[music] Alright!
This is John Kohler with growingyourgreens.com, today we have another exciting episode for
you, and for those of you that have paid attention to my YouTube channel and have been subscribers
for a while, you guys know that I actually installed the Aquajet system and we can see
I’ve kind of partially dug up part of this set up for the last summer growing season.
Had some amazing growing results, its done very well, and I recommended it to many people
actually, because if you get the kinks worked out, it works great, you know.
That being said, there are some bugs, and be sure to check my past videos that talk
about this, so I’ll put the links down below if you want to see the Aquajet saga.
And this is the latest update.
So now it’s past the summer season, pulled up my pepper plants out of this bed a while
back, for those of you guys that remember, this is the bed that was the experimental
bed, I tried to do a single Aquajet system right down the middle of the bed to see if
it would spray out two feet or more specifically in this specific bed, 22 inches each way,
and based on the testing it actually was not able to perform.
It didn’t spray out 22 inches, probably sprayed out a good 12 or so inches, maybe
12 to 14 inches I’m guessing, because my plants on the very ends, some of them made
it, but some of them did not.
So this is not a good thing, I was not happy, so what happened was I kind of knew this was
experiment and I’d actually plumbed in some piping to basically come up here and here
to basically make a racetrack design, which I’m glad I did that, I always like to plan
ahead because digging all this up would have been a pain in the arse.
And so then we got this put in, and you know it actually worked fairly well, the only challenge
I had is because of the depth of the pipe, it would actually make these holes that I
would have to continually fill, which was another pain the arse.
So now that the growing season’s done my plants are out, I’ve dug this up so I can
actually pull out the center pipe because I couldn’t do that during the growing season
because I’d disturb too many roots, and we’re basically going to cap this center
one off and just leave the two outside ones to form the racetrack, but I wanted to show
you guys and basically let you guys know as I have recommended the Aquajet to many of
you guys up to this point and it does work, I did get better than ever growing results
ever, and I do want to admit that I am an early adopter, there is a reason why I can’t
recommend it anymore, and we’ll go over to the other bed to share with you guys that
in a second, but the first thing is I wanted to show you guys this, so the depth.
I mean this is probably one of the most critical things, one component of one of the most critical
things when installing the Aquajet is to get the depth correct, right?
On a drip irrigation you lay it above your soil, the water flows down, and on the Aquajet,
the high pressure goes out and the water [inaudible] up, now we have a thing on Earth called gravity,
and while water does [inaudible] up, if you spill water and you use a towel to soak it
up, the water literally [inaudible] up into that paper towel like up, like oil wicks up
through wicks to get burned and all this, that’s kind of like a [inaudible].
And the water comes out and some of the water falls because gravity, but then some of it
will [inaudible] up, and this depends on your soil.
Now specifically I’m talking about a raised bed with looser soil, not a compacted turf
application.
In turf applications it’s different, you know, they bury the Aquajet at six inches,
so in my bed here, when this was originally installed, this main unit was installed and
I put a board across the top so I can see where the top is, it’s basically dug into
a depth of five inches deep.
Now this I feel was a little bit too deep, then they came in and they installed this
one, and this one was the racetrack design, and this now is actually at just about three
inches, maybe two and five fifteenths sixteenths, but just about three inches.
And this in my opinion is too high, because now I get to see the piping even if I fill
my raised beds to the top you see some piping, which I don’t like to see that.
And also it makes these holes that I’ve got to continually fill that haven’t gone
away.
So I think the optimal height would be right in the middle, you know like Goldilocks and
the three bears, porridge was too hot, too cold and “oh just right.”
So I think if you dig a trench like four inches deep, and then you lay the Aquajet in the
bottom of the four inch trench, because this was five, this was three, it would be about
right here, I think that would be just right.
And if you do that I think the Aquajet’s going to work amazing, except for the next
thing that I’m going to show you, and the big reason why I can’t actually recommend
it to any of you guys out there right now at this point in time for raised bed garden
installations.
Alright so as you guys can see this is one of my long beds, this is the bed that we originally
put a racetrack design in, and as you guys can see, I’ve kind of just dug out the soil
above it so you can kind of see it like sunk in into the dirt there, and this probably
comes down to the reason why I can’t recommend the Aquajet at this time, although this is
subject to change if they get it corrected.
I mean I want to admit that I was an early adopter, just like if you buy a computer and
it’s got Windows XP maybe I’m dating myself there, has a lot of bugs and crashes a lot
but they came out with what, Windows Vista, Windows 7, Windows 8, are they up to Windows
9 yet, does it still crash?
But I was an early adopter and so problems will come up, and I think the beauty of a
company is if problems do come up, they fix it.
I mean I got this little health meter watch thing right, and it had big issues with it,
software wasn’t working and all this stuff, and the company apologized, gave everybody
an extra free year on their subscription, and they’re fixing the issues and taking
care of it.
I mean this is super-critical, because nowadays it’s all about customer service, and this
wouldn’t have came up if this didn’t happen to me, because I am going to be planting out
some of my winter crops here, and I’m not going to plant my crops in a bed where it’s
not going to perform and they’re not going to get proper water, right?
Because now it would basically be sentencing them to not living, which would not be good,
then I wouldn’t be eating, and then I wouldn’t be living.
So I want to eat, and so I thought “Oh man, I had that big problem with the Aquajet in
my long bed, I made a video sharing why this happened, the system was installed too deeply
and it sunk down.”
And in this bed, pretty much the same thing happened.
Number one, the system was installed improperly, and number two, it sunk down over time.
So what we’re going to do is we’re going to go ahead and measure how much it sunk down,
I don’t remember exactly how deep this was originally put in at, I probably should have
measured each one, but basically we’re going to go ahead and dig this out a little bit
to see the depth we’re at, alright I think my hand is underneath there.
And so we take our ruler here, go down, this was probably, at this point it’s sitting
at about five and a half inches deep, so this is one and a half inches too deep in my opinion,
especially for the lettuces and some of the other tender winter crops that maybe the root
doesn’t penetrate down as deep as say, tomatoes or peppers is what I grew in here over the
summer.
And I did have to water in the peppers to get them established, but once the roots went
down, they found the water and everything did beautifully.
Now the other thing you might be thinking “John, how deep was it buried down at the
other end?”
So actually lets go down there and share with you guys how deep it was installed at, installation
depth, because the pipe was installed at a certain level, it can actually flex up or
flex down, and at different points in the bed it may have wave, so it may be deeper
or more shallow at different points in the bed, so let’s go down and see the original
adjustment where it was cut and installed at.
Alright so now we’re at the side of the bed where basically the pipes come up and
then the Aquajet ties into it, now we’re going to check the depth on this one, and
we’re going to go ahead and take this guy, put it right over the top so we kind of know
the top of the bed.
I mean this is probably the most critical measurement when installing the Aquajet is
have it at the right depth.
And so it looks like the pipe in this one is approximately six and a half inches deep,
so this is two and a half inches deep, in my opinion it should be about a four inch
trench, this is six and a half inch trench, quite deep, once again over to this side,
once again actually it’s right at six and a half inches.
So this is definitely too deep, I’m going to have to go in there, clip it, raise it
up, and do all this kind of stuff, but then the problem still arises that even if I get
it at the right depth, right, because my soil basically compacts and is some compost, it
breaks down over time and it will sink, actually.
And due to this, this will continually drop down and drop down, and become lower and lower
over time like this end is always going to stay stable, but the other end is going to
end up flopping down over time.
So what needs to happen in my opinion so that I can recommend this again and be a happy
Aquajet customer because I want success for me and not having to dig up my bed every time
to tweak in and raise it up and all this kind of stuff, I want the Aquajet company to come
out with a standoff, basically a piece to hold the Aquajet and to mount it on a piece
of rebar tubing so that it remains stable.
So the easiest thing to do for a situation like this is you’re going to get a piece
of rebar, this is just a stake here, and you can just have that set down, and then what
you’re going to do is you’re going to just take the Aquajet here, and basically
a standoff could just have a little U that goes on top of the rebar that basically just
holds it in place and holds it steady, or you could have a side mount that actually
clips on and then basically caps over the top to hold it like this.
I mean these are just two easy ways that this solution can be fixed, I mean the watering
in the Aquajet is amazing, it aerates the soil which is amazing, but it sinks down over
time and gives me headaches right?
Like during planting and having to dig things up, I don’t know about you guys, but one
of the things as I get more wise in my older years is that I just don’t want headaches
in life, I want everything easy I don’t want to dig things up every season, I don’t
want to think about it, I just want it to work properly, and yes I’ll give you that,
my drip irrigation system it does give me some headaches also, and I do believe that
if the Aquajet company came out with this standoff piece, this system would be damn
near perfect and be able to save you water, allow you to have better plant growth, and
just work amazingly overall.
And so I do hope that I have a future episode with the owner of the Aquajet company helping
me out installing the standoffs in my beds so that this is no longer an issue, and all
my plants can continue to thrive, but more importantly all you guys out there watching,
your plants can continue to thrive as well with the Aquajet system.
So that’s why I can’t recommend it at this time, although it does work properly
there can be long-term issues with it sinking down, not being at the right level, and then
your plants not getting watered and losing your plants’ lives, and that’s no fun,
I’ve lost at least four dozen plants when I originally installed it when it was a the
wrong height, and even after trying to replant when it was at the wrong height after raising
it up because it continued to sink down, lost a few more plants and things did not grow
optimally.
So yeah I hope this situation gets resolved by the manufacturer real soon, hope I’m
able to have an update video and when I am I’ll put a link down below this video so
you guys can see the update and know that once again I will be able to recommend the
Aquajet system to all you guys out there.
Hope you guys enjoyed this episode, I’ve got to get back to fixing this stuff and planting
out my lettuce, once again my name is John Kohler with growingyourgreens.com, we’ll
see you next time and until then remember, keep on growing.
[music]