Hello goliath07,
I don't know what part of Nevada you live in, and/or what the climate will be like for you this winter. But if you have a big yard, have you considered building a hoop house/high tunnel type greenhouse? It's basically just a PVC or wood frame with 6mil plastic covering it. You wouldn't even need to take up the grass, just build it right on the grass and take it with you when you leave. You can build it big enough for the hydroponic systems to grow the tomato's, raspberry's and strawberry's in, or build separate ones for each. They will be much easier to keep the plants warm in during winter. Here are a few links to some to give you some ideas.
How to build My 50 Dollar Greenhouse » The Door Garden
FREE plans of PVC pipe structures, greenhouse, cold frame, furniture fittings
http://www.pvcplans.com/ArchGrnHouse.pdf
M170 High Tunnel Tomato Production | University of Missouri Extension
The only plants that don't work well in hydroponics that I know of are mushrooms. You just need to take into consideration the size of the full grown plant, as well as other considerations like water consumption, root mass, lighting, water delivery, temp and humidly etc.. Then decide on the number of plants you want to grow, the type of system that best fits their needs, and build the system to fit those needs and the space you have to work with. You can even grow full grown trees hydroponically if you waqnted to, they do that at Epcot.
It sounds like your wanting to grow crops to be more self sufficient, as well as not needing to spend so much money buying produce/food. If so, and it were me, I would start by doing a few things.
1. Make a list of all the crops/produce that you use the most of, as well as the quantities you go through. Then you can see how much your spending on it each week. As well as need to grow.
2. Once you have a list of all the produce you use/want to grow, then prioritize the list of crops in terms of money spent on each.
3. Then take the prioritized list of crops and sort them into size categories of small, medium, and large plants.
4. Make a list of how many plants you would need to grow in order to make enough produce for you.
5. Then in your case I would also sort them into "above ground" or "root" crops because you want to grow celery and beats. And what the heck, because you plan so many varieties, I would also sort them into bush plants or vine plants, because you can make use of the space differently if their vine plants.
Once you know which plants will save you the most money, as well as how many you need to grow to make it worth it, you can I take stock of all the available space you have to work with, and work out what will fit best where. Draw it out on paper making it sure it's to scale. I generally use blank paper, and make my own graph paper out of it. I make mine so each 1/2 centimeter equals one square foot. I attached an example of one I did. Once you have the space drawn out to scale on graph paper, just make copies of it so you don't need to do it again.
Now you can draw the systems and plants in the space to see what fits best where. Of coarse draw them out to scale too, if a tomato plant is a bush variety and grows to 4 feet tall, it will be about 4 feet wide as well. So in the scale drawing each of them will take up at least 4 square feet. Smaller plants will take up less space. But if you know how many plants you need to grow, how big they get, you know about how much space it will take up. And you can place them in different spots, as well as make adjustments without spending a penny to visualize it. The only thing is you need to be realistic in your layout, because if not, what happens in reality wont be what your drawing showed. If not you'll wind up with problems like overcrowding, plants not getting enough lighting or uneven lighting. As well as not having room to maneuver around your crops to do regular maintenance, fix problems and harvest your crops.
Once you know the best place to put your plants, just design the
hydroponic system to best fit the space your going to put them. In the case of vine plants like cucumber that you want to grow, it's a large plant, but it's a vine. You could create a trough
drip system, or use a series of buckets along a wall for the roots. Then build a trellis along the vertical wall for the vine to grow on. I would expect the foliage and trellis to take up 2-3 feet from the wall. So in my drawing of the space I would make it show cucumber plants growing 4 feet out from along the wall.
Quote:
|
I think the question I have now is, what is the best bang for buck?
|
The simple answer is high value crops like tomatoes, peppers, strawberry's cucumbers etc. are generally what commercial growers grow hydroponically because they can produce the largest profits overall. Except for lettuce which isn't a high value crop, but the fast turnover rate for the space (going from seed to sale in 6 weeks), makes it a valuable crop. What's the best bang for the buck for you won't be the same for me. That's why you should make the list of the produce you use, and how much you use and spend on each.
For instance you may go through a lot of cucumbers, but not me. I wouldn't consider growing cilantro because I don't use much, and it's cheep at the store. On the other hand you may use it every day and go through $10 a week on it. It's a fast growing plant, and regenerates when you cut some to use. So just two to four plants (depending on how much you use) in a system that is probably growing other herb plants as well would be a good idea ("bang for the buck"" for you. Another example is tomato's are expensive at the store, and I use them every week. "But what's the best bang for the buck?" How many tomato plants to grow? And how much money do I have invested in the system growing it? If I could grow another crop as well like cucumbers and/or melons in the same system too, all using the same
pump and reservoir. That's better bang for the buck than growing three crops in three separate systems, and using three pumps, three timers, and three reservoir. That's three crops for the price of one. But only useful if I actually use the produce, and have the space/place to grow the plants to full size. That's where matching plant sizes, as well as what can be grown together (similar plant types)in the same system is a better bang for the buck.
Witch brings me to another point, that is don't worry too much about what each crops
nutrient needs are. Your not trying to sell perfect plants at the market. What is important is growing similar plants in the same system. If your growing tomatoes you'll want to grow other continuously fruiting plants with it like melons, cucumbers, strawberry's, peppers etc. If your growing a non flowering crop like lettuce, than it can be paired with other non flowering plants. But if you tried to grow both fruiting and non fruiting plants in the same system, then one crop will suffer more. Because you would need to mix the
nutrients basically for either a fruiting crop or a vegetative crop. But on the other hand you may not even notice a difference if they were similar size plants, and you tried mixing the nutrients in the middle (typical for continuously fruiting plants).
Also typically you'll want to grow the same size crops that were started at the same time together for best results as well. Example: even in a system that is only growing tomato's, larger tomato plants will need a full strength nutrient solution, and smaller can tomato plants can do fine on 1/2-1/3 strength nutrient solution. Also larger tomato plants will will use the water and nutrients faster than the smaller ones will, making reservoir size more important. So growing them using the same reservoir could be a problem, if you mix it light it wont be strong enough for the large tomatoes, and if you mix it full strength it might be to strong for the small plants until they get big enough. Same as even though strawberry's are continuously fruiting, tomato plants are much larger, and use the nutrients and water in the reservoir at different rates. So unless the reservoir is large enough, and/or you change the nutrient solution often enough that could be a problem.
Think about it this way, you don't want to buy a different hydroponic nutrient for every crop. You should be able to grow everything fine with just two nutrient types. One for continuously fruiting plants, and one for vegetative plants. Jr peters has a nutrient for herbs that I'm sure will be fine for all your herbs, as well as likely the kale and other non fruiting plants. It's the "
Jack’s Professional 16-4-17 Hydro FeED," I have some myself for growing my herbs. Here is a link to the page, they have nutrients for fruiting plants as well.
Buy Hydroponics - J. R. Peters Inc. Fertilizer Products And Services
Another economical nutrient I like and have had great success using on both fruiting plants as well as non fruiting plants is the verti-grow nutrients, specifically the "SKU#: FCombo":
The Verti-Gro Hydroponic Fertilizers and Nutrients - Organic and Hydroponic Growing for Commercial and Hobby Growers
And if you get both parts (fertilizer and calcium nitrate) in the 25 lb quantity's, it's even more ergonomically. Costing about $120 total (with shipping), and making about 5000 gallons of full strength nutrient solution. That comes out to about 2.5 cents per gallon of nutrient solution.