Building a hydroponic vertical garden
This video will teach you how to build a verticle tower I designed using other youtube videos as an influence. We are in an urban loft so need to do urban farming. We have a big south facing windows so this design is to make the most out of growing as much as you can by a window. This was my third design.
I am learning
to grow food for The Boom Boom Room STL http://theboomboomroomstl.com A classy burlesque restaurant me and my wife own and run in St. Louis Mo. Go to the website for more info about who and what we are.
So my plan is to someday grow all of the veggies for our dinner shows. I have made some mistakes and learned a lot. Like, if the pumps fail, there goes the crop. I personally like deep water systems because the ph is easier to control, and the plants seem to love water. So I tend to like the ebb and flow draining deep water system where at any time there is always SOME water left in the bottom, because, in a 2-month span, something is going to mess up. A pump, the timer, the electric, the dog will kick something, I will step on something. etc.
However, for herbs I am having great luck with these towers. I designed them for a large 6 by 6 window in by 7th floor downtown loft. I wanted to prove I could grow in the city.
They are designed to spin. Like every 5 minutes. So the sun and lights hit differnt areas.
The first one I made was with round 4-inch PVC, and for some reason, some plants would not get hit with water. I had a lot of issues. And did not ever grow well.
The second was a fence post. And it worked great. I spent a lot of time on a complicated top so water could pour in and it could spin. It was a bit too long, and the top leaks at times.
These I have been using for about a week now, and they are doing great. I made a much simpler design for hanging it. It is still a big pain in the butt to put the planters in, which makes me wonder if it would be better to just stack horizontal pipes, or fence post, or gutters. Mostly to make them, all I have to do is drill the holes.
These look super cool in my place and get a lot of attention, however, they are hard to make. I want to get to full production. For me, I need about 150-300 romaine lettuce a week, about 3 basil, a lb of Tyme (for marinating pork) and a few other things. That will just about get me there.
I also tried tomatoes. They grew year round, but never tasted amazing and I need a green house there is not enough room for these huge plants, and the amount of work it takes to shake the flower, trim, clean, just to get a few tomatoes. I know the issues, though, I used a 3-inch fence post and there is just not enough room, and the light source was just OK.
That is the update on, Feb 7, 2017.
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