Gardening Thread- Show me your gardens!

What's a good way to measure that's easy for a newb.. like litniss strips or whatever they're called? Excuse my ignorance I haven't talked about this stuff since like middle School

 

Litmus.

 

That's the word
Thank ya

 

The system I used was more like a pool chlorine test kit. Scoop some water into test tube, add special drops, match the color to a sheet to identify deficiencies or surplus of nutrients.

 

No problem.

Probably similar to this one?

$16 General Hydroponics pH Control Kit

https://www.amazon.com/General-Hydr...485219&sr=8-1&keywords=aquaponics+ph+test+kit

 

Oh ok I could do that to.
I'm sure if I was successful I could probably order some kinda digital probe thing but rather keep costs down for the initial practice phase

 

Pretty much.

 

I'm so sold
Looked up stuff and looks like about 100 can get ya started.
I'm definitely gonna gamble that one

 

cant wait to see this setup haha

 

Yesir me too
You're welcome to

 

I started out with an air pump and pumice stones but they kept popping loose so I gave up on it. Didn't seem to make much of a difference.

 

Yes each downspout acts like a venturi, you can see the bubbles as it pours into each bin.

 

Broody hen successfully hatched two new egg layers last night, and another egg had pipped and started a zip this morning. And she's got two more that when I candled them had developing embryos.

 

this was my thought as well - I'm gonna start getting something set up ASAP - not in a hurry though.. ( realize those two parts contradict one another)
going to bet the containers set up and running, then get pots and fertilizer, then plants.

I went through my shed yesterday and was happy to find I still had a spare pond pump - that runs - so now I need some containers (already have a 55 gal plastic drum) and then plumb it all up and add water - then start messing with flow, etc

 

Nothing wrong with that - check around and see if you have any food/bev producing companies near - they'll usually give ya the 55 Gal drum - mine came from an Olive Oil co.

If you have the pump then that's half the cost.

Need some net pots and plant food and of course the containers to plum it all into - but across the board its not too much $$ from what I've learned here

 

I got my 55 Gallon drum cheap from a food and tack store near me. It originally had soy sauce. they had power washed it twice before selling it.

 

This was my first attempt at backyard hydroponics. It worked well but I would get home from work and the system would be empty. The roots would plug up the 3" PVC and all the water would drain out. That's why I went with the tub idea.

 

I've seen on youtube people using sections of gutter for hydroponics. They're framed in and buckets with net pots protrude into gutter. Potting soil wicks the water.

 

Or you can do it old school style and have plastic pots full of rockwhool on corrugated sheets at a slant with a rain gutter catch at the end plumbed to you reservoir. Use a pond pump on a timer to push nutrients through drip lines to each pot. Relatively inexpensive.

 

Making progress - got some tubs today and starting to lay out the plumbing/fall/flow/drop/whatever/LOL

Working on emptying the 55 Gal drum that I'm using - its the one on the far right in the pic- used to store olive oil originally - had if full of water as well as the other 3 for thermal mass in the winter - its a slow process but its draining via a hand pump siphon and a trench behind the greenhouse

Gotta go meet family out for lunch - then I'll play more later