The Kratky Hydroponic Lettuce Wall will be comprised of a couple of things:
1) A utility shelf with adjustable shelving
2) Full spectrum LED "grow" light strips w/ timer
3) Grow bins
That's it.
The utility shelf can be broken down into the following requirements:
- DANGER!!! WARNING!!! IMPORTANT!!!: The shelves should be able to actually hold the weight of your grow bins. Water is heavy. Many shelves by themselves cannot support the weight of the water and will need support. So check the weight rating on the shelves you get. We'll continue to talk about this further as we built out the shelf.
- ANOTHER DANGER!!! WARNING!!! IMPORTANT!!!: You need a way to anchor your shelves to the wall SECURELY!!! You don't want this thing tipping over. You build it too high and it falls on your kid or dog or cat and they may die. Secure this to your wall. Especially the higher you build it.
- Shelves need to be adjustable to allow enough space for the bin to sit and for the plant to grow
- A way to attach the light strips to the shelf above the grow bin
- Bonus: Make it pretty
The Grow Light Strips can be broken into the following requirements:
- They should fit the length of the shelf you pick and be attachable to it in some way
- You should be able to control them with a timer (either on the light itself or set up with a wall socket timer
- Have a method of increasing the light or decreasing the light (easily add more light strips if needed, or adjust brightness, etc)
- Be full spectrum "grow" light. Note: it does not have to SAY grow light. Sometimes lights are like cakes. A regular white cake is cheap. Add the name "Wedding" to that same cake and it gets expensive. As long as the LED light strip generates enough light for a plant to eat, we're good.
The grow bins can be broken down into the following requirements:
- They should hold water.
- They should be fully opaque and not allow any light into the bin itself.
- They should hold some sort of grow medium to allow a plant to grow on top and provide access to the roots to get into the bin to access the nutrient water
- Bonus: Make them pretty
That's it.
No pumps.
No aerators.
No central reservoir.
Just a place to put a kratky bin and grow lettuce.
We'll tackle how to size and shop for a utility shelf next.
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