I’ve pulled my grow bed apart and gotten it stored away in the loft.  I’ve put the hydroton in barrels and buckets for the winter.  I’ve still got to pull the grow bed frame and cover the tank.  Next year I’ll try and find a nice clean 55 gallon drum (plastic) for storing the hydroton.  That’ll let me put it all in a single container.  The 30 gallon drum I’ve got just isn’t big enough on its own.

Yesterday I rebuilt my aquaponic system to accommodate an additional grow bed.  The single tray I used last year was just not enough.  I have switched out the gravel I used last year for hydroton (expanded clay balls) so (theoretically) the beds will be light enough to move inside when the weather grows too cold to sustain growing.  A single bed filled with gravel would require four muscle men, a pygmy goat and some special equipment.  That so won’t work for portable beds.  With hydroton I should be able to lift the bed onto a rolling cart for transport indoors.

Now that I’ve got two beds to flood, last year’s system won’t work as is.   Two beds means at least twice the water volume.  I will gang together two 5-gallon buckets to make up the required flush volume.  By ganging buckets together using a short length of 1½ pipe and tee-less connectors, I can supply the volume for both beds using my existing fill and drain system bucket.

So far I’ve got one tray filled and water cycling through but I have more to do before I’m ready to consider planting. I need to cut new piping for the drain system.  I want the system to flash-fill the beds so I don’t have to rely on an auto-siphon for drainage.  That reduces the complexity of the system and reduces the parts needed to get additional beds attached to the system.

The tank’s water temperature is still below 55° [brrr] but if I’m going to get a head start on the season, I need to get my beds functioning mechanically now.  To get the beds up to temperature a little more quickly, I’m thinking of installing a solar water heating system for the tank.  We’ll see if I manage to get it done before the tank gets up to temp.

I’ve gotten four meals of lettuce out of my growbed so far.  I don’t have a lot of lettuce in the bed . . . I should have a lot more.  I’m supplementing with store bought lettuce.

I found a place to get hydroton in Olympia.  It was max expensive, $40 a bag when the going rate is closer to $28.  I bought two bags.  That should be enough to fill both growbeds with a bit left over.

I pulled the gravel out of the wall gutter and replaced it with hydroton.  I also trimmed the heck out of a bunch of plants in the grow wall to allow some slower growing things a little bit of daylight.  I put some of the trimmings in the gutter along with a couple of sprouting grapefruit seeds.

The orchid in the wall is not doing well.  I don’t know if it will recover or not.  Time will tell.  I should have moved it ages ago.

I long ago faced my addiction to plants and decided it was not a bad thing.