flowering beds

[shuswap]

does anyone here use beds to grow in,ive been using this system for awhile and i am now looking at different ideas as to watering,and massive root growth,i have read of others using hydroton at the bottom of the tables covering with a weed mat and then running the soil onttop and bottom watering thru pipes going into the hydroton ,wondering if anyone ha tried this method or has any input concerning it,peace

 

[señorsloth]

i use beds, check out the link to my grow in my signature...

for watering i do mine by hand, basically i take a gallon of water with nutes, and i have a 1/4 inch tube going in the cap, it's about 6 feet long and attached to a 2 foot stick, so that i can reach water to the back of the beds, underneath my canopy. i run almost 20 plants per square foot so a wand was necessary just to snake through the narrow rows, each plant is about 3 inches apart from the center. i use gravity to pump the water out of the gallon. it's pretty foolproof, the small tubing restricts water flow a lot and means the beds moisten slower, so the water doesn't just run off the surface. the downside to that is it takes like 5-10 minutes to pour a gallon onto each bed.

i have 2 ideas for making it less labor intensive, but i can't really afford to do either right now so im putting it off till winter. not only that but i like the 10 minutes i'm forced to be in my cab threading my watering wand down my tight rows, helps me see and remove any branches or a leaf or two where too many overlap.

anyway idea one is blumats, it's an easy way to water beds, if you do no till beds like a lot of the organic guys you can leave the blumats in there for several grows, and apparently they just work better and better. the problem is i run a 2 stage perpetual so i would have to have multiple smaller reservoirs for different nutrient mixes and switch them around constantly...if i could figure a way to do that blumats would be ideal because you can fill the res, and then forget it for a week or two...if you grow organic or have a simple nutrient schedule this may be your best option.

my other idea is lower tek, it's basically like blumats only with smaller reservoirs, there would be 2 reservoirs that just run straight to each bed via drip lines without drippers, then you mix the amount you want to water and just pour it into the reservoir and leave, knowing the reservoir will just pour through multiple drip lines and spread out over the bed until the reservoir is dry. the advantage to that is you don't have to stand around and hand water, plus you can constantly change your nutrient levels, because the only way to limit the amount of solution is to not fill the res as high, so it's always dry when you need it...the bad thing is you couldn't really step away, it's not an automated system, it just means you don't have to stand over your beds hand watering. you just fill the rez whenever the soil starts to dry.

 

[shuswap]

im not having a problem watering as i use a watering wand and a pump,but what i am after is providing the roots with more of what they want,instead of top watering and soaking the air roots is it possible to use the approx method i explained and keep the water roots wet and the air roots dry,with the odd top water to flush the soil,with the air gap at the bottom and watering at the bottom what just would happen,lol

 

[señorsloth]

thats an interesting thought, to be honest i don't know anything about water roots or air roots, although it makes sense i just assumed they were all the same...

outdoors my plants sometimes reach the water table with their tap root, at that point i never need to water them, but they don't get water logged or root rot, i guess that would be similar to what you are thinking, like a layer of hydroton and water at the bottom being your water table and the layer of soil above being for the "air roots" and would just stay dry? ive never heard of anything like that but it would be interesting to see...if it worked it would be a pretty cool, like a whole integrated pot/bed with aspects of hydro and soil.

one thing im wondering though, as far as i was told, the reason we use cold water is it holds the most oxygen, which is then given to the roots when we water...if you never water the top, wouldn't the roots consume all the oxygen in the soil, and then starve without weekly watering to deliver new oxygen to the soil?

 

[teemu shalanie]

if you running those bc beds shwap... you ever tried a coco/ soil mix to provide roots more of what they want?...I dont think I know anyone that has tried that ? , or maybe make a giant 4x8 hempy table with a few inchs of hydro tons on bottom and coco instead of dirt with dripers?, just an idea? good luck
TS

 

[SeaMaiden]

I think I get what you're getting at, shuswap. I've never done it growing plants, but have done something similar in aquatics. It's kind of like bottom-watering plants in pots, too, the way I'm understanding what you're describing. I like bottom-watering my potted plants over top-watering.

Teemu, I've done perlite hempy tubs straight up, no drippers, just hand-watered & fed til the point of run-off. 18gal tubs, outdoors, 3" reservoir at the bottom. They were doing GREAT until the root aphids showed up. No hydroton or anything like that, just filled with the perlite.

 

[supermanlives]

sounds like a modified earthbox. .earth boxes worked ok for me.

 

[shuswap]

i actually found an old thread on another site from Soma nd he is doing exactly what i was thinking,not sure how he watered but he used hydroton on the bottom with a 4 inch diameter pipe in each corner,then plastic coated chicken wire then rooting mat and then his organic soil mix.Not sure how he watered but ill be trying this method out in 3 weeks when current room is done

 

[señorsloth]

hmmm thats really really interesting...please post if you find out more, id like to see how it all works.

 

[catalyte]

many growers have done very well with 4 x 8 beds and organic soil. I think the key is to balance to organic dry amendments with perlite/clay pebbles so that the medium breathes well....