After having done the supports for several bucket beds in two sections of shelving in the greenhouse, I turned my attention to the section of shelving that will handle the hydroponic gardens. The two main units are a couple of old units I made probably near 20 years ago out of PVC pipe and were made to handle 2 liter soda bottles. Each unit is capable of handling 11 individual planters. These two setups will be modified to use larger PVC pipes with reducer pipes to go from the 1" pipe up to something larger. Anyway, in order to support these two assemblies, I made more support boards with 2x6's like I did in the other areas. Using the smaller boards to "tie" the ends of the boards to the sides of the shelf boards, I got a pair of boards screwed down for each HPG. I had to space the boards apart so the two rows in the garden assembly would be centered over each board, allowing me to secure the pipe assembly with conduit/pipe straps/brackets. With two pairs of these support boards in place I was able to set up the old HPG assemblies. As stated before, to secure the HPG assemblies to the 2x6 boards I used conduit straps to hold the units down. Some of the straps I had on hand were double sided where I can use a screw on either side to hold the piece down while some were just one sided. I managed to get three straps over each assembly to ensure a decent securing of the units to the boards so they won't shift around. The next thing is getting a small set up started for the other form of hydroponic garden, and that is the one that uses 6" PVC pipe, much like the latest version of hydroponic garden. If you don't remember, that setup involves a couple of lengths of 6" pipe with large holes cut along the pipe and spaced apart by several inches. Each hole holds a 12oz plastic cup that serves as a planter. Pipe fittings threaded into holes in the pipe allow for plant solution to be pumped into one pipe, fill up to a fixed level where the outlet line allows overflow to flow into the 2nd pipe, which then does the same, flowing the excess from its outlet out and back down to the reservoir. Anyway, I happened to have a length of 6" pipe sitting on the shelves where I keep the larger PVC pipe and scrap wood. I dragged this section of pipe over to the greenhouse and marked the center point on the pipe and cut the pipe in half. Surprisingly, the two halves were actually of a length that allowed them to fit rather well in the area I wanted to put the pipe HPG's in place. There's plenty of room around the ends of the pipes without pushing anything out of the way or butting up against something else. Again I assembled two more 2x6 support board assemblies to go in the opening to the right of the first set of HPG gardens and support boards. I lined the boards up with the pipe in place to get the spacing right enough that there would be even spacing from the ends of the pipes to the boards. Marking these points I secured the support boards in place and set the pipes on top just to fully see how the pipes would sit. Satisfied I just beat the serious rain that had started just as I was wrapping things up. I was able to get the boards done and start cleaning up just before the really hard rain picked up but at least now its just a matter of adding some small pieces of 2x4 to help hold the 6" pipes stationary at the right spacing from one another so I could further finish the whole garden assembly knowing that everything is more or less permanently situated where I want it. The last section of shelving in the greenhouse I really want to be able to set up some half drum beds but the obvious obstacle is finding a drum I can chop in half to use in this setup. I'll have to see before I can really move forward with wrapping up the assembly of all the planters in the greenhouse but if not, I can move on to other aspects of the greenhouse like running some light electrical and plumbing within as well as the overhead tubing I wanted to install for the sake of holding up trellises among other things. More to come....
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