Gotta suggest a Hydro forum

[DirtMechanic]

Hydro is such a big deal I am thinking having a place to focus those posts would be a good thing longer term.

 

[Silentrunning]

I think a forum for hydroponic gardening is a great idea. Anyone who has gone through "The Land" at EPCOT knows that hydroponics is a viable method of production. In some cases it can out produce traditional gardening.

 

[MaryMary]

I may be speaking out of turn - while they encourage me to poke things with sticks, I am really in charge of nothing.

So I could be wrong; they have time and again, proven themselves to be most accommodating to members.

I believe that the addition of new forums works on the theory of basic economics. The supply will rise to meet the demand. In the year and a half I have been a member, there have been maybe ten threads posted about hydroponics. They seem to fall either into the "Indoor Plants" or "General Gardening Talk" forums.

I would like to have a wild edibles & medicinal plants forum. However, I can see how those threads would fall into "Herbs" or "General Gardening Talk." Durgan would like to have a food preservation forum. For him, those threads go into "Fruits" or "Vegetables." Until we have more members posting so many threads based on those subjects, it just doesn't warrant the addition of a new forum.


Disclaimer: This is only based on what I have seen, and is merely my opinion. Your mileage may vary. Certain terms or conditions may apply. We are not responsible for unattended children. This post is not valid on Mars, Jupiter, or Saturn.


*Edited because I forgot a comma, and things like that bother me.

 

[JBtheExplorer]

I believe that the addition of new forums works on the theory of basic economics. The supply will rise to meet the demand. In the year and a half I have been a member, there have been maybe ten threads posted about hydroponics. They seem to fall either into the "Indoor Plants" or "General Gardening Talk" forums.

I think that is a generally true assessment. I've often wanted to request a "Native Gardening" section because I'm so passionate about habitat, but even though I do see occasional topics about native plants, milkweed, and monarchs, I'm not sure it'd be active enough to have it's own section, sadly. Maybe one day.

 

[Ian]

I'm always interested in new forum ideas, although I'd agree that I'd likely wait until we have a demand for a category, rather than adding one and hoping that activity appears - for the reason that there could be several appropriate categories added, but activity would be so low.

However, this topic is a perfect time to judge how popular hydroponics would be - if this is something that you're interested in, please let us know in this topic .

 

[DirtMechanic]

@MaryMary @Ian @JBtheExplorer

So many diverse thoughts! I appreciate your time spent on making this more fun for me, and I say it specifically that way because the alignment of self interest plays such an important part in the success of any congregation of persons. We draw so much from the interactions that I am going to suggest that a person who gives more than what we commonly consider normal always attracts a crowd.

One of my heroes was Henry Ford. Did you know he had to pay his workers an unusually high wage for the time in order that they might, as the very first customers of The Ford Motor Company, be able to even purchase a model A? Without demand, that being defined as both the willingness AND ability to pay, he had to start his car business the hard way. Many mistakenly think he is famous for his production methods, but scientific study of industrial engineering productivity had of course started in England long before his time. Creating demand was his greatest creation.

The greatest example of giving ahead of time is always John 3:16 of course, but marketing has always been about identifying a market, and then risking the extension of a structure, whether physical or service, that serves the perceived market whether it actually succeeds or not. In this case, its a risk of few folders on a server, and I would imagine some extra time by the intrepid moderation crew members.

There may well not be a lot of hydroponic garden history, but they thread to the hanging gardens of Babylon. The internet has begun to focus awareness on these very efficient growing methods. For example:

I am a tomato fan and also enjoy following this rural fellow:
tomato

lettuce

As these ideas focus in a propagation across the net, no forum that waits will have a structure to catch a search engine botsearch, nor will it benefit from a buried misalignment of search terms. Ultimately, that site will never catch up as crosslinks that do not exist also will not be in existence to serve ranking engines. Demand will never find supply as a result, just because it is the nature of the search engines.

In my case, I do not make any money growing vegetables or plants, it is merely a hobby. However, I have fought enough pathogens in my garden to recognize the reality of poisonous chemistry and how simply controlling the air and water of an environment has an amazing effect on what is NOT used on a plant to bring in a harvest. Its actually a shame to argue for a point where soil is considered a villian. It seems alien. However, the soil is the main source of pathogen attack on plants and precluding it from discussion seems to hamstring the overall development of the sophistication of G-F.