EARLY HYDROPONICS
PHOTO NEEDED
The following is from "Your Aruba Home" published by Lago Oil & Transport Company, Ltd. in November of 1946.
SOIL-LESS CULTURE
The Colony has had in operation since March 20, 1945, a soil-less garden which turns out a various intervals limited croups of fresh, perishable, vegetables for sale at the Colony Commissary.
The object of the garden is the production of a local supply of fresh tomatoes, lettuce, and limited other crops for Lago employees and their families. The local output provides ides as much fresher supply than that shipped from the United States. This method of supply cuts down greatly the possibility of spoiled or partly spoiled products.
The soil-less or gravel culture method is employed because local condition make ordinary trucking gardening out of the question. Lack of good soil and water combined with excessive heat and abundance of harmful insects make ordinary soil culture nearly impossible, which in soil-less culture conditions of growing cans be controlled.
Soil-less method employs the use of water tight beds, filled with crushed grave, which plants are set. The plants are fed by passing a chemical solution through the gravel. It is from the solution itself that the plants that all their food needs.
There are of course certain kinds of foods that cannot be grown here, but the types that can include tomatoes, lettuce, chard, spinach (New Zealand), bush beans, pepper, eggplants and carrots.
As this is writing, (1945), plans are being made to enlarge the unit and grow a greater variety of foods.