Growing plants in the Rockies» Hydroponics

Its nearing the end

Chris — Sat, 21 Mar 2009 12:29:26 +0000

Well its been nice living here in the mountains but this week I found I lost my job, so its time to move on. The employment situation here for a pilot is just not happening at all, so we are moving back to Florida at the end of April.

This is the current situation here with our little greenhouse that could, its has survived the winter, only costing us about $20 extra per month to heat it to no lower than 55 F at night, and during the days it was around 65F …even when it was 10 F outside !

We had a nice lot of strawberries all winter, and lettuce and bok choi. Surprisingly the only herb to live the winter was the rosemary! As we are in the last month all thats left now is our peppers that are plants that are nearing a year old, and some really nice tomato plants. These tomatoes are the cold weather type from Canada you buy from Reimers Seeds, which I mentioned in a previous post.

The next version of this blog will be growing plants in the tropics! so check back in May for updates.

So here is the last post of it all, and what it looks like:

The Tomatoes are big	This is the cold weather Celery plants and the Rosemary living happily together	One of the many tomatoes on the plants
They are too big a plants to get a good pic

Its cold and the greenhouse is still growing

Chris — Fri, 05 Dec 2008 03:50:09 +0000

Well its been a while since I have updated this blog, with recurrent training at work and then vacation it just has been too hard to do the updates, but here it is!

The hydroponics now rule the greenhouse, which is great as there is no way to have a watering system for soil based plants when its below freezing outside.

Today is was 8 F outside, there was snow on the greenhouse roof and it was 55 – 60 F inside (with the help of a fan heater set at 55 F )

These pepper plants came from the soil based garden and hae thrived since been washed and transfered to hydroponics. The tomatoes are grown from seed and are getting there	This is the little greenhouse that could as it sat today in the cold and snow, it was 5 F	Strawberries, who would have thought, these plants too came from the soil garden and started getting fruit on them within 1 week of being soilless
the ebb and flow system in operation, and just 1 month old	the lower level, still waiting for more plants to grow from seed ... which is the slowest stage of the growth	this is a little iceberg lettuce seedling

Building a home made ebb and flow hydroponic system

Chris — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 00:18:05 +0000

The idea is to replicate a expensive ebb and flow hydroponic system.

The ingredients (all bought from Home Depot)

1/2″ irrigation pipe – 50ft roll
1/4″ irrigation tube – 50 ft roll
8 x 1/2″ T fittings
Pack of 10 of 1/4″ couplers
8 x 5 gallon buckets
19 gallon dark colored tote with lid
2 x large bags of perlite
tube of silicon
170 gph aquarium or fountain pump
aquarium air pump
aquarium air stone
aquarium water heater
timer – multiple on off (need to be able to do 4hrs on then 4hrs off)
hydroponic chemicals
cable ties (25 pack)

This is the system how it will be laid out, 8 buckets filled with perlite and the nutrient tank with water pump, air pump and heater in it at the end.	Inside the nutrient tank, we have the water pump connected to a length of 1/2\" pipe, a air stone to aerate the solution and out of the pic is a water heater.	The cables come out thru under the handle, the air pump can be see cable tied to the side. Remember to put a no drip loop in the power cables or keep the cabled and air pump higher than the water level.
The nutrient tank has he pump pipe coming out the top and the drainage pipe below it.	A closer look at the pipes in and out of the nutrient tank	This is the drainage pipe, put in by using a 1/2\" drill pipe and then silicon to secure it.
Inside the bucket the drain pipe can be seen, this needs to be covered with screen material secured by a twist tie.	Nutrient, air rock, pump and heater	This is some of the containers with the inlet water pipes (found you need 1 pipe per plant). Thats perlite in the containers
You can see the pipes in the middle of the pipes, the inlet or nutrient to the plant main pipe needs to be level and level with the top of the buckets for even flow I found.	I placed some window screen material over the end of the return pipe to stop it getting clogged with perlite.

Its time for a change to hydroponics

Chris — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 13:02:22 +0000

With the hassles of soil based growing, add to it the fact that we have to keep the soil warm and disease free at the same time we thought there has to be a better way….and hydroponics came to mind.

The last time I used hydroponics to grow anything I was 14 years old and had a really simple system in my parents glasshouse, so things have changed since then, mainly in terms of chemicals/mixes used and components in the systems.

One thing I did notice now is the cost of the systems you can buy online, they are really really expensive. So I set out to convert the greenhouse to hydroponic using stuff bought in a local hardware store.

In researching this I found a lot of links and pics, unfortunately most were for growing drugs in your garage or attic!, I also found here in Evergreen we have a store selling hydroponics.

I am going to build 2 systems, a ebb and flow system using buckets for tomatoes and peppers and bigger plants, and a NFT (Nutrient Film Technique) system for lettuce, bok choi, strawberries and herbs.

Here are some links:

Chemicals and supplies

http://www.ageoldorganic.com/

Local evergreen supplier All Season Gardener

http://www.thebigtomato.com/

Building ideas and system info

http://www.hydroponicsonline.com/

http://www.jasons-indoor-guide-to-organic-and-hydroponics-gardening.com/homemade-hydroponics.html

http://www.content4reprint.com/home/gardening/understanding-ph-for-hydroponic-growing.htm

http://ezinearticles.com/?Easiest-Homemade-Hydroponics-System&id=109225