Total-control Indoor Gardening with Modern Hydrop

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 Lettuce,spinach, salad greens. Keep roots cool. Leaf lettuces grow so fast you can see a daily difference. Use a high nitrogen solution and a good-draining medium. They are best suited to flowing water systems.

 Melons and summer squash. They need a good draining medium and low humidity to prevent mildew. Dwarf-growing varieties take up less space. You can trellis vines if developing fruit are given individual support. Keep pH near neutral. Intolerant of acidic media.

Green onions, scallions. Start from seed, not sets. Can be grown almost touching. Mild flavor, succulent.

 Peas. Edible-pod sugar peas are most rewarding. Grow on string trellis with a high nitrogen solution.

 Peppers. Grow the same as tomatoes. Some of the hot varieties will become perennial bushes if you let them.

 Sweet potatoes. Need ample root space. Best grown in large bins filled with a coarse sand medium. The attractive vines can be trellised. For hydroponic color, intermingle with morning glories and scarlet runner beans on a string-trellis against one wall.

Strawberries. Irresistible. Wash thoroughly, dip in mild Clorox solution, rinse immediately, and plant fully-dormant (no sprouts) bare-rooted Young plants a foot apart each way in pots or bags of medium. Feed with drip tubes to each plant. Nip off runners, rooting the best to grow for next year's crop. Hand-pollinate flowers. You can prune all but the best developed young fruit on a plant and produce perfect fruit almost the size of lemons. Ideal for planting in spacesaving towers and growing in the corner of a city apartment.

 Potatoes. Seldom grown in hydroponics. But you might try fingerlings or another gourmet variety in a bin that can hold four cubic feet of light medium such as Cocopeat. Needs its own nutrient solution, heavy in P and K, and maintained at a mildly acidic pH of 6.0.

 Tomatoes. Like cucumbers, a hydroponics special. Whole books are available. You can have ripe tomatoes in two months less growing tin outdoors. Remove all suckers as they sprout. Trellis or stake vines to increase exposure to light and air flow that will help keep molds in check. It is best to grow small or mediumfruited greenhouse forcing varieties. Cobra, a French beefsteak variety, will ripen all the way through and taste like a real tomato unlike many hothouse varieties. Cencara, also French and from Stokes, is an oval cluster-type. Clusters should be pruned to five fruit. Needs a high concentration of I food with extra potassium while fruit develop.

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