Inside Urban Green

Design Detail » The Simplest Form of Hydroponics for a Home Office

Photography by Quang Tran

via www.contemporist.com

Instead of having plain white shelving, when NatureArch Studio were designing this home office in Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam, they added an extra detail to the built-in bookshelves. Boxes in black, yellow and white, were included as a way to show off little sculptures, and also act as bookends.

I would be a happy camper to work in an office like this. Unfortunately, I'm a messy worker and it would not look like this for very long. If you're still alive there's always hope for change. We'll see when I get back to the East Coast in the spring. I will use these photos as motivation and inspiration.

Notice the glass bowl with the Pothos cuttings growing in it. This is the simplest form of hydroponics I know of and a great way to teach kids.

Your grandma (or your great-grandma) may have done the same thing using the kitchen windowsill. She just didn't have a name for it. Certainly not hydroponics. If there were clay pebbles in the bowl it would be called hydroculture.

I kept a row of clear hydro planters like this on the floor in front of light gardens in my Brooklyn plant lab. The planters were recycled UTZ pretzel containers (see photo below).

This is the most maintenance free form of houseplant growing that I know. "Stamp collector" type growers might be bored with Pothos and Spider Plants but they are very user friendly. Try others. What have you got to lose? 

Plants need light, water and oxygen. How do you supply oxygen to these cuttings? The simple answer is to let the water level lower to 1/3 to 1/2 the volume of the planter. Don't be diligent about adding watering to them. Topping them off too often will starve them of oxygen leading to their demise

I almost forgot nutrients. My practice is to always add some liquid fertilizer to the water when growing houseplants. This is basic hydroponics practice to create a "nutrient solution". I use Dyna-Gro Foliage-Pro 9-3-6 (1/4 tsp. to each 1/2 gallon plastic milk or juice container I use to store the solution).

When the plants need pruning (as soon as they reach the table top or floor), cut the vine ends or plantlets and stick them back into the planter. The plants will then keep increasing their fullness. There is always room for one more cutting.

Please overlook the grubby quality of the plants and surroundings in this photo. These plants had just traveled about 3,000 miles in a pitch-dark U-Haul truck. Then the plant lab was in temporary storage here in San Diego. What a mess.

All of the plants were extremely lush and healthy with very strong root systems before the move. I do not recall why I added decorative stones to the Spider Plant container. I never bothered to photograph them since they were somewhat of a catchall for cuttings that I hated to throw away.

I had to dump these plants because of a shortage of space here in San Diego but plan to do more experimentation with this method. It is such a simple way to add the design element of living plants as in the office project above. It is a virtually hassle free method of growing indoor plants.

 

A New STEM-based Patio Garden Comes to the Fleet Science Center in Balboa Park

This is how the seating outside Galileo's Cafe used to look. All photos by Bob Hyland.

This past August 21st on my daily walk in Balboa Park I discovered an amazing sight outside Galileo’s, the cafe at the Reuben H. Fleet Science Center.

What had been a rather mundane seating area was now a flower garden complete with new umbrella tables and snazzy trash receptacles. I learned that it had all been installed just a couple of hours before I stopped by. There was no construction required. It is entirely portable.

I nicknamed it Galileo’s Garden of Discovery. How appropriate that it was created by a science museum.

See this Flickr album for many more photos of the garden taken over the past 3 months. I have not had time to edit them.

Having been in the plant business for over forty years, I am not easily impressed. I was with what I saw that day. I have not seen a flowering container garden of this quality anywhere in San Diego and wondered who installed such a professional looking project.

The big surprise was the answer I got from an email query to the Fleet Science Center. To my absolute amazement I discovered that a Fleet Science Center manager did the job with help from the Galileo staff. This is a D.I.Y project that used readily available components in the hands of highly motivated people.

The even bigger surprise is that the rolling planters boxes are sub-irrigated planters (SIPs). Though there should be, there are no other SIPs in Balboa Park. There are none that I know of in the entire city. Further, this fabulous garden is a SIP roll-on, roll off (RORO) garden.

Galileo's staff rolls it out in the morning and then rolls it back inside the museum in the evening. How creative! San Diego has an annual Orchids and Onions award program. It just passed in October. I would not hesitate to give this project an Orchid Award.

The Fleet Science Center staff manager responsible for the project should be recognized. The Balboa Park Conservancy would be an appropriate organization to do this.

Here we are 81 days later and this garden still has flowers though understandably diminished. All the while it has been conserving water as compared to traditional "drench and drain" planters that are the norm throughout the park. SIPs are a passive form of hydroponics that typically saves in the range of 70% of the water wasted by drench and drain irrigation.

Why is it that SIPs are not the standard for use with any watertight planter throughout Balboa Park and the entire State of California during a drought crisis? The SIP plumbing costs little and works in a wide range of watertight planters from small pots to large raised beds. Who knows how many millions of gallons of precious water are wasted by inefficient drench and drain irrigation?

Even the large concrete in situ planters in the park could be converted to SIPs. All it takes is some sweat equity and know-how.

It is appropriate to compare the Galileo’s garden to the 50 urn type planters with succulents in Plaza de Panama that are top watered with a hose. These low water usage plants are in sorry shape. Many have died and many others are half dead.

What if all of the planters in Balboa Park were SIPs? Compare them to this succulent test garden that I installed nearby to the park last year. Unfortunately, neither the San Diego Park and Recreation Department or the myriads of gardening volunteers who flood the park have professional sub-irrigation experience. 

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That's Funny, You Don't Look Like a Coffee Plant

"You sure don't look like one of our kind big fella! And, would you please move out of the way? You're blocking the light for our closeup!"

___________________________________________________________________________

The real back story. This is one of the coffee plants in this post. As the plants grew it turns out that the "big fella" is a pepper plant. The immature leaves look very similar to a coffee plant. Someone in the greenhouse pulled the wrong plant for the coffee pot.

Notice that it is flowering. It better be self-pollinating because I don't see  any pollinators flying around in my apartment.

Notice the white roots, including those growing in the sub-irrigated planter (SIP) reservoir. What you see here is very simple hydroponics. That is what passive sub-irrigation is in reality.

It sure isn't "self-watering" the stupid term used most widely in the U.S. It is one of the significant indicators of our dumbed down horticultural education. Even extension program educators with PhD's use it. All they seem to know is old fashioned "drench and drain" watering that is slowly disappearing in most commercial greenhouses.

Unfortunately consumers aren't on the memo distribution list with the news about 21st century irrigation methods.

When using SIPs indoors it is essential to understand that you should not add water to a planter that still has some water in it from the last refill.

To avoid over-watering and root rot, wait until the reservoir is empty and the top 1/2" or so of the soil mix has dried down.

The term "self-watering" that encourages constant filling is the cause of most of the negativity about s-w planters that "over water" and are only to be used with "water loving" planters.

What crap...but much of the gardening industry is happy because they do not want you understanding and successfully growing plants in SIPs. SIPs mean sustainability, a dirty word to many commercial growers and garden centers.

When using SIPs (with overflow drains) to grow edible plants outdoors you can get away with "constant fill" only because of the much higher light under the sun. It is likely to be 100x the light inside your home. Photosynthesis is in full throttle and the plants are using all the water they can get.

This shows the two part polyester fabric wick I use in these SIPs made from recycled orange juice bottles. There is a round piece of material inside the planter that covers a hole at the bottom where the threaded part of the neck was cut off.

The 2nd piece of wicking is simply laid in the bottom of the reservoir in contact with the inner wick. As you can see, roots soon grow through the fabric and "stitch" the two wicks together.

The reason for the wick strip at the bottom of the reservoir is because the bottom of the o.j. bottle is not flat. The 2nd wick ensures that all of the water rises by capillary action and completely empties the reservoir.

Moving From One SIP to Another

Set of 6 stoneware stacking bowls

It was hard to pass up yet another planter bargain at Costco. These attractive bowls were a little over $2 a piece ($13 for the box). Not that it makes any difference to me or the plants but these are not melamine, they're stoneware. No surprise that they were gone in a short time. If they return, I'll buy a few boxes for sure.

My hobby is propagating and growing tabletop Ficus benjamina trees in a bonsai style. What I did here was transfer a little tree from a cheap Party City plastic bowl to one of the stoneware bowls.

The tree does not care one bit whether the planter is inexpensive plastic or high quality stoneware when using sub-irrigated planters called SIPs. I call them "bubble SIPs" because the water and oxygen reservoirs beneath the trees are like bubbles. 

Thanks to the U.S. gardening industry perpetuating the erroneous term "self-watering" few understand that SIPs are an elementary form of hydroponics. An essential part of all hydroponic systems is an oxygen supply. This usually requires an electric pump.

There is no need for an electric air pump in a SIP. When properly used a SIP supplies oxygen in a passive way by the ebb and flow of the reservoir. There is always an air space over the top of the water supply.

Unwitting consumers who buy into the highly misleading "self-watering" term often defeat the system by constantly refilling the reservoir and shutting out the oxygen supply. The result inevitably is an anaerobic condition followed by root rot and then death.

Sad to know that most commercial houseplant growers prefer death to life because their business plans are founded on consumption rather than sustainability and long life.

When you grow a plant in a traditional drain hole pot or misuse a "self-watering" planter you are helping perpetuate a misrepresentation while wasting water, your time and your money. Once you gain some experience with SIPs you will know that there is no need for drain holes in plant pots and that you are the "self" in so-called "self-watering".

It might be informative to SIP beginners to see how I made the transfer. I am still using a scale to measure soil moisture but using an "erasable plant tag" rather than the Excel spread sheet method I've been using for many years.

Once you get the hang of it you will be watering your houseplants with pinpoint accuracy and giving them a reason to live rather than die. Everyone, besides the chosen few, can now have a green thumb.

(edited w/new photo 06-27-15) My indoor plants SIP tool kit.

Starting upper left: Goof Off to "erase" the magic marker weight reading posted on a plant tag (leaning on a recycled pill bottle). Note that Goof Off is not for unsupervised kids. It give off fumes much like paint thinner.

It is not likely to be a problem even for those with sensitive noses if you apply it with the small spray bottle size. The large can is for refills. It takes just a very small spritz, and a paper towel to remove the magic marker writing on the plant tag. Goo Gone is a citrus oils solvent without fumes but it has not worked for me. 

Goop clear plastic glue (for attaching reservoirs and fill tubes if necessary). Box cutter (used rarely), bonsai cutter (excellent for pruning small trees), Fiskars snips (just the right size for houseplants and cutting thin plastic), scissors (for plant trimming and cutting thin plastic), red plastic soil probe, bamboo chopstick and skewer (for tamping down the soil to remove air pockets), baster with clear plastic tubing attached (to remove excess water via the fill tube to correct overfilling mistakes), pipette made from 1/4" plastic tubing to check if there is water in the reservoir. Hold a finger over the top end, insert into SIP fill tube and remove. Water level, if any, will be visible at bottom of pipette tube.

I used a 5.3 oz/150g yoghurt container to make the reservoir. Cut the rim off. The reservoir in the plastic SIP bowl (left) was cut down from a 16oz yoghurt container.

Use of a scale to measure soil moisture is an exact science but the size of the reservoir is not. You need room for both the plant and the reservoir whatever the planter size. It won't take long to get the hang of how large or small to make the reservoir. Next time I do this with another Ficus tree, I will measure the exact size of the reservoir after cutting the yoghurt cup.

A professional greenhouse grower would admire the soil moisture and root system of the tree when I removed it from the old SIP. No surprise. I use basically the same system they do when they grow houseplants in their greenhouse. It's called by several names including ebb and flow sub-irrigation.

Viola! Tree ready again to face the world in its new SIP bowl. No raspberries in this bowl, but I can hear them from some growers who hate me for showing you how to do this.

There is no better endorsement of how good SIPs are than the hate spewed by some misguided greenhouse growers who don't want your plants to live too long. I say, grow up and run your business with a social conscience rather than as a personal privilege or entitlement.

Part 2 of this post will be about how I use a scale to accurately monitor soil moisture and use plant tags to record it. Stay tuned.

 

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Five Month Update » A Sub-irrigated "Bubble SIP" Water Conservation Test Garden

Click on the photo to see a larger version on Flickr. Click here to see the entire album titled Sub-irrigation » California "Bubble SIP" Drought Tolerant Patio Garden. The album contains an archive of photos taken since the garden was started in August of last year.

To recap, this sub-irrigated patio garden is on a San Diego property that was recently a bed and breakfast. I stayed here when I arrived from Brooklyn last May. What a delightful B&B it was!

With a very comfortable living room and kitchen, I would gladly have stayed for the long term. The owner has excellent taste in art, furniture and artifacts that he used to decorate the rooms. I will not forget the lush patio plants that thread through the property. There was also a rooftop dining deck.

It is most unfortunate that the inn never fully recovered from the recession. The owner is now reluctantly converting the B&B rooms to apartments. I feel bad for him. The inn was a significant part of his lifes work. San Diego has lost a historical property that legions of people enjoyed over the years.

On arrival in San Diego, I made an effort to donate my plant science lab to Balboa Park for use in children’s education. There is, after all a historical botanical building there that obviously needs professional help. Amateur gardening volunteers staff it.

The park manager rejected the donation offer on the strength of an amateur gardener's advice. The email is a public document that I may reveal in a future post.

San Diego taxpayers should know how their money is managed at Balboa Park. I believe it is a San Diego, State of California and National treasure. Make that a World treasure. I immensly enjoyed being in the company of tourists from all over the world this past holiday season. What festive days they were. Many photographs are coming soon.

I have also observed that the park is becoming frayed at the seams thanks to budget cutbacks and the ever-increasing use of amateur gardening volunteers. I have coupled my daily walks with photographing what I observe along the way. I will soon donate this large collection of site-survey photos to the mayor’s office. My landscape architecture training has come in handy for this project.

I believe a day of reckoning is coming in the not too distant future. Budget cutbacks coupled with the drought crisis have taken a heavy toll on the park plants, sub-tropical palms in particular. It is never a good time for this to happen, but this year it is particularly ill-timed. It is the Centennial year of the 1915 Panama - California Exposition in Balboa Park.

Back to my plant science lab and the water conservation patio garden. Fortunately, the B&B owner provided a temporary shelter for my lab. I am forever indebted to him for doing so. As a small token of my gratitude, the patio garden will remain for the enjoyment of future apartment tenants.

Thanks to sub-irrigation, the garden requires very little maintenance. Future tenants can snip succulent cuttings and propagate them as houseplants if they like. I will gladly donate a supply of “bubble SIP” inserts of various sizes along with instructions.

I installed the garden in the extreme heat of this past summer. I did it in a rather impromptu manner, considering the physical stress on my old bones in the heat. No problem, everything is movable for improved esthetics.

On a redo, I would have used more Mexican terracotta planters. It took a while to solve the problem of needing to drill overflow drain holes in the side of these thick clay planters. A simple “trick” (hack?) solved the problem. There is now no need for drilling clay or ceramic planters with bottom drain holes. That is a devil of a job even with the right tools.

The simple solution is an overflow pipe that goes from just below the top of the reservoir bubble down to the existing drain hole in the planter. The key step is to make the drain hole connection watertight. I used Goop clear adhesive. It is my all-purpose choice for plastic gluing. It is almost as versatile as masking tape.

I can tell by Flickr stats that people are overlooking this terracotta and ceramic planter method. Note that I realized afterwards that the overflow drain does not have to pierce the bubble top. There is no need for a hole protected by a piece of screen material if you just cut it short under the bubble top. See larger photos here (5 in sequence). I will post corrected photos in the near future.

It might help to think of this bubble SIP design as sort of a sink with the drain at the top of the sink rather than the bottom. When the water level reaches the top of the drain tube it will flow down the tube and out the bottom drain hole. Again, make sure the bottom connection is watertight or else the bubble will not hold water as a reservoir.

In closing, note that there are a few more plants added to the garden. When the B&B closed in October, I moved some plants from the B&B utility room to my U-Haul locker. They were in the dark for a couple of weeks and then in the back of my SUV for some time.

Older folks will remember John Cameron Swayze and his Timex commercials. “It takes a licking and keeps on ticking.” These plants have certainly done that...and will do so in the future.

p.s. Please perform a public service by Tweeting, texting or emailing this post to friends and professional colleagues. We desparatly need the energy and technology experience of young people to grow a movement to counter the embedded, reactionary gardening establishment. It is time for them to retire, go fishing or travel the world.  

Obviously I do not have my social networking act together but plan to in the coming year. It is time for me to invite some young people and progressive, independant thinking older folks to join the band and march in this parade.

What you have read here about reactionary gardening is just the tiny tip of a massive iceberg. I have more than enough researched and experiental information to write a book. It is long past time to blow up the iceberg.

 

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Bubble SIPs are a great way to supply both water and oxygen to plants growing in low light indoors

This is a bubble SIP made from a Glad 48 oz Big Bowl. I highly recommend starting with SIPs by growing some plants in clear plastic containers like this. As you can see below, the root system and soil moisture are visible. You can see exactly what is going on.

Once you gain experience you will be able to grow any terrestrial plant in any water tight container of any size equipped with a SIP bubble reservoir or multiple reservoirs. More about that coming in a future post. 

Forget about so-called "self-watering" 

One of the worst things you can do when using sub-irrigated planters for indoor plants is to think of them as “self-watering”. There is no such thing and it leads to misuse of SIPs indoors. 

With all the incessant lecturing about the need for drain holes in plant containers it is probably difficult to believe that sub-irrigation with SIPs is the best way to water plants in containers … but it is!  And, it’s not just a subjective opinion, it’s provable and you can prove it to yourself by understanding how they work and testing them. 

The primary feature of a SIP is the reservoir. Stop thinking of it as a water reservoir that the plant can drink from when it is “thirsty." Many houseplant hobbyists have a tendency to anthropomorphize when dealing with “houseplants” i.e. to attribute human form or personality to things not human. 

Plants do not have a brain like animals and humans…and they are immobile. They are stuck in the planter and cannot escape when the oxygen supply runs out. If you constantly add water to the reservoir “bubble” you will drown the plant. An animal can drink and walk away, a plant obviously cannot do that. 

With too much water it will sit there and die from lack of oxygen. Death is inevitable as the root system begins to rot. 

This is difficult to comprehend when well known companies advertise their SIPs as “self-watering” and claim that you cannot over water the plants. What they do not say is that this is true only when used to grow plants in full sun (10,000 foot-candles) or near full sun. 

Indoor plants, however, are typically struggling to grow with less than 100 foot-candles (less than 1% of full sunlight). Over water them and they soon die under indoor low light conditions. This is what has given the so-called “self-watering” planters a bad reputation in the houseplant gardening community. It isn’t the planter at fault but insufficient education and misleading marketing. 

There are in fact many greenhouse growers who like it this way. They do not want you to become proficient in the use of sub-irrigated planters. Their business plans are founded on consumption rather than sustainability. The plan is for the plants to die after a while and for you to blame yourself for their death. 

A simple method of SIP water management based on what professional greenhouse growers do. 

The best way to measure the moisture level in a SIP is to use a digital scale. An 11 lb capacity scale with tare feature will do for most table top plants. I use a 50 lb capacity scale in the CuGreen lab.

 1. Start by filling the bubble SIP with water right to the top. Let it stand for a while to be certain all the soil is moist. A couple of hours is fine. You will not harm the plant. 

2. Pour the excess water out by way of the fill tube. Or, use a baster to siphon the water. Or, use a piece of 1/4" clear tubing as a siphon if you know how to do that. 

3. Weigh the planter to determine its "wet weight" in ounces (Data Point 1). Write it down in a notebook. 

4. Wait until the plant uses all of the water and the soil dries down. This should be close to the "wilt point" The number of days will depend on the plant species and the light level. With a clear planter you can see the color of the soil - light color = dry, dark color = moist.

5. Weigh the planter to determine its "dry weight" in ounces. Write it down in a notebook. This is Data Point 2. 

6. The difference between the wet (Data point 1) and dry weight (Data Point 2) equals the weight in ounces of the water consumed (Data Point 3). 

7. Add half of the water-consumed amount (Data Point 3) via the SIP fill tube. If the consumed amount is 20 oz., add 10 oz (Data Point 4). As you gain some historical data you can confidently modify Data point 4.

If you are growing in natural light, Data Point 4 will vary depending on the weather and season of the year. If growing under artifical light DP4 will remain constant assuming you keep the light(s) on for the same time each day. Use a timer to do that. 

Using this method you will keep the soil moisture optimized and in balance. Your plants will appreciate this very much and show it by staying alive and healthy.

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Video » Check Out the Rain Gutter SIP System Facebook Page

Larry Hall Facebook page. We have liftoff!

International Women’s Day » Celebrating the Power of Women to Nourish the Planet

Today is International Women's Day. Worldwatch Institute is recognizing it by celebrating the power of women to nourish the planet. I learned some interesting facts from reading their article.

Worldwide roughly 1.6 billion women rely on farming for their livelihoods, and female farmers produce more than half of the world’s food. In sub-Saharan Africa alone, women account for 75 percent of all the agricultural producers.

The information in the paragraph above astounds me. It should probably more accurately read..."Worldwide, outside the U.S., roughly, 1.6 billion women, etc”. Here in the U.S. we have the most technologically advanced commercial agriculture system on the planet. Women do not have to be farmers to sustain our society. That is obviously not true in much of the world.

The good news is that women worldwide are developing and utilizing agricultural innovations to sustainably nourish their families and communities.

The fact that women worldwide are using agricultural innovations is not news to me. I have blogged about it before. It is probably unbelievable for most Americans to understand that there are international charitable organizations teaching methods like simplified hydroponics, sack gardening and keyhole gardening to people in emerging economies that our own educational institutions ignore.

Whose fault is this? As usual, the fault lies with us all. As usual, there are no “they”. Quote Pogo, "We have met the enemy and they are us”. The big question is why we as consumers (and taxpayers) tolerate the retrogressive consumer horticultural education that is so embedded in our society. 

It starts at the land grant aggie schools, works its way through their USDA partnered Extension Programs and Master Gardener programs and ends up in our local botanic gardens, staffed largely by independent contractor "educators" who preach the gospel of dirt and drain holes. That is all they know. 

Based on professional experience and research over the past four decades it is my belief that we have the lowest ranking consumer horticulture education in the industrialized world. Shame on us! 

It might be a good idea for us to import some teachers, women in particular, from Africa and South America where they are learning new methods of growing local food. Many of these women are earning more than their husbands. How shocking!

Using simplified hydroponics as taught by the UN FAO and others, she probably knows more about hydroponics than the majority of American gardeners.

Growing her food in a keyhole garden, as taught by Send a Cow (UK), Soladarities (France) and others,  she probably gets more produce per square foot (while saving water) than the majority of American gardeners.

Growing her food in a vertical sack garden, as taught by Send a Cow (UK), Soladarities (France) and others, she probably gets more produce per square foot (while saving water) than the majority of American gardeners.

via www.worldwatch.org

Sub-irrigation (SIPs) = Simple Hydroponics

In a prior post about the TEDxManhattan How to Cultivate a Logo video, I called the TEDx logo planter a hydroponic lettuce grower. How come? As revealed in the video it is clearly a sub-irrigated planter aka SIP (prior posts).

Actually, it’s both. The logo planter is a SIP as well as a simple form of hydroponics without an air pump. If the public is confused by all of the terminology used for various forms of food growing systems it is no surprise.

We have an overabundance of names for a variety of systems for growing plants. Pared down to the basics however, just about all of them are variants of hydroponic growing even though we use different names for them. It is a language and education issue rather than the “engineering” of the methods.

Sub-irrigation (aka SIPs) is an accurate term for systems that use solid (i.e. soil) media contained over the top of a water and oxygen reservoir system. Up to now, I have refrained from calling it hydroponics in the consumer market for a couple of reasons.

1. Hydroponics implies complexity and the need for plug-in power for oxygenation. SIPs are simple to make and do not require power. You do not need to be a rocket scientist to understand how they work

2. In the past, hydroponics has been heavily associated with marijuana growing. I have shopped in many hydroponics retail stores over many years and observed the traffic and the conversation. It is mostly a male clientele and they’re not talking about growing lettuce. This will change over time and these stores will become more family and children friendly.

With the emerging popularity of aquaponics (prior posts), hydroponics is gaining a more family-friendly image. Millions of people will be raising fish and vegetables in home aquaponics systems in the future. Much like the evolution of personal computers and mobile phones, these systems will become more affordable, less complex and user-friendlier. Currently they are not a mass-market product, but I predict they will be.

Back to hydroponics SIPs. These photos reveal what is going on in the hidden zone of a typical sub-irrigated planter. It happens to be a window box SIP that grew lettuce on my fire escape. Obviously, this is a healthy and robust root system. The upper zone in the soil media contains a soil-media root system but look at the mass of white roots that were growing in the water/oxygen chambers. They are “water roots” that have a different cellular structure than "soil roots".

Plants roots are incredibly aggressive in finding water. It is a matter of survival!

Clear SIPs help immeasurably in understanding this. While capillary action is elevating water from the reservoir, the roots are making a beeline down to find it. This is why these systems work so well even when the physical height limitation of capillary action is exceeded.

Only time will tell how affordable aquaponics systems will become. At this time however, various forms of sub-irrigated planter hydroponics represent the best choice for millions of city dwellers around the world.

Photo reveals the inverted (recycled) nursery flat that forms the water & oxygen reservoir. Bottom of fill pipe (recycled water bottle) lower right. The window box is a typical planter found in big box stores. It is too small as demonstrated by the root mass. Wider and half again or twice as deep would be much better.

 

TEDxManhattan Leads the Way About Lead and Good Food

This is a screen shot from the TEDxManattan “Changing the Way We Eat” event held this past Saturday in New York and live streamed to a large audience on the web. The speaker is Paul Lightfoot, CEO of BrightFarms the company that is developing a business installing hydroponic greenhouses on supermarket roofs.

Dollars to donuts Paul did not know that he was standing by a hydroponic lettuce grower in the shape of the TEDx logo. It is also likely that few in the audience did either until the end of the program when this video was shown. Then the lettuce was out of the logo so to speak! Have a look and Tweet away.

The video is also on Vimeo.