However, I never forgot the absolutely fantastic taste of those hydroponic tomatoes, and many years later revisited the concept. Searching the web I found a site that promoted a hydroponics system made from soda bottles and PVC piping. This gentleman's web site is the last word on this type of hydroponic growing system.
This system uses PVC piping and 1.5 liter soda bottles. I've used this system for about 3 years, and for a number of reasons I'm changing systems, but this certainly taught me a lot about growing veggies hydroponically.
Other than a post regarding how to hook up the bottles to the PVC pipe grid, the best source for information regarding this system is www.hydroponicsonline.com
This system uses a water pump to push the nutrient-laden water into the grid of PVC pipe and into the bottoms of the inverted 1.5 liter soda bottles. Starting to grow veggies hydroponically takes a bit of a shift in thinking about the concept, plus I decided to try to grow everything from seed. This post explains one way to accomplish that.
Quoting directly from www.hydroponics.net, rockwool is:
Rockwool is a horticultural growing media made from the natural ingredients Basalt rock and Chalk. These are then melted at 1600° C into a lava which is blown into a large spinning chamber, which pulls the lava into fibers like "cotton candy." If you have ever visited a volcano you have probably seen these fibers flying around in the air surrounding the volcano. Once the fibers are spun they are then compressed into a mat which is then cut into slabs and cubes. The rockwool granulates are just bales of uncompressed fibers. The process is very efficient, producing 37 cubic foot of wool from 1 cubic foot of rocks. Since rockwool is born in fire it renders the product chemically and biologically inert and creates the ideal growing medium for hydroponics. Since its development in Denmark in the early 1970's, rockwool has become the major vegetable and flower production medium throughout Europe and North America.
I'm not too sure about the reference to visiting volcanos but rockwool cubes are ideal for starting seeds hydroponically:
Rockwool is kinda like compressed organic steel wool; the idea is to place the seeds being germinated into the rockwool media and keep the media moist until the seeds sprouts.
Once the seeds germinate and show true leaves,
(I know this picture doesn't really show "true" leaves, but you get the idea)
it's time to prepare the seedlings for their hydroponics future.
This picture shows the plant container concept that works well with the PVC pipe/soda bottle hydroponics system. Using the rockwool cube with the seedling, two other items are used: a 12 oz. "Solo" drinking cup, and clay pebbles, which I can best describe as ceramic CoCoa Pebbles-
This is the type of bag these things come in, and the bad news is that they're kind of pricey, the good news is that they are reusable (clean, boil & dry off after each crop).
A soldering pen is used to burn the holes into the drinking cup, and the ceramic CoCoa Pebbles are placed in the bottom of the cup.
Once the seedling in its rockwool cube is placed into the drinking cup, more clay pebbles are added into the sides of the cup, surrounging the rockwool cube. Now the plant is ready to be placed into the cups provided by the inverted soda bottles.
Before the plants were placed into the hydroponics grid, I made an "ebb and flow" intermediary station for the plants, allowing them to grow a bit more before being placed on the grid. It's just two rubbermaid plastic containers with a small pump on a timer pushing the nutrient water into the upper box, which has a 1" PVC pipe as a water level control.
Here's a small animated GIF that shows the ebb and flow concept.
I built a germination/growing area from a plastic five shelf unit bought at Home Depot. It's handy to have everything in one spot. By the way, the flourescent lights are TOO FAR AWAY from the plants shown here. The lights should be about 1"-2" away from the tops of the plants depending how much heat your lights give off. Too close = too hot and your baby plants get cooked. Having the lights this far away from the plants doesn't give them enough light, and the plants tend to get "leggy", i.e., too long in the stem and not enough foliage.
My first system was small, but I was astounded at how well the plants grew, especially the lettuce. Rather than trying to describe how big the lettuce plants had grown, I pulled out one of the plants and placed it on a ladder to take a picture of it.
Even with this small hydroponics system I was able to harvest fresh lettuce leaves nightly for salads. I also had cherry tomatoes and peppers in this first system, and they all grew very well.
I had seen this picture on the web and decided that it was a good idea to make a similar covering for my new project.
However, I hadn't counted on the fierce Santa Ana winds that blow through Southern California, and within two weeks of finally installing the plastic sheeting, 60 MPH Santa Ana winds blew through, almost completely destroying my system.
The Santa Ana experience prompted the building of a shelter using 4X4 and 2X4 lumber:
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