The Cheap Vegetable Gardener

Simple and cheap homemade ebb and flow hydroponics system

15.3 years ago cheap, ebb and flow, hydroponics

Though not my first hydroponic system this is is definitely a little more complicated than my last attempt of an fogger system created last year.  This time I decided to go with an Ebb and Flow system, where the concept it pretty simple, flood the planting area with water nutrients and let it drain, wait a defined amount of time and then repeat.  For this build I had a few requirements:

• Must be inexpensive: Hey this is the cheap vegetable gardener site
• Must be small: I have a limited space to grow and nutrients can be expensive and given what I am growing is legal don’t really need $20 basil
• Must be safe from flooding: Though this is running in my garage, I really don’t want to come in with 10/20 gallons of water/nutrients on my floor.
• Could be adapted for alternate hydroponic system.

Given these requirements, this is what I came up with and how I built it:

Materials

• 18 gallon opaque Rubbermaid container (happened to have one of these around
• 5 gallon basin — SLUGIS box from Ikea ($5.99)
• vinyl tape (plumbers tape)
• 1 inch hole saw
• 1 inch threaded (diameter) to 3/4 PVC adapter
• 3/4 inch threaded (diameter) to 1/2 in hose adapter
• 2 3/4 inch PVC caps
• Cheap pond/fountain pump (100 GPH)
• 1 foot of 1/2 inch plastic tubing
• 2 foot 3/4 inch PVC pipe (only need couple inches but smallest length I could buy)
• aquarium/food grade silicon (optional I used this to ensure very watertight seal but found not necessary)

Construction

Take the 5 gallon basin and drill two 1 inch holes in the middle of each side.  One whole should be drilled from the top and the other should be drilled from the bottom.�

Take both threaded adapters and apply liberal amount of vinyl tape.

Screw in the 1/2 inch hose adapter from the bottom with just barely enough clearance to pop through.  When the pump stops the water will drain through this same hole.

For the overflow pipe, screw in the 3/4 inch PVC adapter in from the top until hand tight.

Take both caps and drill in a bunch of holes slightly smaller than your media.  The basic idea is you don’t want some Hydroton clay balls falling into your pump or reservoir.

Cut about 2 inches of 3/4 PVC pipe and attach to overflow and top with PVC cap with dozen or so holes in it.

Lastly attach the 1/2 plastic tube to your pump and place everything on top of your 18 gallon Rubbermaid tub (which fits perfectly and is very sturdy)  Fill with water nutrients and hook up your water pump to a 24 hour timer (or grow box controller)

Here is the Ebb & Flow system in action, as you can see very simple but very cheap and versatile.

Tags: cheap, growbox, led, outdoor plants, vegetables

LED/Christmas light projects

15.3 years ago cheap, LEDs

Just a friendly reminder to pick up some discounted LED or non-LED Christmas lights for some of my previous projects

Christmas LED Grow Box

Basically take a old Rubbermaid container and drill some holes and insert lights and you have your own Christmas light LED grow box.  This worked great last year to hold my seedlings until they were ready to move into the bigger grow box in the garage.  Here are some posts on construction and updates:

Cheap LED Light and Grow Box
Christmas light LED grow box – Update #1
Christmas light LED grow box – Update #2

Supplemental Christmas LED Light

Similar idea to the LED grow box, though used in addition to your normal grow lights for a little additional red wavelength light, see posts below for complete construction directions:

Make your own supplemental LED grow light

Heating row tunnels (or grow box) with non-LED lights

Replacing your old Christmas lights with LEDs to save on your electricity bill?  You can use your old regular old Christmas lights to heat your row tunnels to increase the temperature by about 10 degrees to help get your plants out a ahead of schedule.  I have been using some of mine in my grow box to help during some of our colder nights this winter.

Heating row tunnels and grow box with Christmas lights

Tags: cheap, garden seeds, grow lights, growbox, led, outdoor plants, vegetables

Giveaway: $1354.83 worth of fresh produce

15.3 years ago giveaway, harvest, seed saving, seeds

Ok there is a little catch, you have to plant the seeds and grow the produce yourself and have perfect weather and unlimited space to do it.  Over the past season I have intentionally harvested more seeds than I needed just for the purpose of sharing them so here is your first chance to get some of CVG’s seed stash.  This should be a good addition to your current selection of seeds or great for a person just starting out next year.

The harvest values were calculated using my most profitable vegetables in your garden post, so numbers are estimated but I tried to be as accurate as possible.  Below are also links to my harvesting techniques of most of the “Self” seeds below (just realized I never wrote up cilantro and radish seed harvesting so expect to see these soon).

CVG’s Seed Stash (Variety Pack)

As always just enter a comment and a winner will be randomly selected using my patented “CVG’s Contest Winner Pickorama” on Jan 1st, 2010.  This contest is open to everyone inside/outside the United States pending any export/import of regulations of sending seeds, which I am still doing some research on.

Tags: cheap, cilantro, garden seeds, outdoor plants, pepper plants, tomato plants, vegetables

EcoSmart Garden Insect Giveaway: Winner

15.3 years ago giveaway

Using the “CVG’s Contest Winner Pickorama” it has determined that =*N*= is the winner of their choice of an earth friendly product from EcoSmart.  Please contact my using the link in the header with the product you want and you contact information and I will pass the info to EcoSmart.  Thanks for everyone that entered and for those who didn’t win check in the next couple hours for another exciting CVG giveaway.

Tags: cheap, garden seeds, vegetables

Hometown Seeds giveaway, and the winners are…

15.3 years ago giveaway, seeds

I believe Plato was credited with the quote, “Necessity, who is the mother of invention.”  As the Cheap Vegetable Gardener I prefer, “Laziness, who is the mother of invention.”  With laziness and some boredom on the bus while riding to work with my laptop this motivated me to create “CVG’s Contest Winner Pickorama.”  Basically I pass in the comment RSS feed and it extracts any duplicates (or my name if it exists) and by using some complex super top secret logic to pick the winner(s).
Now you can see it in action now and see if you were a winner:

For those without Superman vision the winners are: Trailshome, Red Icculus, and David (There were two David’s so be sure to click the link to make sure you were the right one)
If you are a winner please click on the “Contact” link at the top of the page with your name/mailing address and your seeds will be sent out shortly.  For those who did not win this time, no worries I have at least one more seed giveaway coming up.

Tags: cheap, garden seeds, vegetables

My new blog “ Going Homemade

15.3 years ago Uncategorized

Along with gardening, I also have a passion for cooking/baking.  I have had many adventures I wanted to share but didn’t exactly fit under “The Cheap Vegetable Gardener” so I have started Going Homemade. 

Though I have been spending much of my life eating most of my meals from bags and boxes, I am making a commitment to bravely try homemade versions of my personal favorites as well as teach my daughters that not all meals come from Costco/Trader Joe’s.  So far, everything tastes much better, healthier, and I am even saving a little money according to my calculations.

Tags: cheap, vegetables