gardeners are people who love their plants, really love them, and will do anything to ensure that their plants are the healthiest possible, so if you search for a topic and see "that kind" of site, don't ignore it on the stigma.

Gardenscure used to be one of the more mature sites on that subject, I haven't checked in a while, but you could usually get very straight advice.

An alternative to hydroponics, which, although widely successful, I'm dubious about (I figure plants belong in soil, or at least a solid medium..) is called the "hempy".

"Hempies" are ~a compromise, a bucket or container with a drainage hole in the side about 1" above the bottom, forming a small reservoir, the bucket itself is filled with perlite, which plants love.. it's easy to grow roots fast in perlite. They get plenty of air and water and can be changed quickly. I used to put a bit more real soil, and lime in my "soil mix", maybe 75% perlite.

I thought the Fox Farm liquid foods were outstanding. Within the obvious selection of organic supplements (bat guano, epsom salts, worm castings) I recommend kelp for fast growth. I'm sure it would add a characteristic taste to vegetables if overused. Reptile bulbs (for increased UV) are worth it if you are lighting on a budget.

Thanks xoxox!
@marymcp I have been shopping around today and noticed that Sea of Green is having a 15% off the whole store sale that ends today.

Here is a link that might be useful: Sale Page

Yeah growgirl, I know. I dropped 80 bucks there a couple of days ago - but thanks for letting us know. Got all my ferts and a huge bag of Roots Organics potting mix. At least it wasn't 90 bucks right??