Free the Food, Free the People: Tower Two is Back!

With the recent holiday, I was finally able to do a little more work on mine and my parents' farms. Coming up in January I will be moving into an apartment, and reinstated this farm to bring with me, with the hope that it will be producing or at least established by move-in time. Because of this, I am going to be posting separate posts for the separate systems. The tower here is the one I will be taking, and is the inverted pyramid design (look back for a full view without plants). The major modifications that I have made to this to get it working again related to the pumping mechanism. I removed the cork from inside of the bottle, replaced the needle, and reconstructed it with the check valve outside of the bottle. I then inserted the cork int the mouth of the bottle, rather than from inside the bottle. The function of all of this was to get the pump to work more efficiently and consistently. Previously the water would stop pumping if the water level dropped minimally, due to the height of the needle within the bottle. The needle lowered 3-4", now it hardly needs any water to work. This is the same construction as Caroline's farm, pictured in the post below. I also unclogged the T junction at the top which had built up algae causing a pump malfunction. And I covered the top (clear) bottles with black fabric to block out sunlight, and prevent algae growth. And a new innovation I thought of when working on Caroline's farm that isn't pictured, but I added last minute was wrapping the holes on the drip ring with cotton fabric to prevent it from spraying off in every direction and causing water loss.

We had planted a boat load of seeds a couple of weeks ago, but unfortunately most of them didn't sprout! So I filled my farm with what did sprout, and we will be planting some more soon to fill out my parents farm.

Here are some pictures:

My two peas (in front), and two eggplant (in back).

The left bottle is full of hydroton, but no plants due to the upcoming move.