Aquaponics is a closed
water cycle usually through inert material to grow plants and fish, Hydroponics is a closed water cycle (usually with chemicals and intert material) to grow plants. Soiloponics is a closed water cycle with soil. This type of thing seems not to have been tried much. I have been doing closed loop with soil for almost 2 years and I feel that a lot of the benefit that people talk about in the other systems is not anything particularly good about the aqua or hydro "ponics" but rather, it comes from the oxygenation of the
roots and the moving of nutrients to and heat to and waste products away from the roots. CIRCULATION is the key! In most soils it is a bit dormant. There is no circulation so everything is comatose. (Like a person if their blood circulation stopped) but add a drip of water and things change. It becomes very different. Things speed up. I have been testing "pallet gardens" with a gentle dripping water circulation for a couple of years now. One big surprise is how little water it is using. I think water all day makes it cooler so it does not evaporate water away so quickly? My reservoir size is about 5 gallons usually and that is for about 16 sq ft of garden box. So I have tested this for 2 years and the main problem has been to spread the water across a decent size area, I did it in 2 ways, a "delta" and a "flip flop". Here is the ebb and flow version being tested
That one is like sub irrigated except that you can pump air into a chamber under the planter and the air "pumps" water out of the chamber and up into the soil. First time I did it there were no plants in and I killed a bunch of slugs and millipedes by drowning them! Might be the way to deal with
root aphids too! Anyways, I have a playlist about the pallet gardens too. I will see if there is any response. Brian
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