Rob's Hydroponic Hop Grow

Robx · Apr 18, 2017

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

Robx · Apr 21, 2017

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

Robx · Apr 21, 2017

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.

Robx · Jun 2, 2017

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