Love to garden but hate getting your hands dirty? Hydroponics
may be just the thing. Don`t let the name scare you off. It`s
just a fancy name for gardening without soil. Instead, it uses
an inert material to hold plants in a container or suspending
them so the roots are immersed in a tank; and feeding them with
a liquid nutrient solution. Proponents say hydroponics make your
plants grow faster, yield earlier and heavier harvests, and grow
more plants in a small area with less work. There`s no weeding,
and modern automatic systems will water and feed your plants
even when you`re on vacation. Hydroponics is not some trendy new
idea, however. ``It goes back centuries,`` says Carl
Silverstein, manager of Gold Coast Hydroponics Greenhouse in
Oakland Park. ``Ancient Mexicans used the method to grow
crops.`` He calls it ``high-performance`` gardening. But it
isn`t cheap. While a good hydroponic system is almost foolproof,
``you`ll end up with $5 tomatoes,`` says Gene Joyner, urban
horticulturist with the Palm Beach