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Homemade Hydroponic System Using Gutters

Hydroponics is an old method of growing plants in nutrient-rich water instead of dirt. In the early 17th century, Francis Bacon, who knew so much about so many things that he has been accused of being the real William Shakespeare, called hydroponic gardening “water culture.” At the end of that century, John Woodward wrote about growing spearmint using water culture. The term hydroponics was not coined until 1938 from two Greek words meaning “water labor.” Today, numerous amateur and professional gardeners grow spearmint and other herbs, as well as most vegetables, indoors using hydroponic methods. Crops as large as tobacco, corn and sugar cane have been grown hydroponically.

  1. Nutrient Film Technique

    • The most common hydroponic technique for small crops and seedlings is called the Nutrient Film Technique (NFT). Plants grown this way are usually sprouted in a growing medium called rockwool, which is made from basalt, chalk and sand. (Rockwool is also used for insulation.) The sprouts are imbedded in channels, like ordinary gutters, and then immobilized by capillary mesh, chicken wire or other means. One common alternative imbeds the sprouts in gravel. Nutrient-rich water then continuously circulates through the channels, and the plants grow.

    Plants and Lights

    • NFT is a good system for herbs and plants like lettuce, but because the channels are shallow, roots cannot reach very deep. Since almost all hydroponic gardening happens indoors, gardeners must also install lights. Most indoor gardeners use light sources that provide a broad spectrum of light, like like sodium vapor bulbs. The bulbs usually install into reflective fixtures called ballasts, and since the lights get hot, gardeners also have to install ductwork and in-line fans to carry cool air into the indoor garden and hot air outside.

    Racking the Gutters

    • The channels, which are often plastic or metal gutters, should be arranged side by side on a table or rack that has one end slightly higher than the other so the water will flow from one end to the other by gravity. Most indoor gardens have onle one level of NFT gutters. The uphill end of the gutters is fed by tubes or hoses; that end of each gutter should be capped. The water drains from the gutters at the downhill ends into another open (drain) gutter or a plastic pipe.

    Reservoir and Pumps

    • The water from the gutters drains by gravity into a reservoir, which can be as simple as a bucket or washtub, under the table. The gardener adds nutrients to the reservoir, and the water in the reservoir is oxygenated with an air pump similar to the air pumps used for aquariums. A water pump pushes fluid from the reservoir into one or more feeder tubes or hoses, and those hoses feed the uphill side of your gutters. The more gutters you supply from a single reservoir, the larger your pump must be.

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