Whether you want to enter the world of hydroponic gardening for fun or profit, it pays to know what you are doing before you make any investment. As with most hobbies, you will become a better gardener as you become more accustomed to the requirements and complexities of growing plants in a soil-less environment.

PH is a way of measuring the acidity or alkalinity of a substance. The scale for pH readings ranges from 1 to 14. Unadulterated water registers a completely neutral reading of seven. A reading of seven means that the number of acid ions is totally equal to the number alkaline ions present in the measured solution. Any reading above seven indicates that alkaline ions are in greater number, and any reading below seven indicates that there are more acid ions. Each number above or below seven indicates a tenfold increase in either acidity or alkalinity. So a substance with a pH reading of five would be ten times more acidic than a substance with a reading of six. This is important to remember for hydroponic growing, because even if the difference seems slight between your ideal pH and your actual pH, the difference may actually be a huge problem.

You don’t have to have a green thumb to get a green lawn. You can easily test and type your soil yourself so you don’t have to spend every waking minute of your life tending to it to ensure it looks like the lush, perfect carpet shown on all those fertilizer and seed bags you have sitting in your garage either. With some planning, the right tools and the right timing a picture perfect lawn is within your grasp!The good news is, all lawns are created equal. Each has a mixture of soil, rocks, plant life, water and access to sun.The bad news is, not all those ingredients however come in optimum amounts to produce a smooth green lawn.Some of that so-called plant life includes weeds; some soil is either sand or clay and so on.

You flunked science in school. You can’t pronounce all those chemical names on the fertilizer bag. You don’t know the difference between nitrogen and nicotine but you want a green lawn or better looking plants.