Comment

Comment by Jesse Hull on October 18, 2011 at 11:18am

I really like growing with dutch buckets.  Peppers performed especially well in them.  I like that there's always a small amount of water held in the bottom as a buffer, in case the pump fails.

Without knowing what you're planning to grow, I'll add that these tomato plants didn't get to go as far as they could have (being indeterminate varieties), as the roots eventually clogged the 1/2" drain.  One day I came in and the water was pouring over on two of the buckets.  When I pulled this crop down, the root ball on these plants was so tight, I had to use an enzyme solution to break it down before I could re-claim the LECA media.

But that conveys at least one downside to these.  Once the media is put in, there's no way to access the drain tube that gets inserted into the interior of the bucket, and because that drain is u-shaped it's difficult to remove the blockage from the outside of the bucket as well.  

 

Comment by Sahib Punjabi on October 18, 2011 at 5:59am

Nice Jessi,

 

I am about to use theses Dutch Buckets in my Hybrid Aquaponics system :-)

 

God bless