I can definitely understand the garden and gardening being a cherished protected space. Everyone's vision of that is going to differ yet we can all be successful, and I think that's one of the most magical things about it!
One of my pet peeves is when people try to shoehorn everything into a one size fits all, my way or it's wrong mentality. I'm not that way and gardening certainly doesn't have to be that way whether it's soil, hydroponic, aeroponic, etc etc.
The zucchini I'm growing is being done with my own homebrew methodology simply because I know it works for me and my life. I happen to like harvesting zucchini every 2-3 days, so in this case I've used a much smaller than "normal" reservoir that keeps me to that schedule. It keeps me motivated to keep the plants harvested and the tanks topped up at regular intervals without feeling like a chore. Other times I put them in huge over sized reservoirs, it just depends on what my vision for the space and the plants is at any given time. This time it happens to be "kratky" with a personal twist.
Too right, it's peak "I took acid in highschool brain" but I try learn a lot of my efforts from the forest around me. It's true that idk you'll get a straighter, larger, and more vigorously flowering banksia or something if you feed the shit out of it and plant it in ideal conditions and so on. Yet there's loads of examples of old twisted and gnarled survivors subsiting off whatever nutrients filter through to a crack in a boulder and and whatever sunlight filters down to it through the canopy.
I guess I should be less afraid to mess around with hydro in a similar way. The context I've always run into in is either intensive ag or stoners optimising the shit out of weed to create some plant that comatoses you if you smell it. That's probably biased me to think it has to be really carefully managed or it wont work, and yet outside of like engineering and chemical synthesis I don't think I've encountered much where that's actually true.
You've inspired me to care a bit less and just have a go haha. Thanks :)
I can definitely understand the garden and gardening being a cherished protected space. Everyone's vision of that is going to differ yet we can all be successful, and I think that's one of the most magical things about it!
One of my pet peeves is when people try to shoehorn everything into a one size fits all, my way or it's wrong mentality. I'm not that way and gardening certainly doesn't have to be that way whether it's soil, hydroponic, aeroponic, etc etc.
The zucchini I'm growing is being done with my own homebrew methodology simply because I know it works for me and my life. I happen to like harvesting zucchini every 2-3 days, so in this case I've used a much smaller than "normal" reservoir that keeps me to that schedule. It keeps me motivated to keep the plants harvested and the tanks topped up at regular intervals without feeling like a chore. Other times I put them in huge over sized reservoirs, it just depends on what my vision for the space and the plants is at any given time. This time it happens to be "kratky" with a personal twist.
The right way is whatever works for you.
Too right, it's peak "I took acid in highschool brain" but I try learn a lot of my efforts from the forest around me. It's true that idk you'll get a straighter, larger, and more vigorously flowering banksia or something if you feed the shit out of it and plant it in ideal conditions and so on. Yet there's loads of examples of old twisted and gnarled survivors subsiting off whatever nutrients filter through to a crack in a boulder and and whatever sunlight filters down to it through the canopy.
I guess I should be less afraid to mess around with hydro in a similar way. The context I've always run into in is either intensive ag or stoners optimising the shit out of weed to create some plant that comatoses you if you smell it. That's probably biased me to think it has to be really carefully managed or it wont work, and yet outside of like engineering and chemical synthesis I don't think I've encountered much where that's actually true.
You've inspired me to care a bit less and just have a go haha. Thanks :)
Awesome! Best of luck with whatever you decide to try!