Rich Soborowicz Furniture

I can think of three good reason as to why grow tomatoes hydroponically.  First is the weather.  In the grow room one can keep the temperature at the ideal growing conditions of night time 60-65, and daytime 65-75.  Also it does not rain or in my case deer do not graze on the plants.

The next reason is one can supply the correct amount and type of light.  Plants grow at 6500K (405-465nm) blue lighting but bloom at 2800K (620-740)nm red lighting.  Thus in the grow room you must the both the blue and red spectrum of lighting.  Mother nature is one up on the grow room, but you can grow tomatoes during the winter.  Talk about local and near organic produce!

The last reason is nutrients.  In a hydroponic garden one must supply all the needs for the plant.  Plant grown hydroponically grow faster, produce more fruit, and better tasting fruit.  You can see by the photos below.  The plant outside was germinated at the same time as the plants grown hydroponically.  Just amazing!

There are two good reasons that tie growing tomatoes hydroponically to woodworking.  Woodworking is a high creative process in my approach to it and I enjoy cooking for that very reason.  I enjoy eating heirloom tomatoes; however the weather is very unpredictable in the Seattle area to grow tomatoes successfully.

My workshop is large enough for me to devote 16 square feet to a grow room that contains the tomatoes.  Thus the idea of growing tomatoes indoors came into being.  The shop is heated so all I needed to do was supply these items:  growing media, water, nutrients, and light.

I created an ebb and flow system, where the bottom tray contains the solution that pumps water into the upper tray and drains back down into the lower tray.  I also wanted to move the complete setup in case I need the space for a large project or if I wanted to put the tomatoes outside into the natural light so I created a dolly with wheels to move it.