indoor soil

It’s Fun to Soil, But Fun Has To End

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We concluded our indoor tents bot the hydroponic and the soil tent.  The soil tent did very well for it’s inception but there are a few things that I will need to change when I move forward for next year’s tent.  In my tent we planted squash, basil, cherry tomatoes, radish, carrot, beans, and some peppers.

Again, the fun thing, for me personally, is just to see the difference in the season.  Our all organic approach worked well but it kept clogging up the emitters because of the worm castings.

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Over the course of the time the tent was up, we pulled whatever vegetables and fruits we needed but there are some things definitely worth mentioning that were fun.

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The squash seemed to do well in the soil and we harvested on the plant several times but over time, because of the footprint of the squash, it started to take up lots of space so… we decided to see if the squash would go vertical.  We added a soft netting for it to climb and amazingly, it didn’t argue much with the process and kept giving off more flowers which we fertilized and harvested when we were able to do so.

Overall, there are a few things that I will need to improve and do differently but the tent was a success because we were able to harvest vegetables, herbs and fruit from it during the indoor season.  That’s the bottom line.

Here are some bragging pictures:

 

2018 Water Delivery Drip System Setup

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FINALLY, NO MORE HAND WATERING!

With the new setup, a water drip system was developed for the soil tent.  Here are the components we used:

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The white reservoir is a 10 gallon holding tank.  Inside of the tank will be a submersible water pump for the water distribution and an oxygen pump with stones connected to aerate the water.  This is in an effort to keep down algae and nutrients in the water from settling.

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Connected to the white water reservoir is 3/4in tubing which has been directed up through a hole and then down to each of the tiers of the box.  There is an on/off valve connected to each tier for both water flow control and also for any issues which may arise in the event of any blow outs or leakage problems.

 

 

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For the actual water delivery, spaghetti tubing will be directed to each plant with a disk that outputs a specific amount of water per hour, or with those plants such as radish and carrot, there is a unidirectional broadcast head that will distribute water in the same method.  Each shown in the picture was placed in the box to pressure test for leaks and double check the rate of delivery for each disk.

 

 

 

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The green disk (the light makes it look black, but it is really green) provides water at a rate of 2/gal per hour.

 

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The black disk provides water at a rate of 1/gal per hour.

 

 

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The red disk provides water at a rate of .5/gal per hour.

 

 

Overall, I may use the red emitters more than the others, but each has it’s own benefits depending on the plant and its water requirements.