You have convinced me to try again also. Everything I ever tried to grow has died a painful and hideous death. I just received my order and filled the EBs today. I planted heirloom tomatoes in them that I started hydroponically in my AeroGarden. It never occurred to me to use the area around the pool until I saw your pics.. I love it! I also have a couple of standard raised beds that haven't done well in years and I am really working on them. Thanks for the inspiration.
Here is a pic of the raised bed with my "winter" crops. I cannot tell you how you all have helped me to keep trying. My hobby is cooking and last night the brussel sprouts were great. The sugar snaps look good too. I am excited the most about the Earthboxes. I hope they work.
Aquannie- GO GO GO!!!!!!!!! I love it!!! WE WILL CONQUOR THIS FLORIDA PROBLEM
BocaBob
Aquannie- You can set up a very inexpensive automatic watering system for your patio setup. If you are interested, let me know. I now have 11 EB's and 6 homemade ones and they are all fed water by a simple drip emitter system.
BocaBob
I would love to do that. If you would share the directions then it would help. I already have a huge collection of herbs in pots where we just have to turn on the outdoor faucet and they are all watered with little drip irrigation emitters. I am ready for the next step and then next year for some of your hydroponics too. Automatic would be heavenly. Thanks.
Aquannie- You are almost done!! I have exactly the same thing with one exception. At the faucet I added a 7 day battery timer. So, from the timer runs the tubing. Punch in the 1/4" tubing at each EB or pot or whatever, I put on a 2 gallon per hour emitter and dropped it down the fill tube in the EB. The timer is a Orbit (Home Depot) by the way. Then I timed how long it took until the water came out the overflow and set the timer to that time (once a day and mine is 15 minutes. Set it and forget it!!!!! At any time you can increase the time needed to fill the tank as the plants grow and use more water. The whole thing is very inexpensive. OR you can invest in the auto watering system that the Earth Box people sell. Pretty pricey I say, but people swear by it. The hydroponics is a little different. I have a 18 gallon tote box filled with water and hydroponic nutrients. I have a small electric pump operating on a electric 7 day timer. The pump is in the tote and pumps out a tube to emitters on top of the hydrostacker units. I feed the pots 3 times a day for 15 minutes each time. The soilless mixture needs to be moist all the time so the roots don't dry out. And that's it !!!!!!!!!
BocaBob
Aquannie- I didn't see any reply. Is my dissertation ok?
BocaBob
P.S. Happy Valentine's Day
It went down to 38 last night here so as a true Floridian, I am hiding inside for a few days. Your directions are very clear and I will give your system a try. I am going to see how far I can run the tubing from the house before I lose pressure as there are no spigots close to the EBs. I also think the warm pool kept the true temperature for them at least 6-8 degrees warmer than the surrounding areas. I'll keep you posted.
Aqannie- Thanks!!. If you put a inexpensive 25 psi regulator at the spigit, I think you can run 100 feet with no pressure loss.
Good hearing from you.
BocaBob
Bob,
Is the irrigation for your hydro-stackers AC powered or battery powered? My garden location (and areas of full sun) are poorly chosen for access to electricity. I'd like to be able to set-up something to water the EZ-gro, but I'd have to run a long extension cord, then worry about forgetting and cutting it with the mower. (I guess I could bury a conduit, but that's a lot of digging and fairly expensive--a battery-powered pump would probably be cheaper.)
David
Morning Dave,
My setup is AC powered. I think a battery with a ac converter at the watering site might be costly. I'd bury the cord. But definitely do it, the auto watering makes life real easy!!!
All my romaine grown in the EZGro has been picked. It was GREAT!!.
This morning's pictures are on a new thread "experiment 2" .The 1st got too long. Starting the thread in a few minutes.
BocaBob
