🌱 Home Hydroponics Gardening ~ Outdoor System Update (02/13/2018)
Hello my fellow gardening enthusiasts.
I wanted to give a quick update on the progress of the seeds I started last month and on the rebuild of my front outdoor hydroponics system.
This past week I re-dug out the hole for the 55 gallon reservoir and this time lined the sides with quick set concrete to prevent the sand and soil from liquefying and forcing it's way down and under the tank in heavy rains like it did last year. I never would have though that ground soil saturation would have enough hydroponic pressure to lift a 55 gallon tank up out of the ground, but it does and did.
I installed a new ECOPlus 633 pump which at it's current lift should cycle over 400 gallons per hour through the rails, this is about 175 more G/H than the pump I was running before. I decided to use the outlet with the 1/4" air supply node and left it open. The jet of water coming from the node will circulate the water and mix the nutrients in the tank and also give me a very clear audible indication if the water level ever drops down to the top of the pump.
With the water and nutrients flowing in the vertical garden rails, I moved the tomato and cucumber plants outside. This will be temporarily for this week, but Friday they will be moved over to the dutch buckets on the other side. I will then put the pepper plants and maybe some herbs in the rails.
This week i will rebuild the cover box for the reservoir tank and run new 1/4" feed lines to the dutch buckets and hook up a new pump for them as well. As soon as that is done the tomatoes and cucumbers will settle in to their final place for the growing season and I will put lettuce new lettuce plants in the inside wall garden.
If all goes well, by mid-March everything should be back up to speed and producing food for us.
Fingers crossed - NO HURRICANES THIS YEAR!!!
Let me know what you think, please leave your comments below.
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Really neat to see this, I do vertical garden inside in the winter, but would like to make the move to a hydroponic system soon, and expand outdoors. Ill be sure to barrage you with all sorts of questions when i do :) Thanks for sharing!
And i'll be here to learn from @steempowergarden's answers. I did a project for a client as a ghostwriter on hydroponics and since i've wanted to do something personal about it. perhaps its the right time.
I have lots of other posts on my garden blog showing how I build different systems. :-)
I am here to help as much as I can :-)
That is a unique system!
Never seen a design like this that includes vertical and a flowing system for the larger base for bigger plants. You are really maximizing your space!
Really great. May I ask if you used bamboo for the plant holder? If it is, this was a great idea. Nice decoration it will be nice if I build something like this at my house. KEEP IT UP I will follow you for more
Pretty sure it’s pvc painted to look like bamboo, then again he did such a good job if so I’m not 100% sure
But on a second look I think you're right. If this was a painted pvc, I commend him for a nice paint job. He fooled me on this one hahahaah
Yep, custom vinyl sticker wraps. :-)
Correct I had custom vinyl sticker wraps printed to wrap my PVC pipes in. I took the original photos from bamboo poles and stitched some together to make my own wood pattern to print.
Oh nice.. it really blends with the plant.. you given me another great idea. Thanks
Its full of science, your hard work and creativity reflects in it.
Nice clean garden! Maybe I should show mine some time :)
Looks good! Can't wait to see some more updates and see how it all is growing! I just am testing out the rail system and aeroponics instead of dutch buckets.
Good luck with your system. We had aquaponic lettuce going for awhile. It's fun to play with gadgets and systems while growing food!
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nice setup @steempowergarden! I really like the bamboo style pvc. did you paint these or buy them that way?