| hi everybody - this is my first post but thanks already to everyone for all the great info i've gotten from the forums as a planting voyeur.
so i'm building a hydroponic ebb & flow garden not unlike the one by hydro ron that everyone's seen, with the pvc pipe and inverted 2L soda bottles. i'm a little skeptical about the bottles for a couple of reasons - they seem pretty flimsy for starters, and they look, well, kind of like cut-off 2L soda bottles; additionally, that setup seems only to work if you use 1" sdr (sld [sic]) 26 pvc, a product which, in the whole wide capitalist world, only ron himself seems to have access to. i mean, if google shopping doesn't have it... anyway. i digress.
so here's why i'm posting. i'm pretty confident, being an experienced jury-rigger, that i can manage to attach a regular and far more attractive clay pot to my (widely available schedule 40) pvc fixtures, and waterproof the seal. there will be a small pipe coming up into the bottom of each pot to flood it (and then drain it).
two questions, then. one: do you think that the terracotta, being flooded with water for 30 minutes of every hour, would deteriorate at any point? i'm not worried about replacing the pots after maybe a couple of years, but this setup is going on top of a short bookcase (i live in manhattan; really, this is the only spot i have), and i don't want clay pebbles and shards and water and juicy ripe tomatoes falling all over the place after three months.
two: assuming it didn't deteriorate, would the terracotta transpire so much that the nutrient solution would concentrate and/or leave mineral deposits very quickly, causing me to have to flush the system more than, say, once a month?
i suppose if either condition is likely i could just line the pots with some heavy plastic sheeting, or just buy glazed pots. i'd really prefer, however, to use regular, unlined, unglazed, inexpensive, good-old clay pots, if i can get away with it.
any thoughts?
thanks! |
