Hydroponic greenhouse gardening
(Page 4 of 7)
Even if agricultural chemicals didn't destroy the
soil—and even if they didn't wash into our lakes and
streams and seep into the water table as
pollutants—the use of artificial fertilizers on
cropland would still be bad ecology. Petroleum is one
of the major sources of such products . . . and it
doesn't take an Einstein to see what is bound to happen to
farmers who continue to rely on them. With our petroleum
resources rapidly vanishing, what will those producers do
with soil that's hooked on chemicals? And what will happen
to the world's food supply?
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"But," you might ask, "what about the chemicals used to
make up the hydroponic solution? Aren't they derived from
petroleum? Even if hydroponic gardening, properly done,
doesn't cause pollution, won't it create a needless drain
on a finite resource?"
To be quite frank, I don't know how the commercially
available hydroponic chemicals are manufactured, or what
raw materials they are derived from. And, while it's true
that I'm using a conventional product in my tanks at the
present time, my objective is to develop a hydroponic
solution which is derived from organic materials.
Fox, in his pamphlet, gives us a hint as to how an organic
hydroponic solution might be created:
the end product of... regular composting, or
manureitself, can be put into a burlap bag which,
in turn, is putinto solution. The proper mixture
consists of 1/2 bushelof manure for fifty gallons
of water. This solutionwhich is very rich, and
should be used about once every tendays—could be used daily if the solution is
weaker . . . .
In all my research into the available literature, this is
the only reference I have found to an organic hydroponic
solution. Obviously, most hydroponic gardeners rely on the
commercially prepared product. Perhaps the time has come
for some basic research into an organically derived formula
which can be duplicated by anyone with reasonable accuracy.
The Complete Book of Composting (Rodale Press,
1971) gives the nitrogen (N), phosphorus (P) and potassium
(K) percentages of most common organic materials. (For
example, rabbit manure has NPK percentages of 7.0, 2.4 and
0.6.) The method I intend to explore in my greenhouse is to
mix the proper proportions of organic materials, compost
them, feed the compost to earthworms, and then leach the
earthworm castings with water to get my hydroponic
solution.
The reason for using earthworms is twofold: [1] the worms
can be used as fish food (remember, the greenhouse contains
an aquaculture tank!) and [2] earthworm castings are known
to be just about the richest organic material around.
Rodale's The Complete Book of Composting quotes
Dr. Ehrenfried Pfeiffer's opinion that "The earthworm
excrements, the so-called castings, are the richest and
purest humus matter in the world", and adds the following
from the writings of Sir Albert Howard: "The casts . . .
contain everything the crop needs—nitrates,
phosphates and potash in abundance and also in just the
condition in which the plant can make use of them."
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