When it comes to eating healthy, I've experienced some food frustration. The overall lunch experience, be it a restaraunt or a grocery store is expensive not only due to taxes or tip but the commute itself. My time is valuable and I don't want to spend it on the road. Also, when I get to where the food is, quality at either place may be only so-so. Also, if I decide to not eat greens every day, more often than not, the freshness escapes and the items get thrown out.
So, I started gardening. The nice thinig about gardening is that it at least in theory addresses the freshness and waste problems. However, there's a long list of not so nice things. Weather is either too dry or too wet. Temperature can be too cold or too hot. And there's no shortage of preditors such as blight, mites, slugs, beetles, squirills, mice, rabbits, skunks, racoons, deer and even people! When I put up a small cold frame greenhouse, I found I didn't eliminate my problems - just changed them. It keeps out the rabbits but it also keeps out the birds. So, there's nothing to eat the slugs! Also, I spent more time watering since the cold frame also keeps that out too. However, the largest problem is that it still doesn't give me any production during the winter.
So, I decided I needed to acquire a hydroponics system. Since my space is limited, there was really only one place I could put it. In the basement. I found the location only had three things. It was relatively dry, had an electric outlet available and had a somewhat stable temperature of around 50 degrees.
Althuogh rails suggest this is a continuous flow system, it is in fact a flood and drain system. Why use rails in a flood-and-drain system? Using rails minimizes the water weight on the shelves when flooded. Due to not being as heavy means each rail can use lighter duty shelving. Each rail is made from half a six foot post, making it a three foot rail within a 4 foot space.
You may notice different hole spacing on each rail too. The top front rail has holes close together for baby plants. The one in back is for adolecent plants. Once those adolencent plants outgrow their space, they can be moved to wider spaced holes on the lower shelf..
A benefit of using flood and drain is that different water levels can be used in each rail. For example, I found when starting seeds, a high water level, continuously maintained for a few days is best for germinating seeds. However, this can later be switched so each rail pair only maintains a minimum of water on the bottom, allowing roots to grow quicker since they are exposed to oxygen.
Right now, the water reservoir has an aquarium pump and air stone. Keeping the oxygen high in the water eliminates the odor that can happen with sitting stagnet water. There is also a continuous operating vent fan to keep the plants dry. Also, a temperature sensor, PH meter and EC meter. Right now, PH and fertilizer level is manually adjusted. However, I have plans to make this process automatic.
