Top 5 Things to Consider While Choosing Grow Medium Hydroponics

Generally, when we grow plants outside, soil is the basic grow medium that holds the plants and provide them the basic necessities for optimal growth. However, when choosing indoor gardening, it becomes even more crucial to finalize the right kind of grow medium hydroponics. The main purpose of grow medium is to provide required air, water, nutrients to the roots so as to aid its growth. Moreover, it is also needed to support the plant when it starts growing. In short, grow medium is supposed to do every task that is done by the soil in outdoor gardening.

Whenever you visit the market to search for grow medium hydroponics, you need to be very vigilant about a few factors. These will help you in finding the right kind of grow medium hydroponics for your plants. Let us have a look at these factors one by one.

1. Particle Size – There are two kinds of particle sizes of grow medium hydroponics: large particles and small particles. Larger particles have large pore space in between particles, which is why they are fluffy and very well aerated. Due to aeration, air easily passes and circulates through them and aids growth. Moreover, larger particles are easy to keep clean and allow great water movement. However, small particles are pretty difficult to work with, but have great nutrients holding capacity and biological surface area. Their downside is that they accumulate easily and result in decomposition and compaction. So, choose wisely about which kind of particle size is suitable as per your plant type. 
2. Air Holding Capacity – Air is pretty essential in every growth phase of the plants. So, while choosing grow medium hydroponics, you need to ensure that it should have sufficient air holding capacity because lack of it will result in susceptibility to diseases and deficiency of nutrients.
3. Water Retention Ability – Apart from air, grow medium should also be able to hold water for elongated hours. There are some mediums available in the market that hold water for very long amount of time, whereas there are some which let the water run straight through them. You need to pick the grow medium wisely because having a low water retention grow medium for plants that require large amount of water will be a sheer waste of money in case you fail to water them frequently. Ideal grow medium will be the one which will be able to hold water and air for longer time periods because both these are required by the plants during each stage of their lifecycle.
4. PH Level – Considering pH level of the grow medium is also very essential because plants need a specific amount of pH for best growth. And, if you use grow medium with higher or lower pH level than needed, you will be doing more harm to the plants than doing any good to them. To know about the pH level of the medium, you can simply ask from the seller, read the packaging or do pHs test at home as well. The first two ways are pretty easy, but for the last one you can simply take a container or jug filled with household vinegar and put in a handful of grow medium that you are thinking of using. If the grow medium tends to bubble upon addition into the vinegar or starts to release bubbles, you should drop the idea of using that grow medium hydroponics because bubbling indicates that it has high pH level. Using it for growing your plants will be a very bad idea.
5. Weight – Bearing in mind the weight of the grow medium is also equally important. You can skip this factor in case you have a small indoor garden, but for the ones who have stackable plants or large indoor garden, weight of the grow medium is very important because transporting heavy grow mediums is not at all easy and requires lots of efforts.

Grow medium hydroponics are widely available but picking the right one as per the plants is not so easy. Next time, when you go shopping for grow medium hydroponics, keep the above-mentioned factors in mind and use them wisely to pick the right grow medium for your plants.