Local gardener creates hydroponic system to combat disabilities
Story & Photos by Jen Kocher/For NLJ
While many gardeners are just beginning to conceptualize their backyard gardens, James Blare is already harvesting his first round of vegetables. Tiny green cucumbers the size of pinky fingers sprout from yellow buds while leggy tomato plants and robust beans shoot up a trellis in his backyard greenhouse.
His secret? Hydroponics.
Beginning in late February, the seeds for Blare’s indoor garden were cultivating in the warm, moist air of his hydroponic greenhouse. Individual plastic pipes feed off of the main water line, which is recycled and pumped back through the 35-gallon bin fueling the self-regulated watering system. Water trickles lightly over the clay pellets in each pot. Pellets, or coconut fibers, replace dirt in the “pots,” which slip into two holes in the tops of five-gallon buckets. The “pots” are cheap, plastic drinking glasses that Blare found, and cost four for a $1. Though he could easily fit four per bucket, he sticks to two to give the plants more grow room.