Running lines and going from 2 to 1
Welcome to irrigation day.
I’m get into how I set up the beds and ran my irrigation lines in this post.
One of the first thoughts I had while trying to figure out my layout was that I could repurpose the troughs that I decided against using for my grow beds, as their feet would do a great job of preventing lateral slide of the beds if bumped or jostled. To provide the needed height for the bed, so it would rest above the jug I’m using as my reservoir to allow proper water flow/drainage, I’ve brought my rusty ol’ sawhorse in from the balcony and will be using it to support the “high” side of the beds, while the low end of the trough was going to be supported by one of the rubbermaid bins that I already have on one of my growing tables.
Enter my first lesson of the day: Due to my limited space, I set up the support for the low end of the trough about 1/3 of the way from the end of the bed, and learned why this was a bad idea in a hurry up. As water started accumulating at the low end, (before filling enough to start running out the drainage hole) it started getting heavier and that support I had set up went from acting as a piece of support structure into the fulcrum for a water filled see-saw. I was glad to have been working over a large soil filled bin that caught all the run-out.
Needing to find a new solution, I went looking for things I could rest/stack on the lip of the large bin, as the trough I had previously used was taking up far too much space, and was too tall when placed on the bin. Eventually I decided on using a couple of shelves, some bits of tile and scrap wood. It was while I was setting this up that I learned something else. The importance of flow and drainage. My original idea was set this up as a stacked bed with each bed flowing down into the one below it (Donkey Kong style) in order to maintain a descent flow. When I changed ideas, thinking I could do 2 parallel beds instead, and just divide the flow between them, I didn’t consider what that reduced flow would look like.
2 drainage lines and updated support
It looked sad and pathetic, and it wasn’t going to do, so I made the hard decision to feed both of my lines back into a single downspout, and I would leave my second bed on stand-by until I can scavenge up a vertical framing solution or a wealthy benefactor willing to finance the build.
With the extra water running into the bed, it wasn’t long before I realized that it was no longer draining fast enough, so I needed to add an extra drainage hole/line. Thankfully that drill-bit was still loaded in the drill, as I expected that I was going to need it again. Once that second line was installed, the bed was flowing like a dream!
All that was left to do at this point was level the bed out a little. I needed to find an angle that encourage the water to flow, but is still flat enough to submerge the bottoms of the grow cups I’m using. It was after more scavenging and finagling that I realized a cabinet door with handle would in a pinch… so I pinched it as part of my temporary solution.
2 irrigation lines feeding the bed
The height of technology… I’m using elastic bands to hold the irrigation lines in place
Juice jug = food safe reservoir
I am aware of how unruly (and wasteful)that loop of irrigation lines are coming out of the jug, however as I have a lot of temporary solutions in place right now, I want to make sure I will have enough line available for when I rejig into the stacked vertical layout.
Inside the jug, I’m using a 95GPH aquarium pump to circulate the fluid through my system. (left)
Coming out of the top of the pump, with the blue rubber bands, are the 3 irrigation lines I calked together. 2 of those lines are connected to the lines on the bed while the third I have looped back into the jug for aeration.
I have the aeration loop
connected to the 2 drain/return lines coming back from the bed. I have connected these 3 lines together (with a green rubber band - on the right) in hopes of being to both maximize the splash in the jug and use the cohesive force of the water coming through the aeration loop to help draw water down through the drainage lines of the bed.
