Hydroponics

[Yingyang]

Sheep, Barbados. Goats mostly Nubians, sometimes cows/calves. Quarter Horses, Border Collies (5) and Rough Collies (2).

To the outside we are living the dream. To us we are living that dream Dusk till Dawn and and hour each end. Too few friends, too much manure.

Our electric fencing is success with Barbados sheep and a total fail with goats <Caprine> all types. Sheep move back and move on. Goats move back and launched themselves back in retribution. Later they still try to get over & under. Nothing like trying to free a 80lb Goat thats is wrapped in fencing and has been zapped (intermittently) for an hour.

Hot lines one high one low, and with a shock thats a blast rather than the gently urgings in the netting/fencing works better. You are going to be outside in the rain, at midnight or conversely noon with the Temp heat index at 118 (yesterday, corrected by the tropical storm that moved in) untangling the ungrateful, unhappy and unhelpful. So hot wires for the win.

We broke down and fenced in 5 acres and round pens and sub pens with Cattle Panels. There is a new truck and my never to be new cyro-ed 6.5 surrounding the barn, house and day pens/Yards. Acreage gets 3 wire (2 hot).

Sorry for the long post.

Too much manure no such thing. Consider using it.?
Outside of the box? Eg. Mix manure with compost to create free hot water system. Fuck compost alone works. Manure is a bonus for longevity of heat process and once completed referencing heat depletion in time , you'll have extremely rich fertile soil to use for crops. Rinse repeat. With added free hot water and if clever enough gas for cooking and indoor heating all free. Oh and feel free to see my reply to publius reply i,ve answered. #18 /#20

 

[william]

Sunlight sunlight sunlight as far as container gardening in general. Same with hydroponics, but i also believe the water PH nutrient balance is critical and I missed it for hydroponics. Bear in mind your “managing” light, nutrients, humidity, and temperature 24/7. Gotta be a scientist to test all that. Sounds sorta like a saltwater aquarium. Testing, testing, testing and if you don't get it right, dead fish, and they are not cheap. Finally gave up and switched to a freshwater tank with hardy fish.
I grew up in black dirt Illinois where you could grow golf balls at a driving range. Hydroponics is sold as a no fuss no muss prospect. But that’s not true, yields are great but its not a plug it and forget it endeavor. That said there are great products out there to facilitate this balance of these four components.

So I’m focusing on extended fall crops on my south porch and greens only in my indoor hydroponics going into the winter. Which involve keeping a revolving feeder stock of starts. Which isn’t hard but it does take regular attention.
There is deep water culture (5 gal buckets) and continuous flow. To be honest im still learning with this, deep water is better suited to climbing plants, squash beans peas etc. The continuous flow seems suited well for leafy greens.
Pots in a controlled green house out shined everything for herbs and peppers. Berries of all varieties did great outside with supplemental lighter and soft pots. Gooseberries berries boysenberries straw berries and black berries all did well from bare root transplant. What is a "deep water culture" and what does "supplemental lighter and soft pots" mean?

That and im going to have about 15 mature hardwoods remove from my lot. That's some good firewood right there. Do you have a woodstove, or fireplace? My house sees about 3 hours of direct sunlight a day (seriously) . Sounds like you have allot of trees close to your house. Do you ever worry about a lightning strike causing a tree fall on your house? That wont even facilitate tomato’s or peppers to produce. All of that which is for me is depressing. I love watching nature have its way and as they say forest bathing.


Onnnn a funny note when i was in my local garden hydroponics store the kid actually looked at me and asked. Wait you actually wanting to grow vegetables.
They also sell boomer bags and psilocybin spores Side income! This reminds me of the time I was on a squad size land navigation exercise in North Carolina in the Marine Corps in the middle of nowhere. We came upon a farm, and the farmer came out to great us. We weren't sure if he was going to be mad we were trespassing or what. Well, he turned out to be very friendly and asked us if we wanted to see something really cool. (I don't think he got many visitors) He took us over to his barn and showed us the biggest hog I have ever seen in my life, and I have seen some big ones. My father-in-law raised them. We were in awe. Then he whipped out this bag of pot and asked us if we wanted to try some, he grew it himself. He was a very good farmer! It is possible I might have told this story before. Forgive me if I have. What you said just brought that memory back again.

On an entirely positive note, The current generation of full spectrum LED grow lights even running 14 hours a day at probably 15000 lumens didn’t impact my electric use. Grow lights are measured in kelvins. I just used lumens because I'm familiar with it.

If you’re not afraid to fail and experiment, then have at it and have fun. It’s a wickedly marvelous world we live in. Sounds like you are working to be self-sufficient and live off the grid. Is that your goal? What do you do with your produce?

 

[william]

Sheep, Barbados. Goats mostly Nubians, sometimes cows/calves. Quarter Horses, Border Collies (5) and Rough Collies (2).

To the outside we are living the dream. To us we are living that dream Dusk till Dawn and and hour each end. Too few friends, too much manure.

Our electric fencing is success with Barbados sheep and a total fail with goats <Caprine> all types. Sheep move back and move on. Goats move back and launched themselves back in retribution. Later they still try to get over & under. Nothing like trying to free a 80lb Goat thats is wrapped in fencing and has been zapped (intermittently) for an hour.

Hot lines one high one low, and with a shock thats a blast rather than the gently urgings in the netting/fencing works better. You are going to be outside in the rain, at midnight or conversely noon with the Temp heat index at 118 (yesterday, corrected by the tropical storm that moved in) untangling the ungrateful, unhappy and unhelpful. So hot wires for the win.

We broke down and fenced in 5 acres and round pens and sub pens with Cattle Panels. There is a new truck and my never to be new cyro-ed 6.5 surrounding the barn, house and day pens/Yards. Acreage gets 3 wire (2 hot).

Sorry for the long post.

Sounds like you gotta a nice place there.

 

[Torch]

Too much manure no such thing. Consider using it.?
Outside of the box? Eg. Mix manure with compost to create free hot water system. Fuck compost alone works. Manure is a bonus for longevity of heat process and once completed referencing heat depletion in time , you'll have extremely rich fertile soil to use for crops. Rinse repeat. With added free hot water and if clever enough gas for cooking and indoor heating all free. Oh and feel free to see my reply to publius reply i,ve answered. #18 /#20

My “Current” clean out pile is 6’ high and 16’+ across. Thats 1200sq ft of manure LAST weekend and the barns open area needs cleared out with the mini skid steer again

(stalks are clean btw. The area under near constant cleaning the shelter area in which they can come and go. Protection area for elements and predators)

100+ sheep, 20 Goats, a cow and a calf.

 

[william]

My “Current” clean out pile is 6’ high and 16’+ across. Thats 1200sq ft of manure LAST weekend and the barns open area needs cleared out with the mini skid steer again

(stalks are clean btw. The area under near constant cleaning the shelter area in which they can come and go. Protection area for elements and predators)

100+ sheep, 20 Goats, a cow and a calf.

Why so many sheep? Do you sheer them?

 

[Torch]

Why so many sheep? Do you sheer them?

Barbados Sheep. Hair sheep, close visual to white tail deer. They are used to garnish plates of jelly.

Goats are for milk.

We can no longer eat our sheep. I feezer wrapped one my wife called “Lambie” and bottle feed. I marked it “Leg of Lambie”…. 30 years and Im still paying for that one.

So TLDNR: Sheep go to Sale Barn.

 

[Dr Arthur]

Too much manure no such thing. Consider using it.?
Outside of the box? Eg. Mix manure with compost to create free hot water system. Fuck compost alone works. Manure is a bonus for longevity of heat process and once completed referencing heat depletion in time , you'll have extremely rich fertile soil to use for crops. Rinse repeat. With added free hot water and if clever enough gas for cooking and indoor heating all free. Oh and feel free to see my reply to publius reply i,ve answered. #18 /#20

Love the heat. I use hot compost bins that are compost bins lined with insulation that keeps heat in and raised the temperature of the compost. Very effective in speeding up the whole compost process with the added benefit that the heat kills a lot of pathogens and sterilises seeds. The result is a very rich black compost that boosts plant grown and allows me to clean up all the animal faeces in the common grass areas. The boost of the plants is real as I have 12 inch long French breakfast radishes, turnips that are up to 12 inches across and very few weed issues. A very worthwhile process. I have had occasional possum deaths and the hot compost bin will reduce the carcass to a skeleton in less than a day and then the bones are gone in just a couple of weeks. The hot compost is a good ways to manage organic materials to get a useful product.

 

[Publius]

I have a working Farm. The front five acres are a default petting zoo and wildlife sanctuary <enforced by my wife>.

Everything else is enforced with various tools including some large mufflered 16” sub woofers and five not so quiet quadrupeds woofers.

This is more of yard store rather than farm but the caddy shack clip brought it to mind.
In years past you could readily buy calcium carbide granules. And when mixed with water it produces acetylene gas.
Home owners would pour the granular in mole holes and flood it with water hose.
This guy was telling me this on himself. He and his son waited and waited and never saw any moles surface. So he had a bright idea. He tossed match in the hole. Whoosh and boom!
The entire network of mole runs in his yard erupted and just blew the sod back like a flap of skin.
He said he was just glad he didn’t have any runs under his patio.
He lived in this upscale area between the local judge and a doctor

 

[Publius]

I saw a documentary years ago that showed that plants know when they are going to be cut.

Some also when attacked by pest will give off a pheromone that alerts other plants near by of the attack so they can change their chemistry to ward the pest off.

 

[Publius]

Yeah not a normal indoor aquarium . I'm refering to outdoor tubs that hold 500 ltrs minimum to 1500-2000ltrs or more. Big enough to support plants , deep enough to support fish. Eg. Some of our edible fish only require 3-4 foot depth by 3-4 feet wide and 9 feet long . You can fit 3-4 rows of herbs/ veg on surface.

I know what your referring to. Ive looked at them but when temps get down in the single digits. Would need to build a greenhouse and provide supplemental heat to go that route

 

[Publius]

Sheep, Barbados. Goats mostly Nubians, sometimes cows/calves. Quarter Horses, Border Collies (5) and Rough Collies (2).

To the outside we are living the dream. To us we are living that dream Dusk till Dawn and and hour each end. Too few friends, too much manure.

Our electric fencing is success with Barbados sheep and a total fail with goats <Caprine> all types. Sheep move back and move on. Goats move back and launched themselves back in retribution. Later they still try to get over & under. Nothing like trying to free a 80lb Goat thats is wrapped in fencing and has been zapped (intermittently) for an hour.

Hot lines one high one low, and with a shock thats a blast rather than the gently urgings in the netting/fencing works better. You are going to be outside in the rain, at midnight or conversely noon with the Temp heat index at 118 (yesterday, corrected by the tropical storm that moved in) untangling the ungrateful, unhappy and unhelpful. So hot wires for the win.

We broke down and fenced in 5 acres and round pens and sub pens with Cattle Panels. There is a new truck and my never to be new cyro-ed 6.5 surrounding the barn, house and day pens/Yards. Acreage gets 3 wire (2 hot).

Sorry for the long post.

For now im going to stay focused on the gardening aspect. But I'm considering sectioning off parts of my woodlot with electric fence to run 2 or three shoats. Would like some pork to smoke and cure with a little more flavor than modern homogenized pork. Remember when pork chops were a dark meat

 

[william]

Barbados Sheep. Hair sheep, close visual to white tail deer. They are used to garnish plates of jelly.

Goats are for milk. Yuk! I don't like goat milk.

We can no longer eat our sheep. I feezer wrapped one my wife called “Lambie” and bottle feed. I marked it “Leg of Lambie”…. 30 years and Im still paying for that one.

So TLDNR: Sheep go to Sale Barn.