Hi folks,
Today I'll show you how I put together a new version of the vertical strawberry towers.
Back in 2009, you may recall the video about the first version where I melted and formed
4" piping so that it creates pockets for the plants.
They work well except for one thing.
When the plants start to get too large, the towers get root bound and the water can't
flow through the tower, and when this happens, the plant is packed into the tower and shale
media so tightly, they're nearly impossible to remove and I have to pry them out.
It start to get very labor intensive to do the transplanting.
For this new design, there's nothing really original about it and you will probably notice
it looks very similar to the ZipGrow towers from Bright Agrotech.
This is the attempt at making a "poor man's version", so stay tuned about my opinion about
this modified design.
First I needed to cut a slot down a section of pipe.
I made up this jig to hold a piece of 4" pipe in place.
The key is to make the width slightly smaller than the pipe so it can wedge into the jig
and not move.
I then run a screw through it to insure it won't move in the jig while it's being cut.
The jig is then flipped over so the walls are able to ride along the saw's table, keeping
the pipe from rolling and providing a nice straight cut.
I then move the fence over by a half inch and do a second cut.
The pipe tends to collapse on to itself so just be careful of sniping at the end of the
cut.
Once you get a pattern established, it's a lot faster than heating and forming pockets!
Next is a way to catch the water going through the towers.
Since I am putting them around the fish tank, they won't be in a straight line so I can't
use a straight gutter section.
I took some 4" end caps and tapped a 3/4" fitting into it.
I've said it before, a tap set is a great way to connect fittings into all types of
items.
This hole will hold a 3/4" NPT to 3/4" barbed fitting.
Also, the ABS drain pipe, cap, and fittings were all purchased from a typical box hardware
store.
There is some extra space in front of the fish tank so I thought it would be a great
spot for the towers, plus it will help to shade the water some more.
The only problem is that there is no drain in the floor.
It's time for a little digging and taping into the existing floor drain.
Looking back at the original greenhouse design, I'm still glad that I put sand and bricks
into the floor so I can make changes like this.
The last part of the drain was a bit tricky since I wanted the setup to match the curvature
of the fish tank.
With a some careful heating of the pipe, it became soft enough to bend around the tank.
To hold the towers in place, I fabricated a couple of brackets that could slide on to
the rim of the fish tank.
The brackets have slots in them and I drilled a hole through the back side of each tower
at the right height and fastened a stainless steel bolt through the hole with a piece of
rubber around the head to keep water from leaking out.
The bolt slides into the bracket slot which supports the upper section of the tower, and
the drain plug fits into a 1" hole that is drilled into the drain pipe which supports
the bottom section of the tower.
To keep the drain from getting plugged, I added a piece of mesh material which is used
at construction sites, and created a space between the plug and the media.
It's what I had laying around but a piece of wadded screening would probably work just
as well.
Since the pipe tends to curl into itself, I made up some tee-shaped spacers to wedge
into the slot.
These are temporary until the media is filled in.
Putting each tower in place is the easy part since they just drop into the drain hole and
slot.
I'm using expanded shale in each tower for the media.
Filling the towers wasn't very pleasant since they had to be filled one scoop at a time.
I would fill it to the level of the plant, then put the strawberry plant in, then continue
to fill.
You can plan on making a mess since the smaller stone comes flying out of the slot!
I finally recruited my helper and had her hold the plant into place with a small make-shift
scoop while I poured in the shale.
This was far better quicker than doing it alone.
There's a pump in the fish tank that's on a timer which feeds the water to the top of
the towers then each tower has a ball value to regulate the flow.
I found if the flow was too fast, that sometimes the water would start to drip out of the slots.
Overall, I'm really happy with version 2.0 of these towers.
They work well for strawberries since they only have to be transplanted every couple
of years.
But, if I were doing anything like lettuce or another crop that has a much shorter life
span, I definitely wouldn't use something like this, mainly because of the weight of
the towers (they're about 60 pounds apiece), so they're difficult to throw around and they're
much harder to get plants in and out of.
I would stick with something like the commercially available ZipGrow towers where they have a
nice lightweight media in them and very quick and easy to get your plants in and out of.
That's about it, thanks for watching.
If you like this video, please subscribe to our channel and give it a thumbs up.
Thanks a lot!
Fail
This media originally came out of some beds that I had some beets in that I let go to
seed...and it looks like I had a few left over.
It will be interesting to see what happens with beets in a vertical tower!