Since the planting season is drawing to a close where I live, I thought I’d try growing some stuff indoors via a hydroponic system. I had considered buying an Aerogarden or similar system, but this would be a waste of the grow lights that I already had and successfully used to grow basil.
Therefore, I opted to replicate the Aerogarden system by building my own. Aerogarden uses a Deep Water Culture(DWC) setup. I set one up by taking a Craftsman 5-gallon tote because it uses polypropelene, which is considered to be food-safe. I also bought an aquarium pump and dropped in 4 aeration stones to keep the water from becoming stagnant. I opted to use Aerogarden seed pods just because I’m not ready to overengineer this before I know it will work.
I’m a little concerned about the cost of using so much nutrient solution and so much water, but I won’t know if that’s a problem for a little while.