LowellHydro
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Joined: Thu May 24, 2018 11:28 pm

Need opinions on hydroponic community garden

So I am working on a plan to create a modern community garden based on vertical hydroponic garden in my neighborhood. I want to create a permanent greenhouse in my city (Lowell, MA) where a community garden will function year-round using vertical farming techniques and hydroponics. I am trying to decide which vertical method is more efficient.

What I am looking for primarily is:
1. use space and water most efficiently. The idea is to use a small greenhouse in an urban neighborhood to create the most produce per square foot for the residents of the neighborhood.
2. Be able to divide sections to allow the most amount of gardeners to have access to the community greenhouse.
3. Give all members responsibilities to take care of garden and make it community-sustainable.
4. Most cost-efficient development and sustainability.

this was my initial plan. The water reservoir in the bottom would drain into a large reservoir where it would be pumped back up to the top of each tower and the nutrient water would drip down the towers. They would be larger and four-sided. There would be multiple rows of these reservoirs with many towers going across it. Each tower would be each assigned to one community gardener, or divided up to four sides.
img_20161227_135625_1.jpg
My second option would be:
I'm not sure if this or the towers are more space-efficient. I feel like this is a more efficient system but more difficult to separate for different growers. Any opinions on this would be very insightful. I would divide it into sections but dividing responsibilities among growers I can see being an issue.
vertical-hydroponics-nft-system.jpg
And lastly this is almost a combination of the first two, but just another idea I have toyed with. It seems I could have a reservoir system like with the towers but have the PVC piping going horizontally like in this picture, possibly being much more efficient than the second picture.
4e9ab11fd3a55b06d210781e8c168c34.jpg
4e9ab11fd3a55b06d210781e8c168c34.jpg (21.52 KiB) Viewed 9638 times
Again, all opinions would be appreciated and considered. I think this would be a great idea for an urban area and hope to bring this to fruition. Thank you so much folks!



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