Eric Caster at Upstate Hydroponics & Garden Supply, Cortland, NY (Photo: Peter Blanchard/Cortland Voice).
CORTLAND, N.Y. — The owner of a new hydroponics store in Cortlandville hopes his retail business will draw everyone from the most experienced horticulturalists to garden-variety tillers.
Eric Caster and his wife, Carolyn Sharp, officially opened the doors to Upstate Hydroponics & Garden Supply last week. The store is located at the West Road Plaza, 3931 West Road, Cortlandville.
Hydroponics is the technique of growing plants without soil, instead using water and adding mineral nutrients. It is often considered to be more efficient than traditional growing methods and is used in the cultivation of tomatoes, lettuce, cucumbers and other common household vegetables.
Caster, who grows heirloom tomatoes on a small farm on his Ithaca property, has always been a strong proponent of growing your own food.
“When you’re growing produce at home, you know exactly what goes into it,” Caster said. “I think that’s super important whether you’re growing food or medicine.”
Even in the colder months, Caster says people can keep gardening indoors using grow lights and a variety of different soils and mediums. His store carries seed starter kits, grow lights, plant boosters and organic, non-GMO seeds.
A tomato plant in a hydroponic tube (Photo: Ildar Sagdejev/Wikimedia Commons).
Caster’s store is the only hydroponics store in the Cortland area, which he hopes will fill a void for local residents who often have to drive to Ithaca or Syracuse for hydroponic products.
Whether you are familiar with hydroponics or not, the technique is used to grow vegetables that are sold to grocery chains nationwide.
“I’m not sure if it’s the wave of the future, but as the climate gets worse, it’s more dependable when you grow indoors,” says Bryson Clark, who owns the Upstate Hydroponics & Garden Supply store in Elmira and helped Caster get his store established. “If you’re a farmer and you have a bad season outside, you can go bankrupt.”
Clark also claims that a Wegmans produce manager once told him that about 30 percent of their produce is grown hydroponically.
“Most [produce] isn’t labeled hydroponic because a lot of people don’t know what that means,” he said.
Store hours for Upstate Hydroponics & Garden Supply are weekdays from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m., weekends from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.
