Mart Hale

I have been experimenting with sweet potatoes and strawberries in a grow tower design I got from Thingaverse....

I have found that starting cuttings in this design is just wonderful if you use it in a shaded area.

Once I got the PH right I am now seeing stellar results,   I am using this method to multiply my plants with a large root mass.

I started with PLA ( which i will use only indoors )   and now have about mastered Petg.      

I have been thinking about making a mold  with the 3d printer  from silicone that I could then pour clay into and cast out these in  mass.

Lauren Ritz wrote:Interesting. How do the roots get to the water without damaging the worm-bin/soil layer? I have plastic netting in my worm bin and always have worms and worm castings fall down below the netting.

Condensation...    the water is trapped under the soil, so the condensation causes the soil to stay moist.      I have these bins outside so rain also gets in, I have holes cut in the bottom so only 3 inches of water stay in the box bin.          I had the water level too high at the start of the year and the plants suffered,  but when I made it lower the plants recovered.      

I believe you have to "tune"   the system for what  works for you, or the plants you are growing.      With time the system is getting better.

I created a group on Mewe for such experiments.

After researching the Kratky method I found the first few systems had soil.......

So  I decided to make a hybrid system.      Soil with an air gap down to the bottom where water / nutrients would be....     The soil is a a worm bin,    kept off the water with plastic netting then followed by a layer of leaves,   then soil,  then worms in with kitchen scraps.      I am finding a good mixture of carbon to greens is useful,    getting the water level just right very important.      

I have moved away from soiless because the soil gives nutrients the hydroponics just does not have.....

I do have some soliess for starting cuttings, I use a Tower Garden setup for getting the cuttings going.     I have 3d printed my tower garden, and it is doing great for getting roots started.

I did this with the element out of an old bread machine and I heated water with it.

You have to match the current of the panels to the coil for the best results  I added and took away  panels till I got the best results for the coil I had.  

I did not pursue this, The big down side is if you remove the electrical connection with DC there is a large spark, I did this with jumper cables for my test.




There are devices out there that are sold that match the coil to the solar panels to yield max energy from the panels.        Good info on them on Youtube.

This was so much fun.    I need to enclose the post better, but it is working very well for me.

Progress.

https://rumble.com/vp9o0d-forced-air-sand-stove..html

I was able to get 3 1/2 gal of water to starting boiling in 32 min with this.

I removed the chimney and decided to use a fan for forced air.     Slowly this is getting better and better.

Goto Amazon, find the product you want.


Next bypass Amazon connect with the company directly and buy from them.      Use Amazon to get the rating system, and the best product then bypass them by going either to the company direct or buy off Ebay.

This is how I approached it, I have stopped buying from Amazon for my own reasons.

Mart

It would be interesting to know if your device is creating micro  / nano bubbles.    

You can test for them by using a laser and point it thru the water.

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r4rJKypLijA  

My sand castle rocket stove. 🙂 Dirt cheap ... After watching a video of a Decota fire hole setup I saw a way to make a rocket stove to burn trash or wet wood. I love this as it allows me to make many prototypes quickly and test different designs. I use old scrap metal to keep the sand from caving in on the top and I dug a trench 10 inches wide, 2 feet deep, and about 5 foot long. From my initial test I found I need to make the hole less deep so that I can get more heat up to the top grill plate.


I was using the sand to insulate the pot....      

My next changes to this is to put the pot in direct line of the tub chamber so the hot gases have to flow around the pot to get out the chimney.      If this works well I may scale up to a 100 gal propane tank in direct line of the flow of hot gases.

Advantes of this is I can put a fan to increase burn rates without fear of burning up the chamber,  I may remove the  8 foot tall pipe and use the force air of fan to heat the pot and see how that works...

I sawed up a tree and I decided I would burn the branches in a pit to make biochar.      It was great I piled on and piled on branches and the charcoal was piling up.    except the heat was so intense that the leaves were being picked up and landed on my insect netting burning holes in it from about 6 feet away.        Slow and steady far better than fast furious and starting more fires.