With obesity becoming a major problem around the world, many people are adopting healthier lifestyles that combine a good diet and a fitness regime. One popular trend also includes growing one’s own herbs and vegetables for meals; a countermeasure to unhealthy eating habits that can contribute to several health-related problems such as heart disease, heart stroke, high blood pressure, diabetes and cancer. While it may have been more common for people to have their own garden in the past, these days outdoor space for maintaining a kitchen garden is a luxury that not all of us have.

Over the last few years, new efforts in gardening technology has solved this problem of space, or lack there of, by devising a new method of growing plants known as hydroponics. This indoor gardening method enables you to use water as a medium for growing plants instead of soil.

One of the many advantages of hydroponic growing systems is that that you can grow fresh herbs and vegetables throughout the year. After all, harsh climate conditions are no longer a factor when you’re growing plants in a controlled environment, and you have access to your plants even during winter. Despite the season, you can sustain a healthy and organic lifestyle; with the bonus of watching your food grows in the comfort of home and keeping track of what you eat at the same time.

Another major benefit of using hydroponic systems is that it’s a gardening method that is much more accessible than traditional gardening; it requires less space and there’s no need to have a yard. Indoor growing also takes much less effort than traditional gardening; you don’t have to worry about pulling out pesky weeds or trying to get rid of harmful pests that eat away at your plants. Not to mention, the use of potentially harmful pesticides and herbicides becomes redundant in this weed-free and relatively pest-free environment.

All of these benefits make hydroponics a sustainable gardening method for apartment dwellers and others who find themselves with little space and who want to grow what they eat. It’s a very simple and convenient system of gardening that encourages a healthy lifestyle; providing you with a constant supply of nutritious herbs and vegetables all year round.

You can gather detailed information about this alternative method of gardening by accessing online resources, or you can visit a gardening supply store to purchase hydroponics supplies and starter growing kits.

You can get more information about and Hydroponics Growing Kits by visiting Hydroponic Growing Systems

Hydroponics is an innovative method of gardening that enables you to grow plants using water as a medium in place of soil. This type of highly productive indoor gardening system lets you maintain a beautiful garden without the requirement of a lot of space.

You can easily start your own system by gathering some basic supplies. First, you need an efficient lighting system, some starter cubes, plant nutrients and seeds. Grow kits and plant seeds can be purchased at garden stores as well as from online suppliers. There are some plants that grow at a very fast rate in hydroponic systems; for example, tomatoes, lettuce, spinach, turnips and mint are some good seeds to buy with your first kit.

Before arranging the grow equipment, you should learn about starter cubes. These cubes are used to provide support to the roots of growing plants. Starter cubes retain the right amount of water, and nutrients are provided to the plants when they dissolve. There are four types of starter cubes available on the market; these include Oasis Cubes, Rockwool, Organo-Cubes and peat pots. Peat pots are the least preferred product of these options as they retain a lot of water that can drown your plants. The other three types not only help retain the optimum amount of water, but also keep the right amount air in the growing solution.

Plants require sufficient nutrients for proper growth. There are two categories of nutrients that are vital for plant development. Some nutrients such as carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, potassium, calcium, magnesium and sulphur are required in large quantities. These nutrients are known as macronutrients. Other nutrients such as iron, chlorine, boron, copper, nickel, zinc, magnesium and molybdenum are required in small quantities. These nutrients are known as micronutrients. A proper mix of macronutrients and micronutrients is required for healthy plant growth. With hydroponics, nutrients are provided to the plants in solution form; the amount of nutrients provided varies according to plant type and their growth stages.

A good lighting system is must for the proper functioning of any hydroponic system. Artificial lights are used to imitate the optimum lighting received by plants in their natural habitat. You can use incandescent, fluorescent or high intensity lights to fulfil the lighting needs of your plants.

Once you have the equipment set up, you’re ready to get started on growing indoors; you can then provide you and your family fresh herbs and vegetables no matter what the weather is like outside, or what’s available at your local market.

You can get more information about and Hydroponic Growing Systems by visiting SH Hydroponics

It is rightly said that necessity is the mother of all inventions. Rapidly growing populations and increasing pressure on lands have forced man to develop new ways of growing plants for consumption. This need has led to the adoption of new ways of gardening that involve the use of water as a medium for growing herbs and vegetables.

The deep water culture technique, or DWC, is a gardening technique that is used to cultivate indoor plants. Through this method, plant roots are submerged in water that is rich in nutrients. Bubbles are produced using an air pump to facilitate the exchange of gases and to provide sufficient moisture at the root site.

Oxyponics is a great benefit to anyone looking for indoor growing options. It is a perfect alternative to other costly gardening systems that are available on the market. This innovative system facilitates optimal growth for plants of all types. It consists of a large air pump that moves large quantities of water through a micro-pore air stone. This results in formation of bubbles that form a richly aerated solution. This solution produces the exchange of sufficient amounts of oxygen from plant roots through the root cells. This user-friendly root zone aeration system is perfect for small as well as larger plants.

A combination of the beneficial features that make up the most successful hydroponic systems, Oxyponics is reliable, portable and easy to use.

It is often seen that reservoir water contains considerably small quantities of dissolved oxygen. Such small quantities allow the plants to thrive, but they are not able to grow to their optimum levels. However, if roots are exposed to an increased supply of oxygen, the plants grow a much faster rate. This accelerated growth is accompanied by improved health of the plants that are administered a constant flow of nutrients.

This system provides sufficient oxygen exposure to the plant roots by generating infinitely large amounts of bubbles. While increasing the oxygen supply to the root cells, this system also enables you to monitor the pH level of the reservoir water and adjust the level of dissolved nutrients according to the requirements of the plants being grown.

Oxyponics not only hastens the growth of your indoor plants but also yields abundant and strong results. If you love gardening and fresh food, this type of growing system would be a great investment that can aid in a healthier lifestyle and solve the issue of gardening space.

You can get more information about and Hydroponic Growing Systems by visiting SH Hydroponics

The art of hydroponic gardening often involves green growing techniques, so it is logical that Stealth Hydroponics Inc., a manufacturer of hydroponic systems, would show its commitment to the environment in its products and practices.

Stealth Hydroponics developed its line of indoor gardens to use energy-saving Compact Fluorescent Lamps (CFLs), designed to replace High Pressure Sodium (HPS) lights or metal halide lighting systems that most traditional hydroponic systems relied on for growing. When Stealth Hydroponics developed its Bubbleponics™ hydroponic feeding method it also incorporated CFLs into its innovative design.

“We have blown the myth that indoor growing needs HPS lighting,” Stealth Hydroponics’ founder and President, Martin Wiggett, says. “While some plants do better with high intensity lighting, most do fine with low heat, energy-efficient bulbs.” Lights sold by Stealth Hydroponics still use low wattage, but they output high lumens and in the correct color spectrum to mirror natural sunlight needed during the various growth stages.

“We have helped save our customers millions of wasted watts of electricity in the U.S. and Canada, and by extension, thousands of dollars,” Wiggett says.

Stealth Hydroponics is a member of the local Waste Knot organization, whose programs are designed to develop relationships within the local business community (Washtenaw County) to increase waste reduction and recycling activities.

The commitment to waste reduction is serious business at Stealth Hydroponics. The company has eliminated the use of environmentally unfriendly Styrofoam™ peanuts as a packing fill used to protect fragile products, such as light bulbs, during shipping. Wiggett says that a combination of expensive brown paper and the non bio-degradable peanuts had been used, but these have been replaced by shredded cardboard boxes that are either received damaged from incoming shipments or are over-sized and, therefore, not economical to re-use.

Wiggett explains: “We are located in an industrial complex with other businesses that have stopped throwing their cardboard boxes into the garbage dumpster and now give them to us to shred and use in our packing. In this way, we save even more waste from entering landfills.”

Stealth Hydroponics is also lending a helping hand in the fight to reduce carbon dioxide emissions and thus, reduce its carbon footprint. The company tries to locally source most of the components used to assemble its hydroponics growing kits. In this way, it is contributing towards lower fuel costs that are incurred to transport parts to its Michigan location.

You can get more information about and Hydroponic Growing Systems by visiting SH Hydroponics

The prospect of losing your job is not one taken lightly, and in 2005 Martin Wiggett was faced with the knowledge that his job in network engineering at MCI/Worldcom in Ann Arbor Michigan had ended.

When MCI/Worldcom shuttered its operations, Wiggett, a trained electrical engineer who came to Michigan 20 years ago from Cape Town, South Africa, had time to devote to his new interest: hydroponic growing methods. He used his newfound spare time to experiment with hydroponics in the basement of his house while caring for his young son.

“It was January in Michigan with freezing temperatures,” he recounts. “But I wanted to grow kitchen herbs and so I shopped around for a starter system. I couldn’t really find what I wanted and the minimum investment at that time was about $800. So I took an old storage unit, a few fish aquarium parts and some flower pots, and put something together.”

The basics of Bubbleponics® were born and Wiggett founded Stealth Hydroponics in October 2005 to ultimately market his revolutionary hydroponic feeding method. Bubbleponics® delivers highly oxygenated nutrient solution directly to the inner root zone, compared with the previous practice of misting the outer roots with nutrient spray. Gone are the days of over/under watering or feeding; the Bubbleponics® systems automatically maintains an ideal oxygen level to ensure a healthy and thriving root system.

Over the next couple of years, Wiggett perfected Bubbleponics®, taking the best from the drip and bubbler systems that were in widespread use in other hydroponic watering techniques. As a continuous plant feeding system, Bubbleponics® converts its drip function to a constant feed flow directly to the inner roots, which means that roots have less work to find nutrients and oxygen. More energy, therefore, goes into growing and Bubbleponics® adds an overdrive gear to high-performance growing systems.

“One of the key reasons for our success is that all of the components that make up our trademarked Bubbleponics® system can be acquired locally,” Wiggett explains. “The total cost to obtain the parts equals the total cost of our units,” he noted, adding that he has not increased prices on the units since 2005.

Stealth Hydroponics assembles all the components and provides a 30-day unconditional warranty, along with lifetime customer support.

The Bubbleponics® system was designed with maintenance in mind. Almost all the parts used can be obtained from a local hardware store. By using mainstream brands in the design it allows the end user to easily replace individual parts in a pinch throughout their many years of ‘bubbleponic-ing’.

You can get more information about and Hydroponic Growing Systems by visiting SH Hydroponics

Hydroponic gardening is an inexpensive and reliable means of producing fresh fruits and vegetables – even in the midst of winter. Hydroponics is derived from the Greek words "hydro" (water) and "ponos" (labor) and

refers to a method of growing plants with water, but without soil.

Hydroponics is an attractive indoor alternative to traditional outdoor gardening because it can be done year round, especially in cold climates or in conditions where water is scarce. Indoor hydroponics can produce impressive results although some of the methods require high maintenance, others can be relatively easy to use. In general, only basic supplies such as containers, growing medium, lights and liquid nutrients are needed to set up a small operation in your home.

Hydroponic specialists, such as Stealth Hydroponics, Inc., which offer budding hydroponic gardeners several growing options, sells startup supplies in easy-to-assemble hydroponic kits.

One of the simplest and least expensive hydroponic methods involves a “deep water culture” (DWC) system, which suspends the floating plants in the nutrient solution. Fast-growing, water-loving plants do well in this type of hydroponic system.

Stealth Hydroponics has improved on this basic system by adding even more oxygen to the source water through air stones. These stones hold down the plants and retain or distribute moisture to the roots as needed. Stealth Hydro’s trademarked Bubbleponics® feeding method delivers a highly oxygenated nutrient solution directly to the inner root zone. In addition, air tubes reach out of the oxygenated water to the root ball and feed the roots directly.

Another method is the “ebb and flow” system, also called the “flood and drain” method. It temporarily floods the grow tray with a nutrient solution and then drains the solution back into a reservoir. Ebb and flow systems use a grow medium, such as perlite or rockwool, to support the plant roots in the grow bed pots.

Stealth Hydroponics has also improved on this style of hydroponics with its trademarked Oxyponics® system. The improvement of Oxyponics® over traditional ebb and flow is again related to oxygen, which is a critical component to a healthy plant. Stealth Hydro’s Oxyponics® delivers oxygen directly to the root through bubblers at each plant, which brings oxygenated water flowing directly to the root.

While Bubbletronics® is more suited to kitchen herbs, greens (spinach, lettuce, etc), strawberries and peppers, Oxyponics® is better for tomatoes and other fruit-bearing plants that need more space between the plants.

You can get more information about and Hydroponic Growing Systems by visiting SH Hydroponics