So you have a source of light. Now what? The second part of designing your indoor garden is to decide what your plants will be grown in. You can choose a prebuilt garden or simply plant your preferred growing medium into a container and watch nature do the rest.
Pre-Built Gardens
This type of garden can use any type of medium or style of hydroponics. They can come in large or small sizes and are very easy to set up and use.
Examples of this type of garden would be the Aero-Garden, Click and Grow or the Super Flow system from Oxygen Pot Systems.
Rockwool
One of the easiest growing mediums to garden with hydroponically, rockwool is a favorite growing medium among commercial hydroponic installations. Rockwool or stone-wool is a material made from melted volcanic rock and spun into a sponge like material which the roots grow into. With this material, all nutrients (fertilizer) must be supplied with hydroponic nutrients like the Dutch Nutrient Formula.
Rockwool is very versitile and can be hand watered, set on a drip system or a flood and drain table for automated watering.
Here is a commercial tomato garden using rockwool. You will notice the dripper lines to deliver nutrient solution.
Deep Water Culture
Deep water culture or aquaculture as it is sometimes called is an easy to use type of hydroponic garden. It consists of a nutrient water reservoir and a lid to hold the plants in pots above the water reservoir. The nutrient water is oxygenated with an air diffuser and air pump similar to an aquarium.
Peat Moss/ Coco Coir
Known as the soiless mediums, these growing mediums act like normal soil except they contain no form of fertilizer. The easiest way to use these mediums is to add a complete hydroponic nutrient such as Dutch Nutrient Formula A/B Gro or A/B Bloom. These types of fertilizer contain all the nutrients required for optimal plant growth.
