Telluride Hydroponics and Organics in Colorado is growing enough basil to feed the whole state. It looks like they’ve got a great thing going on! Any readers from ‘Rado shop there? I’d love to hear about it in the comments!

Andy Troutman, Sales
Hometown: Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania
Dog: Oscar, an Olde English Bulldog
Favorite Food: Supplication, a brew by Russian River

I’m very happy to introduce you to my new friend and the newest addition to the General Hydroponics sales team at our headquarters in Sebastopol, California: Andy. He works every day taking tech calls, responding to emails, and placing orders.

Andy is an amazing resource for GH because he is a devoted, experienced, and knowledgeable grower. He has 6 years of academic hydroponic achievements and a BA in environmental studies with a minor in geography and urban studies. Andy has long been fascinated with hydro, and chose to write his senior thesis on Urban Sustainability of Hydroponic Crop Production. Part of that process was teaching an entire team of people about how to garden without soil and expirimenting with different methods and techniques. He then applied to building a UV filtered, gravity driven, NFT hydrosystem for Temple University.

He is also going to be contributing sometimes to the GrowGH blog, and so it’s going to be really great to get to know him in a way that goes beyond just hydro. Andy is 1/5th the board of directors for the Muddy River Jam Festival. Its a 3 day musical event happening 7 miles from Philadelphia in Salem County. The festival is in its 6th year, and this year is estimated to double attendance from the 800 who made it out to dance and camp last year. The Muddy River Jam sound is based on the electronic-jamband-expirimental-dj national touring acts that fuel the Philly area, including Telepath, BioDiesel, Indobox and the MJ Project. Check it out at muddyriverjam.com

Everyone here is glad to have Andy as part of our sales team, and I am glad to finally and officially say. “Welcome!”

40 miles from Port au Prince Hans Geissler has established an aquaponic farm to help feed orphans at an orphanage. Now it is feeding victims of the earthquake. Visit the farm with a news crew and learn about his goals for producing foodby clicking this link and choosing to watch the video story.

Via Hydroponics Aquaponics News Digest

CVG is having a seed swap! Get in on that people!

These are seeds I saved from my garden last year… Gonna go outside right now and sow them in the ground!

Windowfarms is one of the coolest hydroponic projects that I’ve seen in a long time. It’s a simple DIY drip system that is made from recycled materials, specifically built for placement in a window. The garden has a flexible design but is generally uses plastic waterbottles, with plants growing in hydroton or other lightweight soilless media. Each plant hangs above the next, and a simple pump waters and feeds liquid nutrients.

The project began as a response to the idea of vertical urban farming. Instead of waiting for the agricultural model to change it’s infrastructure, Windowfarms encourages individuals grow cheap food in their owns homes now. But beyond hydroponics, Windowfarms is a great example of a web 2.0 online community. According to the short video I watched on their site, the founders, Britta Riley and Rebecca Ray are determined to build a crowdsourced platform that creates widespread social change. Users are encouraged to sign up, download instructions and build their Windowfarm. Growers then troubleshoot their gardens online with feedback and guidance from other members. With support from a network of users, it becomes natural for participants to innovate and evolve the Windowfarm project.

To learn more, or get involved, visit the Windowfarm website. The project takes full advantage of social networking as well, with a Flickr page, a kickstarter page for funding, and twitter.

Photos by Nicholas R. Clark

It’s been a wet winter, and I’ve been out several times foraging for mushrooms. In general, I don’t find many edibles, but I have a great time exploring the forest floor. There is nothing that inspires me more than the beauty of nature.

The top photo is of a Chanterelle, considered by many to be the most tasty of wild mushrooms. Don’t let the bottom photo fool you, it’s a non-edible look alike.

Did you know that Lawrence Brooke, founder of GH came up with his first hydroponic system because he too was inspired by nature. He saw that plants thrived on the banks of a creek, with bubbling, oxygen filled and nutrient rich water constantly pouring over them. As I was walking through our complex coastal forest, I realized that while all of our products are inspired by nature, one in particular will actually allow you to replicate nature’s forest floor.

SubCulture-M is the GH mycological root inoculant for soil. It is literally a web of symbiotic life. In the forest floor, mushroom spores identical to those in SubCulture-M live throughout the earth and root zone. They serve two crucial functions. Mycelium forms a hairy protective barrier around the root that allow plants to weather drought and fight off disease. They also increase the plant’s ability to uptake nutrients.

One of my dear friends recently returned from a trip to Tehran, and she snapped these great shots of a living wall. The trend of vertical gardening is taking off in urban areas across the globe, and this is a beautiful example. These systems are easy enough to create and I am excited to see more and more of them being planted.

Here’s a living wall that I found in SF, and for more reading, check out this previous post from the GH blog.

Last year on January 8th I posted about the flowering trees behind the office here at GH. They were starting to flower out, and I was worried it was a bit early for them. It’s such a shame to see the delicate blossoms loose their petals to rainfall, or worse yet, watch the young buds succumb to bud rot. But they survived to fruit and now are opening again, just about the same time of year. It’s always great to keep records of your plants through the season ,and now that I’ve written about the Farm Lab for a whole year, the blog serves as a sort of garden journal. Having notes and then referring to books like The Old Farmer’s Almanac makes for better understanding and better planning, and ultimately a more rewarding harvest.

The greenhouse team has been busy at work potting up an entire orchard worth of fruit trees. These trees will eventually be transplanted into the General Hydroponics Farm Lab orchard, but for now they are cozy and warm indoors.

In case you haven’t heard, an earthquake measuring 6.5 on the Richter scale struck Northern California this weekend. The epicenter was 25 miles off the coast of Arcata, just 225 miles north of the offices here at General Hydroponics. The quake did much damage, but thankfully there were minimal major injuries. Since then, aftershocks as strong as 4.5 have continued to strike the region, including one just less than 24 hours ago.

At General Hydroponics, we have many friends, family, stores, and customers that are affected by this dramatic event. It’s been slow getting ahold of them in the wake of widespread power outages and the sheer amount of work to be done cleaning up. We will be providing updates on the blog in the coming days, and putting together strategies so that we help get the area back on its feet. It’s going to be a long process of recovery, with the property damage to just the city of Eureka reaching at least $12.5 million dollars. To read more, check out this article on SFGate.com.

By the people who brought you the Ant Farm, the Hydro Greenhouse 2! It’s like an aeroflow, but for kids! Anyone out there given this a try? I’d love to know what you thought!

January is a stark month for most outdoor growers. The earth is cold, perhaps even frozen. Plants are bare. There’s little to do. Or so it seems. January is a great time to get caught up on chores. Here are some excerpts from a great list of winter garden tasks. Add your own winter habits in the comments below:

– Damage control. As for those frost-damaged plants, wait to prune blackened branches until March, when the true damage will be more apparent. Mother Nature often stages amazing comebacks.
– Buy bare roots. Now’s the time to take advantage of the bare-root season, that once-a-year chance to buy plants without soil clinging to their roots. Bare-root plants are cheaper and easier to plant. An entire orchard or rose garden will fit into the trunk of your car.
– Step lightly. Remember that soggy garden soil should not be walked on. This is particularly true of clay soils, which compact easily. Wait until the soil dries out some before walking on it.

Cheers! It’s the start of a brand new year, and its a time for a fresh outlook on indoor gardening. GH is back from the holidays, and the office is beyond busy catching up ( I personally have 400 messages in my inbox to work through!) I’ll be replying to emails and comments as the week goes by and posting up tons of entries too.

This year promises to hold many exciting developments, including new products and new relationships. I for one am ready to reach my full potential as a gardener, and as a blogger. We will be introducing videos on the blog, rolling out more contests and giveaways, and staying involved with our community- which is your community. I want to hear from you! Leave comments letting us know what you would like to see on our site, and share any ideas about things you would like to see us develop. Know that we are always listening, and always working to impress everyone who uses General Hydroponics.

Mushrooms, mushrooms, mushrooms! Yum! Check out these awesome Mini Mushroom Farms from Far West Fungi. They are little gardens that will produce ongoing harvests of shitakes or oyster mushrooms. They seem easy and fun, and a great way to produce food that is as beautiful as it is delicious.

One of our readers left a comment, that I decided to answer in the form of a Q&A blog post. I talked to our tech support, and without knowing very much about his grow, we did our best to put together an answer. I think that the information suggested is of value to many different growers, so, here it is!

Q: I am growing brandywine tomatoes in your coco growers and I’m having serious problems. The plants are stunted and fried. All my other systems are working fine. I can’t find ANY info on these new growers? They look really cool, but so far not impressed. What am I doing wrong?

A: Unfortunately, brandywine and other heirloom varieties of tomatoes do not typically do well in hydroponics. Not to say that you won’t find success, but if your other varieties that are doing well are also heirloom varieties then I am stumped.

You should go with a hybrid variety that has been bred for greenhouse production such as F1 Cobra or Mountain Girl. I would guess that you need to cut down the watering intervals to about fifteen minutes on every hour when the lights are on- and fifteen minutes on every two hours when they are off. You should put an extra airline in the reservoir to keep it oxygenated while the circulation is not taking place.

In addition, the tomatoes probably needs some extra calcium as well in order to ward off blossom end rot. That tends to be the number one culprit of tomatoes biting the dust in hydroponics. Also, a 10 mls Gro, 10 mls Micro and 5 mls Bloom per gallon is a good Flora Series mix for tomatoes. Supplement with 10 mls/gallon of our General Organics, CaMg+.

Everyone is in town right now for the General Hydroponics holiday party, and the flurry of team meetings for the end of the year. Our banquet was held last night at the Hop Monk Brewery in Sebastopol. All the employees from the offices, warehouse, and even the Canadian sales staff were here. Even Shawn, still recovering from his motorcycle accident made it out. It was quite the party. I did NOT shoot photos during, but I can disclose that the afterparty at Lawrence Brooke’s house ended with an accordion/didjeridoo jam session. Good Times!

Visit GrowingEdge.Com for a chance to win the Master Gardener Iphone App. They have a great review of the tool, which is designed to be a comprehensive assistant. Add plants and search their database of over 40,000 plants. All you have to do to qualify to win is add a comment! Easy!

Everest just sent me a link to this UrbanGardenMagazine.com post about Rapid Rooters. It’s a nice testament to how simple and successful our plugs and trays are.

GH’s Rapid Rooter medium plugs are “a unique matrix of composted organic materials bonded together with plant-derived polymers.” They’re infused with GH’s magic micro nutrient recipe. The plugs come in trays of 50 or 98 plugs or a bag of 50 plugs.

Click here to read the rest, and while you are there, be sure to check out their impressive lineup of blogs.

Meet Nath, of Babylone Hydro-Organique, in Montreal, Canada. His shop is a great place to visit for equipment and knowledge of all things hydro. He shared some great photos of wheat germination trials that he’s been running with our new General Organics Bio Root. The sprouts have really healthy roots, and very vibrant shoots. Nath has also got some great answers for our store Q&A:

TigerLilly: Where did the inspiration for opening a grow shop come from?

Nath: We opened a shop downtown Montreal 10 years ago because they were no shop specialized in hydro-organics nutrients in the area and the demand was BIG. Has a group of organics growers, we decided to fulfill the needs of the area.

T: What sorts of growing products do you specialize in?

Nath: At Babylone hydro-organique we specialized in high performance products for beginner gardeners to professional growers.

T: Do your customers mostly grow in soil or hydro systems?

Nath: Most of our customers grow in soilless mix with organics nutrients but the vibe right now it’s the coco fiber, everybody want to try it, and it’s about time personally i’m growing in coco since 2004.

T: What is your favorite product?

Nath: My favorite product it’s a product better then the others. They’re his so many products, the one we choose to sale need to be better.

T: In your geographical area, what are the most pressing environmental concerns? Is it heat? Pests? Humidty? And tell us what product you recommend to customers that come to your store trying to combat the problem?

Nath: Obviously, insects infestations are the main concerns in the hot summer time because they pupate like crazy and in the winter time the fungi disease are the most common situation because big difference of temperature between day and night. A good product to prevent a problem it’s Florashield but we don’t want to raise the shield when you have the knife in the heart, prevention it’s the key.

T: Can you give us a growing tip?

Nath: Healthy plants get less troubles, what we want it’s the immunotary system of the plant to be at the top, so seaweed his an excellent product to use has a foliar spray every week this will help your garden being healthy.

Please visit Babylone Hydro-Organique at 100 Duluth Street, East Montreal, 514-284-6382

It’s really cold here in NorCal, and so I like to sneak over to the greehouse to soak up the warmth. Besides the decent temperature, there is the warming effect of looking at the rainbow of peppers growing in the ebb and flow trays. They look great, and are the perfect reminder of the real reason we all grow hydro: to get amazing results any time of year.