Riverbed systems

[mommyhen42]

I have 2 different types of Riverbed systems I am currently using one uses pvc downspout as channels for the nutrient rich water to flow through, the other one uses a flat shallow pan filled with gravel and a higher inlet than the outlet, this way the water must flow accross the riverbed and out the tubing at the other end, and the entire grow bed gets wet. My question is I am working on an outdoor riverbed type system where I plan on having a smallish pond (less than 800 gal) feed 2 riverbeds that will be used as grow beds. Each Riverbed will be aprox 10 ft long, 3 ft wide and betweem 6-10 inches deep. The water will be pumped to the back of the riverbeds and will waterfall back into the pond. I figure I can grow corn, peppers, tomatoes, ect in the riverbeds during the summer and lettuces in the winter months. Has anyone done this, does it seem feasable???

Sheryl
Riverside California

[badflash]

Most of the plants you mention don't do well if their roots are entirely under water. That is why most folks I've seen use a flood and drain system. They use bell siphons that allow the water level to come up about 1" below the top of the gravel, then rapidly drain to near the bottom of the gravel. The beds I've seen normally use beds about 1' deep. Lettuse doesn't mind being wet, but most of the others need to get some air to their roots.

[jackalope]

Riverbed System .... cool idea mommyhen42, that sounds like it would be really nice .... that wouldn't work here in Montana though, if you want to put ANY fish outside (including Goldies and Koi), you have to get a permit {HELP!! I'm surrounded by Socialists!!!}

[mommyhen42]

OMG... Youv'e got to be kidding right???
That is so hard to believe that they are so hard.... Nosed???
totally Unreal... and I thought things were crazy here in Riverside, CA!!!

Riverbed System .... cool idea mommyhen42, that sounds like it would be really nice .... that wouldn't work here in Montana though, if you want to put ANY fish outside (including Goldies and Koi), you have to get a permit {HELP!! I'm surrounded by Socialists!!!}

[mommyhen42]

The roots won't be totally submerged, the riverbed will be a misnomer of sorts as the waterflow will be all below gravel by about 2 inches. This will give the roots the opertunity to reach down to the water to tap what they want.

Last year I did an experiment with tomatoes and they were quite happy in that sort of system, and actually died off when transfered into a standard flood and drain afterwards. I was told that since they developed "water roots" they couldnt tolerate being dry since the aproprate amount of "air roots" did not form and sustain the plant... Not sure really, just what I was told was the reason for them not surviving the transplant.

I actually thought of incorporating auto siphons in the system but figured that the dimensions wouldnt work well unless I decided to cordon it off into sections... still not an unreasonable idea since I could hide the individual grow beds with the gravel.... hmm...

An idea worth considering... and totally do-able

Sheryl in Riverside, CA

[badflash]

That is good to know about your tomatoes. I don't have growbeds yet, so no fist hand experience. Keep us up to date on what you've done & seen so far about what works & what doesn't.

Ironfish has be inspired. I'll be collecting barrels!

[JeffW]

I did that river bed in an area the size of a large door way and it works. The gravel was no more than 1 inch deep. The water flowed down slow and the tomatoes did good as did hot peppers,cucumber and strawberries. lettuce does good this way as predicted.

The idea was to use fish then I killed them by accident so I ran it using compost tea and that helped but since this was more or less a "hydroponic" system the UREA was the wrong type and all got out of wack which slowed it all down.

I know what mistakes I made last year so this year I would do it better and the first thing I would do is make it no less than 4 inches deep simply because the plants had a hard time standing up With tomatoes on them they wanted to fall over being the stem had not stability. This was my fault I slacked up filling the bed and got lazy. It was based on a shall river bed flowing with a constant trickle of water down and "returning" to main tank.

I have a you tube video of the setup if you want to see it.

[mommyhen42]

I would love to see the system. I had my first one in a shallow 2x2 tray and it did wonderfully, Since it was indoors (well in an aviary anyway) I had a screen wall that I just tied it up to to prevent it from falling over due to the shallow tray... Suprising how large the root system was, took up almost the entire bottom of the tray. The lettuces seem to grow the fastest in this system as do strawberries.

looking forward to seeing what you did

Stay safe
Sheryl

[JeffW]

I got this idea from this web site here http://www.webofcreation.org/Buildin...qua/Chap3.html

Yep I made mistakes in 2008 and this was my first time messing with this idea so forgive me if it is not 100% flawless. However with that said I learned so much just attempting

Also as you said the roots still grow like crazy!
Heck when season ended I could hardly get the plants to let go of the plastic and
as far as rocks I gave up trying to separate them when I tore this all down. They are now
part of the drive way

I said Basil in first video but it was BEETS not BASIL, I got seeds mixed up..what a mess.

I buried a 55 gallon drum part way in the soil for fish, it was HOT in there.
The temp in the green house got so high it would heat up the water as it flowed and this
was one of the things I learned quickly that heat will build fast and cause allot of problems if you do not plan ahead and have a vent system.
It reached 100/F easy at 8 feet level above ground level and this was because my vents were not capable..I blew it when it came to a good venting system

part 1 [video:21h0ribn]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zzi1FYZk8Is[/video:21h0ribn]
part 2 [video:21h0ribn]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jJcbB6HoTrk[/video:21h0ribn]

This was another issue I had..not with the river bed but with the hydroponics
that were also running in the green house over by north side wall.
HEAT:
On the side of the green house I had a large Ebb and Flow running and the tank was also buried to keep it cool. However because I mounted the 1" PVC system about 3 feet up from ground what happens is the ambient air temp would heat up the PVC and then the water nutrient solution when it was flooded and that almost killed the roots of each plant. I could not understand what was wrong since last year I did this and it worked. Found out that the solution must not be too warm or the plant can not deal with it "aspiration" was maxed out and the plants can only deal with so much stress. Now I know that the piping can get warm if it is long and extended such as mine was almost 15 feet long and the PVC pipe absorbed all that ambient air "heat" then since they are thin wall pvc pipes they exchange the heat very easy to the solution as it was being pumped into the hydroponic system.

[jackalope]

When I click on Play for "Part 2" it goes black and says "Embedding disabled by request." Is your link broken?