Lazyman's gardening: no weeding, fertilizing, or watering

[IBScootn]

I had great success last year using EBs (earthboxes): no weeding or fertilizing required after setup. But my plants grew too big and I was left hand watering them everyday. The reason to go with EBs supposily is that the built in water reservoir lets you skip some days watering; but that wasn't happening for me.

So this year I ran 1/4" tubing from a five-gallon bucket to each EB. Then installed a evaporative cooler float valve ($4) into the bucket to maintain the water level for the EBs. Then connected the float valve inlet to the home water line via another 1/4" line (free water pressure).

Now, the deck garden is completely maintenance free.

I had thought of going with a standard hydroponics system, but this system works so well and doesn't consume any energy (no pumps required)

 

[HAROX]

That's a good deal. Curious as to how your irrigation holds up. Those earthboxes look the ticket for a patio.
I use low pressure buried drip line. Hard to find the low pressure inserts anymore though. The stores just quit selling that 30cent stuff, in favor of $100 hi tech.
I still have 5# bag of phosphorus pellet from Dardano, and that stuff's hard to find as well. It's like rocket fuel for the tomatos.

 

[IBScootn]

Four weeks now of fully automated watering. No leaks, no issues. Happy plants.

Well, one issue, since I'm not watering the deck plants, twice I've forgotten to water the patio tomatoes.

Next year I'll need to get EBs (or my own design) to the patio veggies.

 

[IBScootn]

High effiency: no water, fertilizer, or energy waste. Ideal

 

[dnmun]

i finally got some tomato plants in. at least it was 4 days before summer started. only 2-3 months late. i have watering can i found in the dumpster with the really long neck. some swiss doodad all artistic plastic molded. hi class junk. i water constantly, talk to them outa guilt for taking so long i guess. but hey it was on 64o for the high the other day.

 

[bowlofsalad]

I think comparing your system to any ponics system is a poor contrast. I am not trying to knock your concepts, using a float valve is a fun and creative way to avoid turning on the water once a day. But a ponics setup can grow incredible amounts of food in very small spaces, and if you do it indoors you can grow this food year round. There are two things about ponics systems that make it so incredible to use for growing food. The first is that things simply grow much faster in a ponics system. The second is you can grow significantly more food in a ponics system. I recall reading about a test some group was doing in a single level acre sized building. They were growing something leafy, some sort of lettuce I think. Anyway, long story short, they grew many times more lettuce on the acre of land compared to conventional growing. I don't recall exactly how many times more food they were able to grow, but I know it was several thousand at least. The amount of water and space we utilize to grow food is pretty immense and very inefficient.

I've read several times that once a ponics system is setup, the day to day operations is often extremely easy and consumes little time. The systems are often automated to a degree. Whenever I hear about someone talking about automated gardens, I imagine robots picking the food and handling all of the tasks.

Here is an interesting piece of information. 30% of the drinking water in the US is used to water yards. What a disgusting and worthless obsession. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-enGOMQgdvg

 

[Sancho's Horse]

Wow...pretty expensive box. But, seems pretty convenient, and the float valve use is ingenious.

I have a system that works pretty well for me. I have two rain barrels (actually only one is set-up right now, the other is at my shop) which collects the rain from half of my roof. I have goldfish in the rain barrel to eat the mosquitoes, and I have three holes...one at the bottom, and two near the top. The uppermost hole simply is an overflow, and moves excess water across the yard to my mulch pile during heavy rains. The one below that has a check valve, and an attached drill operated pump which creates a siphon moving water to the garden where it slowly drips to individual plants. The holes are simply punched in with nails, but if you pay attention, you can get a perfectly sized hole, and amount of drippage. Very slow drip of nutrient rich water. The bottom hole is for cleaning out the rain barrel on occassion to suit the fish. It basically operates itself. I do, however, spend a lot of time ogling it. I suppose to improve...but really...it is just nice. The force of the rain coming from the guttering aerates the water enough for the goldfish. My son adds a bit of fish food, but the end result is some pretty incredible plants. I would say somewhere around triple the size of my neighbors tomatoes. And...it seems like every year the soil gets even better. Small space though...12'x12'. But last summer, I got one full meal a day for my family out of it. I use lots of containers of different heights...so it is vertical... which is key. Only problem I run into is eventually things crowd, and things like zuchini and summer squash...which are sensitive to air flow die. So...I just added a layer of dirt to the mulch pile, and they grow on that...and this year...I am going to have more than we care to eat.

 

[neptronix]

By earthboxes, you mean the things that this company produces?

http://earthbox.com/index.php/

Never heard of earthboxes before so i just wanted to confirm.

 

[IBScootn]

Yep, that's the EB web site. Lots of DIY versions on-line too (people using 5-gal buckets etc). Basically it is a container that has no bottom holes so it can hold water. Then there is a shelf above the water to support the peat/perlite growing medium. You have some small sections/tubes where growing medium or cloth sits in the water to wick the moisture up into the growing medium. Then a drain hole above the normal water line so it can never get too full.

This year I made the mistake of adding some coir that I got from the ponics store in one of my boxes and it didn't wick as well as peat/potting soil.

EB now has an automated system where they had a valve in the watering tube of each box. It looked pricey, and I liked just having one valve as in my system.

 

[dogman dan]

One of the better hydroponic setups I ever ran was pretty simple. 5 gallon buckets, with drain holes about 4 inches up from the bottom. Inside I used perlite media. Daily, I poured a small amount of weak fertilizer solution in, adjusting the amount so just a bit trickled back out the holes, leaving 4 inches of solution in the bottom.

I could leave the house for up to a week, letting the plants get by on the reserve water. Harvesting some of the uh, produce, before I left would help it use less water while I was gone. This was indoors, so I'd cut day length while gone too.

 

[-dg]

Yep, that's the EB web site. Lots of DIY versions on-line too (people using 5-gal buckets etc). Basically it is a container that has no bottom holes so it can hold water. Then there is a shelf above the water to support the peat/perlite growing medium. You have some small sections/tubes where growing medium or cloth sits in the water to wick the moisture up into the growing medium. Then a drain hole above the normal water line so it can never get too full.

No way I'm paying $40 for a plastic box. So DIY it is. I have about 50 selfwatering containers (aka earthbox) made from a pair of 5-gal buckets and 1 1/2" pvc pipe for the waterfill and 4" for the well. They work great, last for a few years before the UV kills them, and I can knock up about 5 kits in an hour. I found all the buckets outside restuarants (soy sauce, pickes etc) or along roadsides. They only need watering ever second or third day and its a good idea to inspect about that often or the birds or bugs or overripeness will get your produce anyway.

 

[IBScootn]

Yes lots of DIY bucket designs, check out what these guys did with their two-bucket design:
http://www.globalbuckets.org/p/grow-bags.html