Hydro a Go-Go
OK. I’m embarking on a worthless voluntary voyage towards what will probably end up being a fruitless money pit. But I’ve managed to maintained a positive outlook.
I’ve decided to make a hydroponics system. It will be cute and easily maintained and run hardly noticed in the corner of my bedroom. It will provide fruits and vegetables and cut carbon emissions in Arlington by up to 1%.
In case you don’t already know the gist of hydroponics systems… they are a means of growing plants in “artificial conditions”. The idea is that you can create ideal growing conditions if you grow your plants in dry gravel, and a few times a day you flood the roots with nutrient enriched water. Growing plants this way allows many benefits. In my view the best benefit is a hobby that isn’t a complete waste of time (you get food at least, and may accidentally learn something about botany AND engineering).
See the drawing for a general idea of the plan. You have a growing bed positioned above a container of nutrient water. A few times per day the water in the bottom container gets pumped to the grow bed, then gravity does its trick and pulls the water back to where it started. Simple, right?
I spent $12 on a 185 gpm submersible pump, $24 on a digital timer, $12 on a 10 foot section of 4 inch PVC, and $16 on four 90 degree 4 inch pvc joints. I have assembled the PVC into a rectangle, cut the top portion of the PVC out (where the plants will go), and installed a drain at one end. I need to get some silicone caulking (apparently they weren’t kidding about the PVC primer) to seal the drain and fittings, river rock (to hold the plants), a five gallon bucket (for the solution), and some rubber tubing. This whole system is going to end up costing me $100. Hopefully it works as well as one of the commercial ones I could have bought for the same price (or less).