Last night I finally installed the rest of the drip wall in the back of my bigger rig. Where I originally planned out 48 bays, I had to settle with 44, because I forgot I planted the blueberry bush in an awkward position (so I’ll be training it to grow upwards in the place where the bay would be.

The plumbing was tricky, since I didn’t have all the parts I needed (and I learned on the fly a number of curious properties of hydrodynamics) but each set of grow beds is now fed from 5 ports on the spray bar on top made out of 1/2″ CPVC and 1/4″ tubing.

Three of the ports feed the three drip towers in the back of the bed (with one exception), where two are routed to he front corners of the bed (where I may install some additional drip towers, facing inwards, too, to catch the wasted light). Once parts come in, I’ll be making all of them more efficient by feeding them from their centers with a CPVC T-coupling rather than on the ends.

Successful plants to take to the the drip towers as of now include broccoli, chard, and one spaghetti squash (on the bottom, which I’m going to train to dangle over the edge of the shelf). More seedlings are on their way, growing Kratky-style in plastic containers until they’re large enough to survive the transplant.

It’s also time to do some cable management and clean things up a bit.

Peace,
-S