Around the middle of 2021 I decided to create a hydroponics system in my garage to grow a couple types of peppers. I used a PLC to control things like fans, pumps, lights and misters in order to automate as many processes as possible and reduce the amount of attention I needed to give to the plants. I ended up with a system where I would only have to check on the plants every couple of days to manually drain the wastewater system, replace their nutrients every 2.5 weeks, and periodically prune the plants to better fit in their grow tent.
As time went on and I learned more about growing, I recognized problems with the system as well as features I would have liked to add. Unfortunately, it would not be easy to make those modifications while the system was in use, especially because the plants themselves were on a 10 minute feeding cycle (more on this later). Disconnecting parts to troubleshoot could (at best) stress the plants or (at worst) kill them.
Now, in November 2021, I retired my plants into the yard waste and began to tear down the entire system to create the ‘v2’ of my garage growing system. I intend to use this blog to document the changes that I am making, as well as to catalog my thoughts on issues I certainly will encounter along the way. This will serve a double purpose; I never label things or make diagrams, as everything I make is always ‘temporary’. This will be a way for future me to look back and recognize how I made things earlier.
There are also too many systems to write about right now, so I intend to take many pictures and try my best to explain the original system in addition to what I’m modifying. The posts will follow the order in which I tackle those specific issues, so it may take a couple posts for things to start making sense. This shouldn’t be a big issue once this blog is more populated with info