Ok, what the heck is a Vermiponic Garden? It is kind of a cross between a hydroponic garden and a traditional garden. It basically involves planting tanks with composted soil, using solar power to drive a pump for water, and use a rain barrel to collect that water. It is great for growing in areas with very poor soil and a lack of water. Depending on where you live, it could become a dependable source for a year round supply of vegetables for your homestead.
Instructables.com offers the following:
"I'm not able to grow a traditional garden, as we have extremely poor soil, water restrictions, low rain fall, and extreme weather events such as week long heat waves of 45C or 113F which will kill any veggie within hours.
Instructables.com offers the following:
"I'm not able to grow a traditional garden, as we have extremely poor soil, water restrictions, low rain fall, and extreme weather events such as week long heat waves of 45C or 113F which will kill any veggie within hours.
I started this
project about a year ago and at the time it was an experiment to try an address
the above issues, I had never heard of vermiponics, and there is still not a
great deal of info about it. It wasn't until a few weeks ago I found that it
had a name and there are some similar systems out there. Stupidly I didn't take
a lot of photos and it is now July and the middle of winter so the garden
doesn't look that good at the moment. I will up date photos every month for the
next year or so.
At first glance you might think its just a garden in a box,
but there is a little more to it than that. The IBC containers have had the
liner removed from the cage and cut in half. The bottom half is put back in and
the top half is put on top but upside down. Small holes are drilled for
drainage and the bottom have become water storage.
The bottom tanks are joined together with poly pipe and a
solar pump, pumps water to the top storage tank. The top storage tank has a
siphon inside it and that trips off around every half hour in full sun, which
waters the plants. The plants are grown in soil and taste fantastic (no sad
watery acid hydroponic tomatoes here)
The soil in this area is very poor and aqua-phobic ( will
not absorb water) so I use a mixture of
soil, animal manure, lawn clippings, leaves, food scraps,wood ash and a box of
worms to get it started. The worms have gone mad and turned the soil in to rich
dark loam and the plants have thrived.
Below the soil is several layers of shade cloth to keep the
soil out of the layer of gravel which is at the bottom of the top tank and to
provide drainage and a home for microbes. The water then drains into the bottom
tank and the process starts again."
Read the full article: Vermiponic Garden
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