Self-sufficiency at home – for more sustainability and enjoyment!

Fruit, vegetables and fresh herbs are part of a healthy diet, but are significantly more expensive than they were a few years ago due to supply chain difficulties and high inflation. In the interests of sustainability, buy regional and seasonal produce, although this limits the usability of individual types of fruit and vegetables.

The trend is clearly towards self-sufficiency, as this not only creates potential savings but also makes a valuable contribution to environmental protection. At Litrax, we offer you the right concepts for growing your own food, even if you don’t have your own garden or balcony.

Self-cultivation with hydroponics – the concept for your own household

Litrax is your reliable partner when it comes to hydroponic plant systems. Hydroponics means that you do not grow your plants in soil as usual, but in a nutrient-rich water system.

In this way, the roots are reliably supplied with nutrients 24/7 and your plants thrive faster. The yield is around 30 to 50 % higher with hydroponics than when grown in a garden bed.

For a long time, hydroponics was mainly a topic in commercial agriculture, and retailers like us are helping to bring the systems home. At Litrax, we value sustainable and effectively usable concepts.

In cities with increasingly dense populations, not many people have the opportunity to cultivate in open spaces in their gardens. Our systems are made for your home and for you to enjoy a piece of nature.

Get to know the advantages of hydroponics now:

• Lower water requirement: Equipped with water tanks, hydroponic systems are filled with nutrients and liquid to give the plants the best possible growing conditions. New water is only required if the system reports an alarm. Compared to conventional cultivation, you reduce the water requirement by around 90 %. This not only helps you to regulate costs, but also nature, which is suffering from increasing water scarcity.
• Bigger yields: In your own garden, the condition of the soil is largely responsible for how plentiful the harvest will be. If bad weather conditions or wind occur, your plants and their growth will suffer considerably. Hydroponic systems are reliable and independent of external conditions. Plant lamps provide the necessary light 365 days a year, so that cultivation is possible even in winter. Thanks to the constant supply of nutrients, you can enjoy reliable harvests with Litrax systems and don’t have to worry about soil conditions.
• Less effort: Gardening involves work, especially if you are working in the open field. Save yourself redundant tasks such as weeding, fertilizing and daily watering by relying on a hydroponic system from Litrax. Once installed, your plants have everything they need to grow. Their task is to program the light cycles and harvest them regularly. Fresh salad? Crunchy strawberries? Spicy herbs? You take all this from your hydroponic garden after a shortened growing phase.

Which plants are suitable for self-sufficiency in hydroponics?

Herbs and lettuces are the most well-known types of plants that you can grow and harvest at home. Even sensitive herb varieties grow reliably in hydroponics and can be harvested several times a year. Lettuce varieties are available to you all year round, as they are always stimulated to grow thanks to the reliable lighting. However, the possibilities go far beyond the two classics.

With Litrax systems, you can grow everything that enriches your diet:

• Hot peppers, sweet peppers and chili peppers: Capsicum annuum is an easy-to-grow plant genus that thrives optimally in hydroponic cultivation. It takes around seven weeks before you can harvest your first crop, much faster than when growing outdoors. Since chili, bell and hot peppers have similar needs, they can be cultivated together and harvested (almost) at the same time. Peppers take the longest to ripen, your chilies are the quickest.
• Strawberries: The sweet and juicy fruits are in season in Switzerland from May. Processed into cakes, in smoothies or as strawberry ice cream, they spice up the menu. Imports should be avoided in the interests of sustainability; with a hydroponic system, you can grow the red delicacies yourself. This works completely without soil, because at Litrax you will find planting systems that work with water and nutrients.
• Tomatoes: They are popular as a side dish or base for main meals and have become increasingly expensive in recent years. Grow your own tomatoes in hydroponics. With a little horticultural know-how, the plants grow easily in the nutrient-water solution and are ready for harvesting after a few weeks. Get the right system from Litrax and you’ll be harvesting in no time.

Theoretically, it is possible to grow any type of plant in hydroponics without soil. The following list is not exhaustive, but gives you an overview of what you can harvest in your kitchen in the future:

• Salads, spinach, leafy vegetables
• Herbs such as basil, rosemary, parsley, oregano
• Fruit vegetables such as beans, cucumbers
• Soft fruit such as blueberries
• Cabbage and root vegetables

What are the advantages of self-catering in your own home?

When was the last time you went to the supermarket and decided against strawberries in September? What were your thoughts on this? On the one hand, the price was probably a deterrent, but on the other, the high CO₂ emissions caused by transportation. Self-sufficiency is becoming increasingly important for many Swiss people, but most households do not have enough open space.

A small herb bed here and there on the balcony is nice, but not enough to cover your own needs. Home hydroponic systems are revolutionizing the way you grow, harvest and enjoy. We at Litrax have recognized the advantages and love our own products.

Ecological and sustainable advantages of home-growing

The car stays parked because you no longer drive to the supermarket to buy vegetables. Admittedly, this is just one cog in the economic system, but it also helps to reduce the CO2 footprint.

Further advantages are:

• Reduction of transportation routes: Growing your own food reduces the need to transport food over long distances. Importing less reduces CO₂ emissions by reducing the amount of fuel used.
• Control over fertilizers: When growing your own crops (especially in hydroponics), the use of chemical pesticides is significantly reduced. Alternative nutrient solutions are available that do not damage the groundwater.
• Water saving: By growing and supplying your own food, you reduce water consumption. In hydroponics, they achieve peak values of up to 90 %.

Economic and personal benefits of home-growing

Not only the environment, but also you yourself can enjoy numerous benefits when growing your own fruit, vegetables, salads and herbs. It’s great fun to watch plants grow and get a direct connection to the food. Show your children right from the start how plants grow, what they mean and why growing them yourself is so sustainable.

The benefits also include:

• Reduce food costs: Reduce food costs by growing your own fruit and vegetables.
• Always enjoy in season: If you grow in hydroponics, it’s in season all year round. Thanks to LED plant lighting, your strawberries will not only grow in summer, but also in winter. Thanks to LED technology, the energy requirement is extremely low and therefore sustainable.
• Reduction of waste: By growing your own food, you save on unnecessary packaging. In future, you will no longer buy your herbs in plastic trays, but cut them freshly harvested directly from the bush. As you always harvest as needed, you throw away less food and reduce packaging material at the same time.
• Independence: Fluctuations in market prices can become a problem for consumers. During the coronavirus pandemic, prices for fruit and vegetables rose sharply in some places, but you can avoid such problems by growing your own. Factors such as poor harvests, transportation costs or inflation no longer affect you, because your delicacies continue to grow reliably.
• Access to fresh food: By growing your own food, you have access to healthy and delicious food 365 days a year. What you harvest has neither been treated with pesticides nor processed. Treat yourself to the full power of nutrients from your own home garden.

Start growing your own herbs, fruit and vegetables with Litrax now!

Have the advantages convinced you and would you finally like to harvest your own strawberries, blueberries, herbs and vegetables? At Litrax, we have tailor-made systems for every need. If space is limited, use compact salad and herb beds for your own use.

If you want to aim high, use our vertical garden systems in hydroponics for your personal enjoyment. We only use high-quality materials so that you have a complete system at hand for a direct start.

Thanks to hydroponics, you don’t have to wait long – you can look forward to your first harvest in just a few weeks. Heavy bags of soil, crumbs on the ground and weeds are a thing of the past – self-cultivation works hygienically, quickly and efficiently with Litrax.