Hydroponics News November 15th, 2008

November 15, 2008

‘Green’ gardening with hydroponics

For anyone missing a green thumb, a farmer is making growing things a little simpler by subtracting a key ingredient.

Joe Donato with Donato’s Hydroponic House of Greens says, “Hydroponics is growing vegetables or flowers in water as opposed to soil.”

Even though the baby heads of lettuce look like they’re sitting in soil, they’re not. The roots are surrounded by clay bits or coconut husks. Then the tray is flooded with water, so the vegetable can soak up the nutrients.

“You give the plants exactly the nutrients they want so there’s no soil-borne insect because there is no soil,” says Donato.

Instead of insecticides, the Donato’s use actual insects to keep bad bugs away from their plants. Donato adds, “We use beneficial insects that are good insects that use bad insects.”

Contrary to popular belief, the vegetables don’t taste watery.

Donato says, “they taste better and there are more vitamins.”

He also uses an organic based fertilizer and recycles the water that is used in this process. Another green advantage: it’s all locally-grown, so there is no transportation involved.

Greenhouse takes heat, reuses it

Co-generation system makes hothouse part of province’s power grid

The Star reported yesterday that more greenhouse operators in Ontario are trying to save on fuel costs by switching to coal. Today’s story takes a look at one tomato greenhouse in Leamington that’s taking a greener, more innovative approach.

ESSEX COUNTY–Tiny eggs bonded to a paper tag begin to hatch, unleashing 150 parasitic wasps that go about their mission with deadly precision.

Like falcons bred to chase seagulls from airport runways, the wasps target, attack and destroy one of the few and most damaging pests found in modern vegetable greenhouses – the tomato-destroying whitefly.

“We breed our own biological control,” explains Darren Didychuk, president of Great Northern Hydroponics, a large greenhouse operator in Kingsville, Ont.

There are hundreds of egg-laden tags attached to tomato-plant stems throughout the 50-acre operation, where bug warfare has proved a more efficient and eco-friendly alternative to chemical pesticides and herbicides.

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Here’s how to care for houseplants indoors

It’s November and there is no denying that the outdoor gardening season is at an end. Though I’m an avid outdoor gardener, I am not an avid indoor gardener. Sure, I have the standard issue Philodendron, Spider Plant, Wandering Jew and “Christmas” Cactus, but that’s it. This year I am going to expand on my indoor gardening for three reasons; this column, the passing of my last cat, and my youngest is old enough not to eat my plants – I hope.

I have had most of my houseplants for almost 10 years, so it’s not like I can’t grow anything indoors, it’s really been an issue of space and time. I used to have put my plants high enough so they would not get chewed up by infants or cats. I really didn’t mind if the cats chewed on them, I just didn’t like the finished product of their grazing. But most houseplants are poisonous, so if animals and children are around it’s better to keep them out of reach. Now that the demographics in my household have changed, I can put them where I want and taking care of them will be much easier since I don’t have to climb a ladder to reach them.