Dutch Buckets spoken here… tomatoes home sweet home…

Howdy.  It’s April 4, 2013 and I’m itching to get tomato plants outside and growing.  Two more weeks, patient, be patient….

Dutch Bucket, four gallons, 1/2 inch pvc drain tube with internal and external elbow pointed down.

Okay, Dutch Buckets defined.  We will start with the bucket, any four gallon or so bucket will work.  It needs a lid, and it needs a hole drilled in the side about two inches up from the bottom.  The space below the hole retains water and nutrients in use, so think of it as a reservoir.  Other gardeners use black and white plastic called panda film or plain black plastic to darken the interior of the bucket.  This keeps down algae bloom, similar to a swimming pool that has gone south and turned green.  Here you see my high tech reflective film, attached with HVAC aluminum foil tape, you can get at Lowe’s.  I was going with black plastic too until this idea popped in my head.  I knew I had the tape somewhere and found it.  So, yeah you guessed it, it’s aluminum foil from the kitchen.  I’m concerned that fertilizer might attack it, but we shall see.

Here are four buckets ready to go, already filled with Perlite and wetted with a bit of solution and rainwater.

The grow medium can be several things, but for simplicity we are using coarse agricultural Perlite.  The bag cautions breathing it, and I do the same, better go outside for this and a particulate dust mask or getting upwind of the dust created pouring it into the bucket should be fine.  First, lets add a few things to the bucket.  A grommet to seal off the drain tube, an elbow both inside and outside of that drain tube, both pointed down.  Next add a paint strainer of the five gallon variety.  I found them at ACE Hardware for 3.99 but have done business with these folks since the mid seventies on a house account so I get their best pricing, which for two strainers was 1.85 .  Cheap.  You can find them on Amazon.com too, and Sherwin Williams Paint store for 2.09 each, ouch.

Filter bag is a Five Gallon Paint Strainer and is used to contain the Perlite and keep it from entering the nutrient stream.

Back to the bucket.  Hole is one inch, grommet comes from Lowes or Home Depot, but like me you may purchase them at Grainger.com an industrial supplier.  I buy 130 Volt light bulbs from them too that last five thousand hours, regular Wally World bulbs last only 750 hours and are 120 Volt.  I’m an electrician too. So the drain tube is 1/2 inch supply PVC tubing and fittings, not schedule anything.  Lowes.  Install a paint strainer and you are ready to pour in the Perlite.  Once full leave a couple inches and water the stuff in.  It will settle into the bucket and you will need to add more and keep wetting with water.  At some point you may want to catch rainwater to get lower PH water to use with nutrient solution, and I can see it being beneficial doing even this Perlite fill.  Success is in the details.  From what I’ve gathered PH must be controlled and rainwater has lower PH than tap water.

The Grommet is one of the secrets of the Dutch Bucket system. It replaces the more costly bulkhead fitting. Grainger.com carries these for about $9 for fifty, cheaper than Lowes or Home Depot

Perlite is the grow medium and can be purchased at local stores that handle agricultural supplies. It costs about $20 a bag and you can get six to seven 4 gallon Dutch Buckets worth from the 4 cu. ft. bag

So the bucket is filled and settled with Perlite and water.  It may be beneficial to rinse the Perlite to remove tiny particles from the bucket and allow it to flow out before hooking it up to the system.  A drain line will return nutrients to the 27 gallon lidded reservoir.  That drain at two inches is ample to drain an 18 bucket system.  You simply drill a one inch hole for each bucket drain tube to enter the top of the pipe, it is open and no fitting is required.  Add a length of pipe from the drain tube elbow and into the two inch PVC drain pipe.

27 gallon reservoir for the nutrient solution catch basin, the water pump goes here an Eco Plus 264 GPH unit. The tub is from Lowes and cost $15, the Pump is from Grener.com and cost $20 plus ship, I bought three so 12 ship becomes 4 bucks a unit.

The Reservoir I discovered is 27 gallons and has a lid, available at Lowes for about 13 dollars.  I bought my pump from Greners.com in Healdsburg, CA, an EcoPlus 264 which pumps two hundred and sixty four gallons an hour at around five feet of lift, check the specs.  Pump cost was twenty bucks plus shipping, I bought three as two systems and I thought safety demands backup.  It is the heart of the system.  Handwatering is an option should a pump fail and I did see impeller replacement parts for these pumps.  They offered a competing brand which was significantly higher in cost.

The supply tubing that hooks to the pump is 1/2 inch poly, very cheap and thin, but outdoors relevant, should last a while.  The other parts you need are 1/2 inch elbows, 1/4 inch tubing, connectors, and possibly a cheap punch tool.  Simply punch a hole in the larger line, add a quarter inch connector, attach the quarter inch tubing of sufficient length to reach the top of the bucket.  They offer manifolds for watering, but the single connectors work down the line just fine.  I also bought the half inch line figure eight clamp, you just kink the end of the tube and fit it into the figure eight going and coming back to hold the kinked line shut indefinitely.  I’m sure you could cut the kink off add a splice connector, hook on with new line and go on or expand the system.

So, that gives us our buckets, our drain system that leads to our reservoir and pump.  The supply tube brings the nutrients dissolved in the water to the top of each bucket via the short quarter inch lines branching off the main half inch supply tube.  That’s the circuit.  Check the next post about the fertilizer mix for this hydroponic setup.  Cheers, bd