30 Gallon Barrel Grow Beds

[Dan Bartlett]

Has anyone used 30 gallon barrels cut in half lengthwise for grow beds?  Have been reading Sylvia's book and it would seem that they may be too shallow.  Wondering if anyone has used them and if the depth has been a problem.  I can get 30 gallon where I am, but not 55's.

[Leo White Bear]

Dan-

55's are a precious commodity around here also but the 30's are abundant.  I have successfully used them in a "barrel-ponic" system Promoted by Travis Hughely.  They are a bit shallow as you stated but they work great for corn, mints, herbs, mellons (if planting one or two plants), tomatoes are a bit of a stretch but it worked for me.  I am now planting root crops in my system and will wait till the end of season for the results.  For the root crops I'm using a mix of sand, pearlite and vermiculite for the medium.  So far it has been an OK venture, I need to wrap a tighter filter around my medium guard tomorrow.  Plants look good (not great YET).

[Dan Bartlett]

Leo,

Thanks for the info.  I'll give them a go.

[TCLynx]

You can use just about anything as a grow bed.  Just keep in mind the smaller containers mean more plumbing fittings and of course if you over plant too small a grow bed with lots of big or aggressive rooted plants, you may wind up with your smaller beds clogging with roots more often that you like. 

(plant mint on a island raft far far away from anything else.)

But do what you can with what you got.

Now I'm a fan of cutting barrels round the middle rather than the long way since siphons are easier to balance if beds do not vary in volume by depth the way a barrel cut long ways will. and if you cut them round the middle for two round beds you don't have to build cradles for them.  You get a bit more depth but not more surface area so if you are planting bigger plants that over hang the beds anyway, this may be a good thing.  If you need every square inch of surface area because you are planting baby greens, then cut them the long way.

For root crops, cutting the barrel the long way is a good idea too since the roots when the push the media aside, the media will be able to slide up and away while a more straight sided bin is more likely to crack under the pressure of aggressive roots pushing the media out.

[Dan Bartlett]

TC,

Thanks again.

[Dan Bartlett]

TC,

A question on timed flood drain with a indexing valve.  I understand the idea is to run the pump for 15 minutes and then turn it off, the indexing valve then rotates to the next station and then you turn on the pump again for 15 minutes.  I'm planning on expanding and want to use the indexing valve and a timer for 12 grow beds, so 6 stations of 2.  That would run the pump for 15 minutes at a time, then off for 5, then on for 15 etc (trying to run all the FT water within an hour).  Seems like that would be hard on the pump, am I missing something or is there a better way?

Thanks,

[TCLynx]

Yes it is hard on the pump.  Keep in mind that you need a fairly strong pump to operate an indexing valve, they require quite a bit of flow and a bit of pressure, even the gravity modified ones.

What I do is run the pump constant and use a diversion valve to alternate the flow back and forth between two indexing valves.

The diversion valve is a swimming pool diversion valve and is motorized so it doesn't depend on pressure or restrict flow.

However, this may all be overkill if you are talking about 15 gallon grow beds (assuming 30 gallon barrels cut in half) how big is your fish tank gonna be?  Smallest pump I've gotten to operate the gravity modified 1 1/4" indexing valves is between 1000-1200 gallons per hour.  If you want to do true gravity operation you definitely need the diversion valve and header tank with the water surface about 3 feet above the height of the indexing valve.  For true gravity operation, I find the 1 1/2" valve with the gravity modification seems to work better but you need lots of flow.  For low power pump operation the 1 1/4" valve seems to work best with the gravity modification.  If you want to use the 1" valves I would say get a slightly stronger pump.

[Dan Bartlett]

TC,

I was able to get some 55 gallon barrels, so I'll have 8 grow beds with those.  I am using a 275 gallon tote as the fish tank and a 100 gallon sump.  I plan to SLO to the sump tank and put the pump in the sump.  I also got a danner 18 for the pump, so I think it will work with a 1" indexing valve.  I'll look into the diversion valve, would hate to burn up the danner early.

Thanks for your help.

[TCLynx]

Luckily the issue of turning the pump on/off all the time doesn't seem to "burn up" the pump.  It just tends to break the little tiny plastic fins off the impeller.  You can replace the impellers, that costs a lot less than replacing the whole pump.

I would actually recommend you get an extra replacement impeller to keep on hand for a quick swap out (or maybe a whole extra pump if you have the cash.)

I also recommend a CHOP 2 type design since you need the pressure from the pump to operate the indexing valve.  An MD 18 will have plenty of flow to fill a barrel grow bed in only a matter of a few minutes, you will also be able to branch off to provide flow to the fish tank each cycle.

Make sure your stand pipes and drains for the barrel grow beds are sufficiently big to handle the flow once the bed reaches full flood so the bed doesn't overflow.  I usually actually did 1 1/2" stand pipes into 3" combined drains on most of my indexing valve systems.  Seems a bit overkill for barrels but.........

Latter if you add a diversion valve you can have one side of the diversion valve feed the fish tank and the other side feed grow beds and do like a 5 min by 5 min schedule, and you probably still get enough pressure to have a small branch off to the fish tank on the indexing valve side (be sure that branch has a ball valve) so you will essentially get constant flow through the fish tank though the amount of flow would fluctuate.

Using the indexing valves does mean more pipe.

Here is a diagram giving an idea how one could set up a basic CHOP 2 type indexing valve set up.

[Dan Bartlett]

Tanks!

[Dan Bartlett]

TC,

Then it seem the timmer goes on the diversion valve, is that correct?
 
TCLynx said:

Luckily the issue of turning the pump on/off all the time doesn't seem to "burn up" the pump.  It just tends to break the little tiny plastic fins off the impeller.  You can replace the impellers, that costs a lot less than replacing the whole pump.

I would actually recommend you get an extra replacement impeller to keep on hand for a quick swap out (or maybe a whole extra pump if you have the cash.)

I also recommend a CHOP 2 type design since you need the pressure from the pump to operate the indexing valve.  An MD 18 will have plenty of flow to fill a barrel grow bed in only a matter of a few minutes, you will also be able to branch off to provide flow to the fish tank each cycle.

Make sure your stand pipes and drains for the barrel grow beds are sufficiently big to handle the flow once the bed reaches full flood so the bed doesn't overflow.  I usually actually did 1 1/2" stand pipes into 3" combined drains on most of my indexing valve systems.  Seems a bit overkill for barrels but.........

Latter if you add a diversion valve you can have one side of the diversion valve feed the fish tank and the other side feed grow beds and do like a 5 min by 5 min schedule, and you probably still get enough pressure to have a small branch off to the fish tank on the indexing valve side (be sure that branch has a ball valve) so you will essentially get constant flow through the fish tank though the amount of flow would fluctuate.

Using the indexing valves does mean more pipe.

Here is a diagram giving an idea how one could set up a basic CHOP 2 type indexing valve set up.

[TCLynx]

yes if you put a diversion valve into the system then that is what gets the timer. However, you will need a special timer/controller to operate the diversion valve since you can't simply plug the diversion valve into a simple on/off repeat cycle timer or 15 minute increment timer.

The diversion valves are 24 volt AC with three wires running to them.  A 24 volt AC sprinkler system power adapter can provide the power to them but there needs to be electronics that will send voltage down the correct wires according to the timing.  Want the valve to be in position A, then need to make the circuit between wire 1 and 2.  Want the valve to go to position B then you need the circuit to be made between wire 1 and 3.