As a prepper, you’ll be giving a lot of thought to the food you’ll need to store. During any natural or manmade disaster, of course, you’ll need to keep eating. But how much is enough? The size and extent of your food store is tied into the length of any emergency – and, by definition, you’ll not know how long that’s going to last.
The way to supplement those stores – and give you a practically limitless supply of food – is to grow your own. In growing your own, hydroponics offers a fast, ready, and reliable way to go.
What is hydroponics?
What makes hydroponics so attractive to preppers is that it is a way of growing food without the need for soil. You grow it in water instead.
Although you’ve got rid of the soil, you’ll still need a growing medium to contain the water – such as fibrous coconut coir or sponge-like sphagnum moss – and you also need to add some nutrients to the water.
Once you’ve made that fairly modest investment, the growing medium – moss or fibre – is completely reusable and the area in which you need to grow the food is much less than the space it would take up outside – you can set up hydroponic growing areas on tabletops or any other un- or underused space in your home or emergency refuge.
You won’t be spending half as much labour in growing hydroponically compared to other media – and there’ll be no weeding or mulching to do.
You’ll need to use water, of course – but, surprisingly perhaps, less than if you were growing the same food in soil. Neither will you have to worry about the weather or pest control – it’s a genuine win-win situation.
Benefits of hydroponics
We’ve already mentioned the advantages of a water-based growing medium and the savings on space and labour. For the prepper, probably the biggest benefit is that it adds an extra, alternative source of nourishing – entirely natural – food.
Although hydroponic systems can be used to grow practically every type of food, it won’t meet all your needs in any emergency or lockdown – rather, it will provide a valuable supplement or addition to the stores you’ve already laid down. It won’t be providing all the calories you’ll need but hydroponics is an entirely feasible way of easily growing food such as salads – like lettuce, tomatoes, peppers, and cucumbers. And fresh salads are rich in essential nutrients and micronutrients including minerals, vitamins, fibre, and water advises the BBC’s Science Focus.
You can also reserve a part of your hydroponic growing system for potentially vital medicinal plants and herbs – yet another way of supplementing valuable first-aid treatments and remedies.
Where can I buy hydroponics?
Thanks to the recent surge in interest in home-grown food – especially keen interest developed during the Covid pandemic, for example – there is currently a bumper crop of specialist hydroponic suppliers all of whom have an established online presence.
You can buy everything you’re likely to need from complete systems to individual items such as drippers and pots, to grow lights and grow tents.
Your one-stop shop for a whole host of goodies for preppers is the online Amazon store, of course, and hydroponic supplies are no exception.
What are Kratky Jars?
One of the most basic hydroponic systems ideal for beginners is a method based on the so-called Kratky jar. In the UK, you might recognise them as the old-time, home-based preserving or canning favourite, the Kilner jar. In the United States, they’re probably better known as Mason jars.
Once you’ve used up any of the food – fruit or vegetables, for instance – you have preserved in your Kilner jar, you can easily convert it so that it doubles up as a small-scale hydroponic system.
The online Amazon store offers a wide range of Kilner jars in different sizes from 0.5 to 5 litres.
For practical tips and suggestions about small-scale hydroponic growing using this method, you might want to browse the lessons outlined on the American website, The Organic Prepper.
What do I need to know when growing with hydroponics?
While all hydroponic systems simply substitute water for soil, there are two basic techniques, described by the Royal Horticultural Society (RHS):
- One type employs a porous medium – such as gravel or other aggregates – in which the roots of the plant can embed; and
- The other does not need any kind of gravel or aggregate but instead relies on nutrient film technique (NFT).
Whether they use aggregate substrate or beds of rockwool there are many commercial applications of hydroponic cultivation of crops such as tomatoes and salad vegetables.
How do I get started with hydroponics?
Even lessons for beginners can make hydroponic home growing seem complicated. Unless you’re completely at home in what you’re doing, you could end up spending a lot of money on systems that turn out to be inappropriate for your actual needs.
So, you might want to splash out on a complete, self-contained kit that is easy to set up and contains everything you’ll need to start growing. An excellent example of just such a kit is made by iDOO – a complete hydroponic growing system that incorporates 12 separate pods, LED growing lights, a timer, fan, and a germination kit.
If you find you are getting the hang of things and want to scale up your hydroponic gardening, you can make a further investment in the equipment you are going to need. None of it is likely to prove all that expensive. You’ll need a basin, large bowl, or other container that acts as your water reservoir. To the water in this reservoir, you’re going to add the necessary hydroponic nutrient or fertilizer – and there is a wide range of different brands from which to choose.
The growing medium, in which you’ll put the seeds for the crop you want to grow, can be anything that’s going to retain the nutrient-rich water – ideal for this is coconut fibre or shreds of bark or something more pebbly such as perlite or vermiculite.
The beauty of hydroponic systems is that you can grow your crop in a much smaller space than otherwise. It is also less labour-intensive. If you are growing outside, you can continue to rely on natural sunlight but if your set-up is indoors, you will also need to build a lighting system.
Summary
Hydroponics offer an ideal solution for home-grown food production. It is relatively easy and cheap to set up. Water takes the place of soil. The equipment – including the growing medium – is entirely reusable and fairly minimum labour input is required.
Unlike any crops you attempt to raise in the garden outside, hydroponic systems are based on a much “cleaner” growth environment – just an inert growing medium and nutrient-enriched water – so you can expect it all to be more or less pest-free.
A home-grown hydroponic system won’t provide all the food you’ll need but can contribute a more than worthwhile supplement of fresh produce.
