drblu
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Posts: 2
Joined: Fri May 19, 2017 8:22 pm
Location: Monroe, La

First hydro garden

Hey guys, looking for a little helpful insight on my new project - observe attached picture - I love the design and being a plumber makes it a great pleasure.

My goal is to grow a variety of vegetables including, but not limited to, onion, garlic, bell pepper, jalapeno, asparagus, etc. The wife and I love to cook, but tired of buying what I could grow on my own.

I would like to grow indoors, but here are the ultimate questions:

1) Lighting distance and kelvin - I intend to use T8 4' dual shop fixtures, would love for just one if it's possible, really not sure how far to distance the lights or what color

2) Fertilizer - all purpose concentrate to add to water? (about 5 gallons will be run through system)

I'm only looking to grown between 40 and 60 plants, depending on my interests, I can always add more lol.

Thanks for reading - any suggestions are greatly appreciated.
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amrap1956
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Posts: 26
Joined: Sun Feb 19, 2017 6:57 pm
Location: Cleveland,Ohio

Welcome to the forum. :-()

My suggestion would be to go to Youtube and watch Hydroponic videos. You can learn a lot from people who have been doing it for a while. MHPgardner has some good videos. He shows how to build different systems and has a good one on fertilizers for different types of vegetables. Whatever you end up doing....good luck and enjoy!

Ed

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applestar
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Joined: Thu May 01, 2008 7:21 pm
Location: Zone 6, NJ (3/M)4/E ~ 10/M(11/B)

Intriguing space saver.

Lighting -- T8 tubes need to be about 2-4 inches max from most vegetation to supply sufficient level of brightness and be effective. One is most definitely not enough for the set up pictured. And this design would cast too many shadows.

I think I would try using the shoplight(s) vertically -- a vertical panel of as many as needed for the width/length of the system. Typically, a two tube T8 with wide enough reflector will handle about 12 inches. Ideally you would need them on both sides of this pictured system. Alternative might be mirrored or mylar covered panel on the other side with something brighter -- maybe a 4-tube overhead -- IN ADDITION to the vertical panel of shoplights.

How you arrange your plants will make a difference since some need more light than others. Not sure about -- almost sure you can't -- combining fruiting crops with green leafy crops in the same hydro system.

...oh and I don't believe asparagus can be grown in hydro -- 15 ft root system and they grow from crowns buried about 8-12 inches in the ground. Absolutely not garlic (another underground crop) and probably not bulbing onions either... not the roots in this case but due to daylight length and specific seasonal timing. But scallions might be do-able.

...hmm... reading over your list -- just so you know, you can EASILY grow four 12 inch pots of jalapeños under one 4-tube shoplight. They grow and fruit exceptionally well even indoors during the winter and I believe my one jalapeño plant is going on 4 years now (I started some new ones this spring). Bell peppers are not as easy going. I do grow the peppers outside during the summer in larger containers or in the ground.

Lena K
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Joined: Wed Apr 26, 2017 9:42 am
Location: Winooski, VT

That fixture is super clever! Looks like one of those kids' toys you can put a marble in the top of and watch it travel down. :-)

Re: Asparagus
Asparagus is an amazing vegetable to grow, because once it's established, you'l get a cut-and-come-again crop for YEARS. But it's a big investment- I wouldn't be harvesting until probably year 3 of having my crowns in. This article might provide some good grounding as far as this particular crop: https://www.gardeners.com/how-to/growing ... /7343.html

Re: Grow Lights
I recently got all my spring starts going under one of these systems: https://www.gardeners.com/buy/indoor-gar ... ow-lights/
We're talking T5s in this assortment, mostly, but I find it easy to keep a continuous crop rotation going if I have my seedlings in one area with one system and transplants separate. The suggestion to check out YouTube is also spot on- there's so much out there for hydro.

Good luck!

drblu
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Posts: 2
Joined: Fri May 19, 2017 8:22 pm
Location: Monroe, La

Thank you for information guys, I changed my ideas a little around some existing material I have - I found shelfponics :) - I'm still in the stages of setting up, but will definitely post updates soon. Still determining the light set up - may be going LED, but not too certain. fixtures will be 12" from medium, so I have a little play. I decided on doing onions separately as well as the peppers. For now I will stick with kale, spinach, lettuce, etc... at least until I get the feel for it.

In this system I will be using aquaponics with about 2 or 3 dozen goldfish. I'm an old saltwater freak, but tossed the hobby due to the expense of coral and maintenance - I'm sure I can handle this scenario. I'm trying to make it virtually maintenance free, but I know that's not possible.
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