Modern Sprout Makes Hydroponics Pretty
By Melissa Wiley in Food on Nov 21, 2013 8:00PM
More than just a mainstay of recreational marijuana growers, hydroponics has been gaining ground with urban agronomists big on ambition and short on surface area. We sat beside some of them last week for a DIY class at CivicLab with Nick Behr and Sarah Burrows, who launched Modern Sprout in April after exceeding their $60,000 Kickstarter goal.
Plumbing the earth with a trowel may be fun, but hydroponics proves you don’t need a plot of soil to grow chives and cabbage. A nutrient reservoir that smells sweet beneath your fingernails, soil is superfluous for plants' growth, a fact that hydroponics—a technology as old as tree ferns—parlays into greater yields in smaller spaces.
“There’s this huge misconception that you need all this space to do this, when hydroponics is really something you can do in your kitchen or basement,” Behr said.
Room, it turns out, is almost as redundant as soil when letting your indoor garden grow. And while many Chicagoans may feel hard pressed for counter space, most of us dice our onions in prodigal expanses of it compared to urbanites in Southeast Asia, where every inch of elbow room comes at a premium.
“We received a lot of interest from Singapore during our Kickstarter campaign because of its high population density. Scandinavian countries as well because they have less daylight. Our current focus is small home hydroponic units. However, we're excited by the strides being made with large commercial systems, which can service food deserts both close to home or in natural disaster zones like the Philippines,” Behr reflected looking toward hydroponics’—and his company’s—future.
In addition to economizing on space, hydroponics controls for water and nutrients more efficiently than traditional agriculture while also sparing on pollution and pesticides and providing higher yields. That said, it’s not always a pretty business, even where the lushest flowers and most fragrant herbs are concerned.
“Your kitchen herbs—basil, cilantro—will grow like a weed, so be prepared. When Sarah and I started out, we soon had a trellis of tomatoes hanging from our curtain rod,” Behr recounted.
We confess to finding something fetching in the prospect of plucking fruit from a valance. But the truth is most hydroponics systems hardly harmonize with your home decor.
“Prior to starting Modern Sprout, we searched for a hydroponics system that fit our needs. Most were really complicated—they were expensive, required a lot of assembly, and even additional parts. Then they were pretty unattractive. A lot of plastic buckets, exposed tubes. It turned out to be a real eyesore in our condo while taking up prime real estate in front of our window,” Burrows told us by way of explaining the impetus for their own design, which is easy on the eyes while allowing for custom finishing on a variety of woods and even a chalkboard exterior.
Rather than working from functionality forward, Nick and Sarah created their system with cosmetics first in view, fashioning an object of pure pulchritude with brains—strategic pumps and valves and such—to boot. Something the neighbors across the alleyway can mistake for a taller than average flower box.
“We’ve designed our kit to be used on windowsills,” Behr said. “Plants need at least 4-6 hours of light daily, and on a sunny enough windowsill you can grow herbs, produce and flowers.”
Sunlight, however, is in increasing short supply as winter looms larger by the day. Naturally, many urban agronomists investing in hydroponics purchase an artificial light source into the bargain, of which Behr showed us several options. But even with nothing but a distant sun in the dead of a Chicago winter, you can still grow an abundance of greens.
“We’re now in a low-light time of year, so leafy green plants without much fruiting will do best through the winter months. Lemon balm, chives, mints, parsley, sage, shiso, lettuce, arugula, kale, Swiss chard and peas will all grow well right now on your windowsill.”
Light, along with water and nutrients, constitutes one of three basic needs for growing plants in a soilless medium. For mineral nutrients, of which plants require 13, Burrows and Behr recommend organic liquids, typically a mixture of kelp and other natural products. But if you break down the etymology, hydroponics is literally a labor of water, which funnels the oxygen stored in the soil in more traditional gardening. And water, it turns out, is where urbanites are at an advantage.
“City water is actually perfect for hydroponics, because the pH balance is 6 to 7, exactly what you want, whereas a lot of well water in rural areas has high alkalinity as well as run-off containing pathogens from herbicide,” Behr explained.
To unscientific minds like our own, there’s a lot of science at work here, none of which we’re attempting to unpack, because Behr and Burrows plan to offer future classes at CivicLab, where you can also build your own beauteous box. Modern Sprout’s preassembled system also makes the process so simple you need worry neither your pretty head nor that emerald-green thumb about too much chemistry. Simply set the timer to tell you when to add more water. From there, the internal air and feeding valves, tubes and pumps work as seamlessly as nature herself.
As to what you grow and how you grow it, consider this nifty botanical window box your oyster.
“But if you start from seed,” Behr reminded us, “use growth sponges. Keep seeds moist until they sprout, and don’t use nutrients when starting from seed. You can start with clippings or plantings and get instant results, whereas seeds will take more time.”
As to where to buy perhaps the very best seeds, Behr recommended Seed Savers Exchange, based out of Iowa, which actively works to rescue rare heirloom plant species. And where better, we ask, to salvage illustrious plants of old than on your kitchen windowsill? If it rattles with each passing train, so much the better for the oxygen supply.