This is a followup to my recent posting on growing food using aeroponics.  I have found a compact turnkey system that seems to be ideal for growing your own food at home, irrespective of the space you have available.  Note: I am not selling anything.  This is just what I have found out by myself.  Read on to find out more, and see a video about it.

The brand that I have found is SuperCloset, and all the models are large metal boxes that can be sealed up and have the grow lights, hydroponic setup with timers, nutrient / water reservoir and shelves for the plants.  As I mentioned, I am not connected with them in any way.

The size range is from massive double door cabinets down to filing cabinet sized units.  Here’s the video for one of the larger units:

The boxes are powder coated 16 gauge steel in black, so would blend into many homes, or you could simply put them in your garage.  You can lock the cabinets to keep little hands out.

One option is for 100W LED grow lights rather than the power guzzling 400W metal halide ones.  I think that this would be a definite thing to consider to reduce running costs.  These units are powered from a single power point.

Another feature is that there is a air filter and air circulation system.  The air filter is to stop plant smells wafting through your house, while the air circulation system stops the build up of moisture which could otherwise cause mould and mildew and it also makes sure that the plants have plenty of fresh air.  If you simply put plants in a box, they will eventually suffocate as they need carbon dioxide to live.  You can buy an adapter to feed in supplemental carbon dioxide if you want to accelerate plant growth.  Atmospheric carbon dioxide is about 360 ppm, while the optimum level for plants is around 1,500 ppm.

The hydroponic system is not actually aeroponics but uses an ebb and flow system.  The plants grow in pots of growing medium such as clay granules in a tray, above a reservoir of nutrient solution.  A timer pumps the nutrient solution onto the tray at regular intervals and after this the nutrient drains back to the tank.  The idea is that the medium has both nutrients and air for the roots, which is achieved differently than aeroponics which uses a fine mist of nutrient solution.  Ebb and flow does seem fairly simple and reliable.

Like aeroponics, I am not sure how the system would go in the event of a power cut, since no nutrient would be watered onto the plants.  I expect the best step is to have some sort of heavy-duty UPS.

Maintenance is limited to planting and harvesting the plants and making sure that there is enough nutrient solution and water.  The rest is all automated.

Prices are not cheap, at around $3,500 for the larger units but this is for a completely integrated unit that has the potential of providing fresh food for your home, with less daily time required than driving to the supermarket.  In context, I think that most people would get a reasonably fast payback, with the added benefit of fresh produce that can be picked as needed.

Please comment if you have something to share about growing plants for food in hydroponic appliances such as this one.  I’d really appreciate your comments.

Tags: producer, subversive

This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 9th, 2010 at 4:53 pm and is filed under Daily subversive tips. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.