Blogging from A to Z Challenge: Growing Lettuce with a Hydroponics System

Hello and welcome to the Focused on Story Blog by J.Q. Rose.
One week of words down. I hope you're having fun and getting a kick out of some of the words I've chosen to share with you.

~hydroponics~

the cultivation of plants by placing the roots in liquid nutrient solutions rather than in soil; soil-less growth of plants, Dictionary.com

My husband and I were in the floral business for nearly twenty years, so I was familiar with the term, hydroponics. But in the spring of 2017, hydroponics became very real to me when Gardener Ted decided to try growing lettuce and a few other plants using hydroponics. He has grown lots of vegetable and annual plants as well as foliage plants, mums, glads, and Easter lilies in our commercial greenhouses, and he plants a vegetable garden which produces delicious food all summer for our family in Michigan and a small garden in winter in Florida for us. Yes, he gardens twelve months out of the year. A dream come true for him.

Lettuce and other plants growing in a hydroponic system
Photo by J.Q. Rose

He was ready to try something new, so he set out to build his hydroponic system and raise plants. Learning how to grow healthy plants in water is definitely not like raising plants in soil! Figuring out how to move the water through the growing pipes, adding nutrients to the water, and keeping the pH at the right point was a real learning curve. And of course, the weather conditions change everything--warm, cold, windy, humid, etc.affect the demands of the plants to keep healthy.

Delicious speckled lettuce grown using the hydroponics system
Photo by J.Q. Rose

He followed through on producing lots of lettuce grown hydroponically, but the garden lettuce seemed to grow faster. I liked the hydro lettuce because it was clean when he cut it, whereas the garden lettuce had sand and soil on the leaves. So this spring he is planning to make improvements to his system and experiment some more with hydroponics. I'll keep you updated as to his progress this year.

Are you a gardener? Do you have experience with hydroponic growing? 

Dangerous Sanctuary by J.Q. Rose
Pastor Christine Hobbs never imagined
she would be caring for a flock that includes
a pig, a kangaroo, and a murderer.

Advice?? Thank you.

Click here for the MASTER LIST
of all participants who signed up
for the #AtoZchallenge 2018!

Sunday, April 8--I had fun visiting with Linda Hill on her blog, Linda's Book Bag, Staying in with J.Q. Rose. If you have time, I hope you'll hop on over as we enjoy  a pizza and discussion of my romantic suspense novel, Dangerous Sanctuary. Click here to visit this RNA Industry Award Winning Blog for Blog Star of the Year 217.