March 2010
So.. Now we have a greenhouse in its infant stages, glazed, painted, but minus any automatic ventilation, that will have to wait until my bank balance recovers.
As its quite early in the year, solar heat aint a serious problem and I have decided to plant strawberries under glass and cultivate them hydroponically. I was introduced to hydroponic cultivation about 30 years ago when I worked with a man who's fatherinlaw was one of the first to study the subject at Cambridge. Somewhere in my archives I have a book of his writen in the 1930's in which he was a contributing writer. I remember they used all sorts of growing media including sand and gravel, but I think his major contribution was the development of the soluble nutrients made specially for the plants needs, which I intend to talk about later.
Here below are the basic components I used for my hydroponic strawberry plantation, they include; a large black plastic garden tray complete with three 11 litre square black plastic pots, a 30 litre black plastic header tank, a 40mm solvent weld plastic pond connector, 40mm solvent weld elbows, solvent weld 'T's (the 'T' shown is a crossover tee) 40mm solvent weld tubing.
So.. Now we have a greenhouse in its infant stages, glazed, painted, but minus any automatic ventilation, that will have to wait until my bank balance recovers.
As its quite early in the year, solar heat aint a serious problem and I have decided to plant strawberries under glass and cultivate them hydroponically. I was introduced to hydroponic cultivation about 30 years ago when I worked with a man who's fatherinlaw was one of the first to study the subject at Cambridge. Somewhere in my archives I have a book of his writen in the 1930's in which he was a contributing writer. I remember they used all sorts of growing media including sand and gravel, but I think his major contribution was the development of the soluble nutrients made specially for the plants needs, which I intend to talk about later.
Here below are the basic components I used for my hydroponic strawberry plantation, they include; a large black plastic garden tray complete with three 11 litre square black plastic pots, a 30 litre black plastic header tank, a 40mm solvent weld plastic pond connector, 40mm solvent weld elbows, solvent weld 'T's (the 'T' shown is a crossover tee) 40mm solvent weld tubing.
The hyroponic nutrient delivery system starts with a 1000 litre per hour aquatic submersible pump (shown with green sponge filter) place into a 30 litre header tank, 4mm LDPE dripper pipe, 16mm black delivery hose, 16mm 'T', 16mm to 4mm cross junctions, 4mm flood drippers (blue). Naturally, a few basic tools are required, a hacksaw, various holesaws, pozidrive screwdriver and a kettle for boiling water! (To enable fitting of pipework) and of course, an electric or battery powered drill.
The square pots which you see in the photo are filled with a medium which is a mixture of 20 % standard Perlite, 80% Hydroleca, Hydroleca is an expanded clay product, quite light in weight, but heavy enough to support and hold down decent sized plants, tomatoes for instance. I use the Perlite to improve the capilary action in the medium and to improve oxygenation around the root system. As an experiment I am growing tomatoes and cucumbers with a mixture of 60% Hydroleca, 20% Standard Perlite and 20% peat based compost. I use a timer to limit the flooding cycles on this plot to half hour intervals with one hour of rest, this is applied to daylight hours only with no nutrients during dark hours. So far the results are quite astounding! The cucumber plant has been in production now for at least 5 weeks and has given us about 20 mature fruits over that period. There are still at least another 20 to mature on the one plant with no problems of disease but ladders needed to tie the plant to the roof of the greenhouse!.
The square pots which you see in the photo are filled with a medium which is a mixture of 20 % standard Perlite, 80% Hydroleca, Hydroleca is an expanded clay product, quite light in weight, but heavy enough to support and hold down decent sized plants, tomatoes for instance. I use the Perlite to improve the capilary action in the medium and to improve oxygenation around the root system. As an experiment I am growing tomatoes and cucumbers with a mixture of 60% Hydroleca, 20% Standard Perlite and 20% peat based compost. I use a timer to limit the flooding cycles on this plot to half hour intervals with one hour of rest, this is applied to daylight hours only with no nutrients during dark hours. So far the results are quite astounding! The cucumber plant has been in production now for at least 5 weeks and has given us about 20 mature fruits over that period. There are still at least another 20 to mature on the one plant with no problems of disease but ladders needed to tie the plant to the roof of the greenhouse!.
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