Gardening-projects

Cucumbers

Cucumbers are likely the thing that my family goes through the most. Having a steady stream of them growing at home was a no-brainer. They seem to do better in a shadier spot, but that may have more to do with the location since they require full sun. We grow these in a raised bed along with tomatoes and kale.

Summer Squash

The squash is in full sun and provides its own shade with these massive leaves. These are also in a raised bed and grow alongside zucchini and corn.

Strawberries

The strawberries are in pots around the garden to minimize the exposure to bugs. They are delicious and we are not the only ones who think so. Grasshoppers, earwigs, ants, and many other critters love them.

Hydroponic System

The system holds 6 plants in each of the totes, and I gave each a different layout. I wanted to see which of the two would do better when looking at root growth. These are 17 gallon totes filled with 15 gallons a piece. I wanted something that would have a decent amount of thermal mass since it gets pretty hot during the daytime. I will be attempting to build a chiller for the tanks over the next few weeks and will be adding a page for it where I will cover it in more detail.

Root System

The system holds 6 plants in each of the totes, and I gave each a different layout. I wanted to see which of the two would do better when looking at root growth. These are 17 gallon totes filled with 15 gallons apiece. I wanted something that would have a decent amount of thermal mass since it gets pretty hot during the daytime. I will be attempting to build a chiller for the tanks over the next few weeks and will be adding a page for it where I will cover it in more detail.

Surface Agitation

Agitating the water is a method that I can use to introduce oxygen into the mix. If the levels of oxygen are too low, I will be suffocating them. From all sources I have looked over so far, I have yet to find a single one that says suffocating your plants is good. I am gonna go out on a limb and assume that suffocating them is bad. I considered getting a pump that would attach to an air stone, but I would need two of them. If I end up needing them, I will revisit the idea.

The End Goals

The main point to all this is not only the great food you can get from a garden. My love for great food was only half of the interest as I wanted a project that I could integrate with the skills I have learned. The project is going to consist of two parts. A system for the hydroponics, and another that can add wireless functionality. This will be useful when thinking to the separated modules and obtaining the data from them.

I needed a good plan if this was to succeed, and I detail the process below.

Micro-Controllers

As with most of the projects that I mess with, I am using an Arduino to make this easier to monitor. Temperature and humidity are the no-brainers here, but I will also be using some relays to control the pumps and the chiller. I have also been experimenting with adding some wireless modules for sending data to a master Arduino. The idea here will be to have a hub I can look at by my desk with a simple interface.

Sensors

Temperature and humidity in air, in soil, light intensity, all of these are useful values to know. This is especially true when we see so much of the prevailing wisdom of horticulture in Utah matters less and less each passing year. Climate change is giving us earlier heat in the year and modeling the data over a time will help me prepare for problems early on.

Matching the data to good harvest is the overall goal to see if I can make growing large yields in a small area sustainable and scalable.