zie is the plantach haderach: hydroponics fun

Yesterday's posting made me feel nostalgic for my hydroponics setup. I still have sunny patio left, maybe I should put some strawberries in, or conversely try growing some lettuce in the mostly-shady alleyway between our homesite and the neighbors. The lettuce in the sunny zone under the grapevine has already bolted, but the semi-shaded lettuce behind the house seems to be growing normally.

I have gotten slightly bored with the AutoPots, despite their largely-faithful performance last year. Sunnyvale water is not nearly as hard as the water we had in San Jose, so I should be able to avoid the constant mineral deposits that would disable the passive-reservoir system. I've always wanted to build one of those fancy NFT (nutrient film technique) systems, and I'm running out of excuses-- the Hydroponics Online megasite has a nifty Flash-based PVC hydrogarden design tool, where you can fiddle with their classic 11-plant garden or start with just a pile-o-parts and build something of your own.

Gardenweb has a hydroponics forum in addition to all their other great forums. BTW, the tomato forum has some serious Tomato Masters with incredibly expert advice, of which they share freely. Now if only they'd RSS feed their forums!