Raceways arriving

Lots of cool news..

Firstly, my all-new stainless steel raceways have arrived.  I will be using one for a growbed (gravel filled, with flood and drain cycles)  And the other will be used for DWC (Deep Water Culture) AKA Rafting..

  

Here my father-in-law was somehow talked into spending the hottest part of the day helping to get the stands into the back yard...  Notice the endless patience as he holds the frame up while I am messing around with the camera..

 And here they are.  They are each 2.4m x 200mm x 700mm.  Massive!!!

Notice the filter frames.  The water will enter the raceway on the left, and then move through two separate filter cartridges before entering the raceway proper.  The cartridge frames are shown here.  I have two spares, so every few days I can just swop out the filters for a clean one.  The idea is to filter as much muck out of the water as possible, or else the muck will tend to clog the root systems of the floating plants in the raceway..

As you can see, the plants are doing VERY well...I counted a total of 35 tomatoes on there..    At a harvest average of 500grams each, that will be about 17 kilos of tomatoes!! And we are still growing, with at least twice that number of flowers showing!

nuff said!

This little purple plant is in fact a Mango tree!  I had the pip from a mango in my worm bin (another story altogether), and it germinated in there.  So I stuck it in the growbed and it appears happy as a clam.  Will have to get it its very own growbed soon...

This was once a happy and vibrant sage plant.  And then my dog Lisa decided it might be a lot of fun to maybe rip it out of the pot and leave it on the paving for a day or 2.  By the time I picked it up to get it into the growbed, there was no soil left around the roots.  It was in really bad shape.  The leaves are all dead, but the stem appears green and alive.  Watch this space.  Should be interesting to see how it recovers..

And this is Lisa.  The destroyer of gardens.  And anything else of value.  Also wanted for the theft of hearts..  She is a great dane, and 8 months old.  Lets hope she does not start to get curious about the growbed or any of the plumbing...

Last but not least I have an updated video of the system..  Enjoy!

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