Vertical Garden Expansion to Approximately 1120-1400 Square Feet
After a somewhat decent year in 2017, looking forward a decision was made to expand the vertical garden to 60-100 pipes. Once that rain and snow came down like a fury from November – February, the ground became nice and soft to pound stakes. Well, that can deceiving as there are so many rocks in the soil that can make it a bit of a chore.
During the stake pounding, a lot can take place. The pipe may go 2 feet into the ground in less than a minute. Of course, this is more common in soil without rock.
On the contrary, the pipe may drive in 4 inches or 1 foot before it hits an 8-inch wide boulder smack in the middle. In this case, the pipe will bend with a ‘pound through anything’ attitude. If we don’t stop the pounding on time, the pipe with kink and be rather weak and useless.
In the extreme cases, a fence pole digger can be used to make a larger hole that may remove the stone. Or, we may strike rich soil a few inches to the right or left. If we don’t have any lucky strike, a good old shovel is required to dig out obstacles and that can cause a pole to take around 10 minutes to insert with maximum work effort.
If we must use a shovel, the pipe won’t be as tight as those inserted with a fence post pounder. But, after some decent rainfall things will tighten up.
Unlike the previous year where the grass was free to grow, this year all grass(and lots of moss) and the weeds it contains has been covered with fabric(secured with anchoring pins) to ensure nothing grows through the mat and the garden can be attended with any footwear; including bare feet.
To accommodate the 2000+ plants that will grow in the system, 2-250 gallon Food Grade 2(HDPE Plastic) containers will be used to hold the nutrient solution and supply food to the plants. It is quite likely I will add one or two more when things pick up in summer and some 3-gallon pots will suck up approximately a gallon a day; especially heavy feeding tomatoes and bell peppers. Lettuce do not need near as much liquid.
HDPE Food Grade 2 Containers That Had Commercial Sugar
