can hydroponic gardening be organic?
Wednesday, February 17th, 2010 at
7:12 am
???
that sucks!
guess ill have to stick with the old fashion way since i want organic.
thanks
Filed under: Organic Gardening
Like this post? Subscribe to my RSS feed and get loads more!
Hydroponics can indeed be organic, especially when coupled with the raising of fish. If you balance things correctly, you don’t need ANY outside impute.
The waste (poo) from the fish feeds the plants, as well as the urine from the fish. In turn the plant roots clean up the water for the fish.
The waste products from the plants (parts we don’t eat) are fed back to the fish.
~Garnet
Permaculture homesteading/farming over 20 years
No. Hydroponic plants require chemical fertilizer. The chemical is dissolved in the water and the water is given to the plant. Organics don’t dissolve in the carefully measured quantities needed for hydroponic conditions.
I was watching a documentary What the ancients did for us: the aztecs, maya and incas and they invented hydroponics. they built chinampas or floating gardens, canes and branches are used as a structure. they used lake sediment as a fertilizer. that could be organic.
Yes it can. I’m an organic gardener who has come to rely on a worm composter to turn food scraps, lawn clippings, weeds and rainwater into liquid fertiliser. I’ve been doing this for months and it works like magic. If you’ve got a hydroponic operation, just top up the nutrients with the liquid runoff from your worm composter instead of manufactured chemicals. Our composter is a bathtub on a wooden frame, outdoors, with a 10 litre bucket under the plughole to catch the liquid runoff.We just put solid organic waste in the bathtub, and when it rains the bucket fills with a dark, odourless liquid consisting of worm casts and water. Everything I know about worm composting I learned from my own experience and "Worms Eat My Garbage" by Mary Appelhof.