New home gardens 2015 - part 1

Here is the garden on the front porch of our new home.  Details will follow about the watering system but for now.. be warned that it is called a "loop-back" system.  The source of water is once again, the tank of a toilet.  In this home the bathroom is one story up so there is a nice flow of water possible.

Autogardens mid-June 2013

AutoGardens (24 pots in 6 racks) along the street in Nyack NY.  No need for water controllers yet

View from other end of racks seen above

New style of racks under construction.

Single rack (4 pots) in Valley Cottage, NY

Racks at Camp Yomi - Rockland NY.  Note 11-gallon tank at the left.

Second set of racks at Camp Yomi

AutoGardens (96 pots in 24 racks) at Nyack Community Garden

AutoGardens (24 pots in 6 racks) on plant stand on patio.

AutoGardens (12 pots in 3 racks) in Brooklyn NY

Almost-ripe tomatoes on autogarden plant in Greensboro North Carolina.

Autogardens 2013-January -Wintertime gardens

What follow are a few photos of the wintertime gardens and the use of my new water controller design 

This autogarden is designed primarily for the starting of seeds.  It consists of a 3-level, 12-fluorescent lamp rack of 12 trays (yellow and hidden behind the horizontal bar).  A constant level of water is maintained in each tray and wicks descend through holes in the green foam covers.  The wicks form an always-damp pad on the top of the tray cover and the half-high downspout sections have their own sets of wicking material.  The water controllers (circular devices with yellow hose sticking out of it) are constructed of a piece of 2" PVC pipe, the corresponding cap for the PVC pipe, the barrel of a disposable pen, a circular disk of 1" thick foamboard that slips inside the PVC pipe, and a 1" square piece of foam weather stripping that is stuck to the top of the foam cylinder.

View of the top rack.  Also shown is the pvc plumbing that directs water from the reservoir to the water controllers.

Shown here is a window version of the auto garden.  Note the reservoir with the pink level indicator.  Plain nursery trays (black) are used to hold the water for the wicks

Better view of the wick pad

Large sized autogarden.  This is the design that will be used outside this summer.  The racks are four feet long and one foot wide.  The controller is in the middle in the back and the reservoir is on the right side of the photo. With this type of setup, no wicks are used.  The plants are sitting in about a half inch of water.  The photo shows four plants but the versions that will be going into the garden plots will have either three or four pots depending of the ultimate size of the plants being grown.

AutoGardens - Float valve design video

[Looking for recent posts? See below on this page]

New float valve design.

This one has the advantages over the old version of being smaller and easily adjusted.

AutoGardens-late July 2012 - Video of the Home AutoGardens plumbing.

Home Autogardens video


You will see the siphon tube from the toilet tank, the hose that goes slightly downhill to the upper level autogardens (vegetables), and the lower level autogardens (flowers)

AutoGardens - Mid July 2012- Goodbye Archimedes!

Goodbye Archimedes!

[see photos near the end of this blog]

While constructing the 13 or so AutoGarden systems for the testing this year, I couldn't shake the feeling that even though I had simplified the system considerably, there must be an even better way.  About a dozen different ideas were jostling around in my brain and it was only in the middle of a sleepless night that I came up with my latest idea.  It is much simpler than the Archimedes water lifter, is easy to make, and requires no motors or batteries.  In the last section of this blog I will describe a setup that should water my plants ALL SUMMER automatically.

If you have ever heard of a pinch valve you already know about the key element of the new system.  A pinch valve is a piece of flexible tubing that allows water to flow through it.  Upon pinching the tubing, the water flow stops.  Simple rubber hose makes great pinch valves.

The new idea in the AutoGardens is the use of pinch valves to act as float valves and maintain a layer of water about 2 to 3 cm in the tray.  The source of the water is a 32 gallon garbage can filled with water and a siphon tube to a horizontal 1/2" PVC pipe.  At each AutoGarden rack, a fitting is located that branches off the 1/2 inch PVC pipe with a small length of rubber tubing.  The rubber tubing goes to the float valve in the tray.

The float valve is made from a piece of 1 inch thick styrofoam board about a square foot in area.  The shape doesn't matter much.  On top of the piece of foamboard is a 5/16" piece of PVC board that serves as a stiffener of the foamboard and the bottom surface of the pinch valve.  The rubber tubing is placed on top of the PVC board and a small piece of 5/16 inch PVC board is held above the tubing.  The board is held in a vertical position and the bottom edge is sanded down to form a fairly sharp edge.  The sharpness of the edge focuses the thrust of the board into a narrow line and minimizes the amount of floating styrofoam needed to shut the valve.

The final element in the system is a wooden beam about 1" x 1" and 24" long that straddles the tray and holds the vertical  PVC board.

Construction of the valve is very easy and uses simple tools.  One big advantage of the new system is that the  water tanks are no longer part of the rack.  Also the trays no longer have to have sections cut out for the Archimedes water lifter mechanism.  They can be simple 24" by 72" trays that are water tight and have side walls two inches high.  No bottom drains are required.

Pinch valve type float valve.  The pink foamboard floats on the water in the tray.  When the water level rises, the plastic board pushes the rubber tube up into the stationary "knife edge" and closes off the water flow.  When the water level goes down again (because of evaporation or uptake from the plant pots) the valve opens.

Connection of the rubber hose to the horizontal feeder tube.  I used a standard coupling fitting, drilled a hole in its middle and then pressed a small length of copper tubing into the hole.  

The connections of the autogarden trays to the garbage can.  

Last note
For my system at my home I have eliminated the garbage can and use a siphon tube that connects the tank of my toilet to the autogarden system.  As water is used by the autogarden racks the toilet tank is constantly refilled so there is no worry about the system running dry.  I anticipate the system should run ALL SUMMER without any concern that the plants will dry out.

AutoGardens -Late June 2012 - First AutoGarden in Brooklyn! Status photos

Brooklyn gets its first AutoGarden!

AutoGarden rack being prepared for loading into van.  Components (left to right) are bottom support layer, water tank, tray support layer, tray (with float switch, Archimedes water lifter, cover), tray cover (with holes for buckets and float switch)

Installed Brooklyn AutoGarden at 23 Seeley Street.  Rear row is vegetables, flowers are in front.

View from other side of Brooklyn AutoGarden

Status Photos

Today's harvest from seven containers of beans.  This is the  second picking and  probably reflects half of the total yield. Note value on scale - 516 grams

Nyack Community garden plot.  24 June 2012.  

Ripe blueberries

Ripe red raspberries