Live Self Sufficient

I talked about why you should build a hydroponic garden but to fair about it, I should explain some of the drawbacks to building a hydroponic garden.

Unlike building a garden in the backyard right in the soil, when you build a hydroponic garden it takes a great deal more time and more money. Equipment costs to set up the hydroponic garden not only costs more money but finding it may not be easy.

Once setup, the long term costs are less then a normal garden but start up costs are much higher and take more time to create the environment.

Another big disadvantage of building a hydroponic garden is that it is all energy driven. There is a pump which keeps the water system movement which means it a power outage could ruin your garden. When you build a hydroponic garden, consider alternative ways to power your pump so that an outage does not mean the end of your garden.

Finally, you need to have some understanding of what it takes to balance pH levels, proper amounts of nutrition and be able to spend time to monitor where your garden is at. In the soil you start out with a certain level of pH balance and natural nutrition in the soil itself for your plants. When you build a hydroponic garden you start out with a clean slate an you create the environment from scratch. This takes additional research on your part to ensure you set it up correctly and at the right levels for whatever you are planting.

Overall, the hardest part of building a hydroponic garden is just the initial creation stage and learning how to maintain it. Once you get that under your belt it is a much more rewarding garden then your traditional gardens if you have the time and money to build one of your own.

Related posts:

1. Reasons you should build a hydroponic garden
2. Build a greenhouse for cold weather gardening
3. How to make your own compost to help keep your garden soil healthy and fertile
4. How to build a self sufficient house starting with power – Part 1
5. Not everything belongs in your garden compost