Removed Hydro buckets plants

Removed all plants and support structures from the Hydro buckets today. Will start planning for next season. See you next spring.

Taking down the last of tomatoe vines from my NFT system. Still have the hydro buckets to take down yet, later this week.

Last Harvest

Weatherman forcasting 29 degrees for a low to night. Did my final havest of remaining tomatoes today and will remove plants from the NFT system tomorrow.

This is a new vertical system that I am building for next season. Plans were purchased from http://www.easiestgarden.com/. I am hoping to put strawberries plants into next year.

Squirrel raid

The remains after a squirrel had a little snack.

Current picture of my NFT system

6 1/2 inchs rain in 48 hours

Just had over 6 1/2 inches of rain in 48 hours due to Ike. When out to check the nutrient tank water level on my hydro buckets system. As you can see the water is right up to the return pipe
and leaking out the pipe excess hole. This is one concern you should take into account when making your tank. Is the water level should ever rise above the return pipe. The water level in the hydro buckets could rise and damage the plants roots. Of course, this all depends on the over flow level you built into the buckets. All Im really trying to say here, is that you should build a over flow into your nutrient tank. So that the water level won't sub merged the return pipe.

Hydro buckets now using approx. 10 gallons of water per day.

Lost pump on hydro buckets

We had thunder storms last night with mild winds. Went out this morning to check all systems and found the feed line on bucket one plugged up. Turn the pump off, so that I could remove the 1/4 inch feed line. After cleaning the line out and replacing it. Turn the pump back on and nothing. The pump was dead. Luckly I had a spare pump on hand, so I quickly switch out the pump. This should teach me and those reading this blog, that all systems should really have two pumps running in parallel. In case one fails. Also one pump could be configure as a mixing pump when adding nutrients to the tank.