Rob's Hydroponic Hop Grow
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Finally finished the new reservoir project. Basic stats: 10G res + venturi aerator + filtered fill + Shurflo 55PSI pump + accumulator tank (shock absorber) + pressure reducer.
Got a little helper - part of the reason it's taken so long to get this finished
This is 10G rv reservoir - It is painted black and then covered with a rock finish. Some light still gets in, but it is dark enough to prevent most of the potential algae growth.
1/2" internal thread bulkhead + 2" 1/2" to 1/2" + 1/2" to 1/2" flexible faucet adapter. This is on the low pressure side of the pump. Would have been best to use a 1/2" male bulkhead and some flexible plastic tubing, but this was the best home depot mcguivering I could manage.
The hole is cut for a sock filter. The sock will prevent any big particles from ending up in the res when running organics. Some examples would be Azomite / Rock phosphate / worm castings / barley for bacteria.
This snorkel allows the venturi pump to pull air down into the res. This will ensure that the bacteria have plenty of O2, it will vent out any built up vapours, and will provide very slight cooling.
The venturi pump will keep air in the mixture and will prevent the water in the reservoir from going stagnant.
This is an assembled accumulator tank, pressure downregulator and right angle connector. The accumulator tank has a rubber balloon inside and is set to 30PSI. The regulator drops the water pressure from ~45 PSI to 15 (so I don't blow up the irrigation heads )
The two together allow the pump to only turn on for a second or so every couple minutes. Since this is a ~100 watt pump, that saves a lot of power. The balloon also acts as a shock absorber so that the high pressure pump isn't hammering on the more delicate downstream components.
The heart of the new system - Shurflo 4008 11.3 LPM 55PSI pump - can self prime from dry up to 6 feet - *Tim allen grunts*
The assembled reservoir.
I've removed the herb planter and positioned all of the parts behind. Everything is set - now I just have to connect the 8mm hose feeding the entire system to the end of the pressure regulator.
Back together with all of the pots irrigated once again. You can hardly see the 10G reservoir hidden in the back corner. Now both sides of the deck and all 12 containers are irrigated using Blumat's and a constant pressure system.
Got a little helper - part of the reason it's taken so long to get this finished
This is 10G rv reservoir - It is painted black and then covered with a rock finish. Some light still gets in, but it is dark enough to prevent most of the potential algae growth.
1/2" internal thread bulkhead + 2" 1/2" to 1/2" + 1/2" to 1/2" flexible faucet adapter. This is on the low pressure side of the pump. Would have been best to use a 1/2" male bulkhead and some flexible plastic tubing, but this was the best home depot mcguivering I could manage.
The hole is cut for a sock filter. The sock will prevent any big particles from ending up in the res when running organics. Some examples would be Azomite / Rock phosphate / worm castings / barley for bacteria.
This snorkel allows the venturi pump to pull air down into the res. This will ensure that the bacteria have plenty of O2, it will vent out any built up vapours, and will provide very slight cooling.
The venturi pump will keep air in the mixture and will prevent the water in the reservoir from going stagnant.
This is an assembled accumulator tank, pressure downregulator and right angle connector. The accumulator tank has a rubber balloon inside and is set to 30PSI. The regulator drops the water pressure from ~45 PSI to 15 (so I don't blow up the irrigation heads
)The two together allow the pump to only turn on for a second or so every couple minutes. Since this is a ~100 watt pump, that saves a lot of power. The balloon also acts as a shock absorber so that the high pressure pump isn't hammering on the more delicate downstream components.
The heart of the new system - Shurflo 4008 11.3 LPM 55PSI pump - can self prime from dry up to 6 feet - *Tim allen grunts*
The assembled reservoir.
I've removed the herb planter and positioned all of the parts behind. Everything is set - now I just have to connect the 8mm hose feeding the entire system to the end of the pressure regulator.
Back together with all of the pots irrigated once again. You can hardly see the 10G reservoir hidden in the back corner. Now both sides of the deck and all 12 containers are irrigated using Blumat's and a constant pressure system.
Stillraining
Well-Known Member
Thats pretty cool...question..does the pump make much vibration racket being mounted to the deck?...the one in my boat is pretty violent when it kicks on...Just wondering how the down stairs neighbors are fairing.
The pump would be audible if it were running constantly. Since I'm using blumats that supply water drip by drip throughout the day (5 gallons over the course of ~24 hours) the pump only runs for a split second at a time to pressurize the accumulator tank. Every 20 seconds or so you'll just hear a very small puff sound.
Cascade and newport - growing, but not thriving. Some weird leaf discoloration. Thinking they are not compatible with the other plants in the pot.
Teamaker in the background. Got hit hard with aphids and the pot dried out a bit when the emitter clogged. There is a bit of browning on the leaves but I'm hopeful that it will spring back soon.
Some random flowers sprouting up from seeds dropped in the hop pot.
Violas doing well in the 95 degree sun
African blue basil grown from clones
The sunny side
Golden hops on the shady side
Cucumbers filling in
Cucumbers and 4 kale plants in a 1.5 gallon pot
You take great pictures Rob.
And, you're gonna get evicted.
And, you're gonna get evicted.
PapaBearJay
Well-Known Member
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Do you have pictures of your powdery-mildew infested leaves?
Get all those flowers out of the hops containers. They are sucking up all the good stuff that could be going to the hops!
Have some teamaker coming in strong. Some of the plant grew into the shade. This portion has mature cones. The rest of the plant still has burrs just trainsitioning.
Not quite done yet - still needs a bit more time to ripen up.
Not quite done yet - still needs a bit more time to ripen up.
SleepyCreekBrews
Well-Known Member
Damn, the way your garden looks, you must be the envy of your neighbors.
What kind of camera is that you're using? ...great pics
What kind of camera is that you're using? ...great pics
Mid September update:
More hops are maturing by the day - but I'm not sure when exactly I should pick. Seems that some are just about ready while others are just little burrs.
Cascade
Cascade
Teamaker
Teamaker
Teamaker
Golden Hops
The sprawl
More hops are maturing by the day - but I'm not sure when exactly I should pick. Seems that some are just about ready while others are just little burrs.
Cascade
Cascade
Teamaker
Teamaker
Teamaker
Golden Hops
The sprawl
The hops still haven't ripened completely - which seems strange. However, we're going on vacation for 2 weeks (and getting married) so they have to come off!
Harvested maybe half of the teamaker this morning (first year plant, 3 gallon "smart pot", solo).
Can you spot our apartment?
One of the bigger cones
Still a lot left on the bine
Harvested maybe half of the teamaker this morning (first year plant, 3 gallon "smart pot", solo).
Can you spot our apartment?
One of the bigger cones
Still a lot left on the bine
New year and a very early start. It seems like the hops are about 1.5 months ahead of where they were last year.
Golden:
http://i.imgur.com/1jkebQG.jpg
Others:
http://i.imgur.com/IdKzMFS.jpg
Golden:
http://i.imgur.com/1jkebQG.jpg
Others:
http://i.imgur.com/IdKzMFS.jpg
Giving away some of the hops as I just won't have the space. Also going to take a slightly different approach this year. Last year was a great experiment but the upkeep was just too intense - I lugged about 10 gallons of water to the deck each day in July and august.
This year I will be running a line directly from my RO unit to the reservoir on the deck. One option is to pipe the RO water line directly into the dripper system, but I would like to avoid that for two reasons. First, direct delivery would make it impossible to add fertilizers to the water. Second, a solenoid would have to be added to reduce the risk of running water down onto our neighbors.
So - I will be using a float valve to limit the RO water fill of the reservoir and will add fertilizers and additives directly to the reservoir. This will make my measurements less exact than last year, but using coconut coir also means that a little eb and flow with the fertilizers is not the end of the world. It also means that I can separate water usage and fertilization - In the hot summer, much of the water is lost just through evaporation. This means on hotter days, the plants were getting much more concentrated fertilizers.
Once things get going I will likely add a two part doser to the system to manage fertilizers for me.
-Rob
This year I will be running a line directly from my RO unit to the reservoir on the deck. One option is to pipe the RO water line directly into the dripper system, but I would like to avoid that for two reasons. First, direct delivery would make it impossible to add fertilizers to the water. Second, a solenoid would have to be added to reduce the risk of running water down onto our neighbors.
So - I will be using a float valve to limit the RO water fill of the reservoir and will add fertilizers and additives directly to the reservoir. This will make my measurements less exact than last year, but using coconut coir also means that a little eb and flow with the fertilizers is not the end of the world. It also means that I can separate water usage and fertilization - In the hot summer, much of the water is lost just through evaporation. This means on hotter days, the plants were getting much more concentrated fertilizers.
Once things get going I will likely add a two part doser to the system to manage fertilizers for me.
-Rob
Here is a quick diagram of the planned system layout. Last year both of the inputs to the reservoir were managed manually. Not shown here is the control system for the pressure pump and auto doser. The pressure pump will be turned on and off by a microcontroller and relay. This is to reduce the power consumption - which is suprisingly high, even on stand-by - and the risk of run-away Blumat drippers (my poor downstairs neighbors).
I will eventually expand the microcontroller to track soil moisture levels in order to both prevent oversaturation / run away, and also to prevent the pots from becoming too dry (on exceptionally hot days). The challenge with the drippers is if the ceramic dries too much they have to be recalibrate. I ran into this issue last year as on the hottest days my 10G reservoir would be depleted, causing the pumps to run dry and the smallest pots to dry out. When the water was refilled, the smaller pots would overflow as the dried out medium would channel the water unpredictably until it became sufficiently wet. The delay in watering / sensing soil moisture (through the blumats themselves) caused too much overflow, waste, and potential for upset downstairs neighbors.
For reference I use a ShurFlo 12V pump: http://shurflo.com/rv-products/rv-pumps/rv-fresh-water-pumps
I will be using a particle photon as the micro-controller: https://store.particle.io/ This is my go-to controller as it has built-in wifi and a cloud based IDE. I've used it in several other automation projects.
I will eventually expand the microcontroller to track soil moisture levels in order to both prevent oversaturation / run away, and also to prevent the pots from becoming too dry (on exceptionally hot days). The challenge with the drippers is if the ceramic dries too much they have to be recalibrate. I ran into this issue last year as on the hottest days my 10G reservoir would be depleted, causing the pumps to run dry and the smallest pots to dry out. When the water was refilled, the smaller pots would overflow as the dried out medium would channel the water unpredictably until it became sufficiently wet. The delay in watering / sensing soil moisture (through the blumats themselves) caused too much overflow, waste, and potential for upset downstairs neighbors.
For reference I use a ShurFlo 12V pump: http://shurflo.com/rv-products/rv-pumps/rv-fresh-water-pumps
I will be using a particle photon as the micro-controller: https://store.particle.io/ This is my go-to controller as it has built-in wifi and a cloud based IDE. I've used it in several other automation projects.
It's been chilly and cloudy here in Massachusetts, but we're finally getting some sun.
The sunbeam (golden) hops came back fiercely, but they're ornamental and so they had to go. This year we're going for only consumable plants on the balcony.
We have:
-2 Hop plants
-Kale, Collards, Chard
-Broccoli Rabe
-Mustard Greens, Lettuce Mix, spinach
-2 Tomato
-2 Cucumber
-3 peppers
-1 Summer squash
-1 Strawberry Plant
-2 blueberry bushes
-Herbs: Hyssop Anise, Lemon Balm, Oregano, Basil, Dill, and Lavender
Pictures soon
The sunbeam (golden) hops came back fiercely, but they're ornamental and so they had to go. This year we're going for only consumable plants on the balcony.
We have:
-2 Hop plants
-Kale, Collards, Chard
-Broccoli Rabe
-Mustard Greens, Lettuce Mix, spinach
-2 Tomato
-2 Cucumber
-3 peppers
-1 Summer squash
-1 Strawberry Plant
-2 blueberry bushes
-Herbs: Hyssop Anise, Lemon Balm, Oregano, Basil, Dill, and Lavender
Pictures soon
