Hydroponics Complete

My sons say we are growing salad, which is pretty accurate. It's really heritage lettuce, and I'm thinking what are we going to do with 44 1/2 plants. (The half is because one plant doesn't look so good.) I guess we will be enjoying a lot of salad. I'm really just excited to be growing again.

During the week my husband cut the PVC pipes into troughs and glued caps on the ends. Then Saturday he put it all together. He made mounting brackets that would not hurt the wood work trim around the windows, but still allowed for the shades to be drawn at night. He drilled holes in the ends of the troughs, ran tubing, and measured the angles so gravity could do it's work.

The first test was not successful. The pump was too powerful and shot water everywhere. I thought we would have to delay the whole thing until we got a new pump. My husband's response was, "I have an idea." He made an offshoot valve on the side of the pump, so we could adjust the water pressure. 

The second test run was more successful. We had some leaks in certain places, but nothing the hot glue gun couldn't fix. We also noticed that the trough slid around in the bracket, so that got some hot glue too.

Once construction was over I put in the directed amount of fertilizer. The fertilizer is just indoor plant food that dissolves in water. I opted for the all natural kind with the kids around.

The plants went in and we started it up. After running it for a few hours we noticed that the pump heats up the water. It gets pretty hot. Right now we shut it off periodically throughout the day to give it a break. It's a little too powerful for our little hydroponic system. My husband Amazoned another one, which should be here Wednesday.

From now on, I know my lettuce won't see more of America than I have, which is usually the case when it travels 1500 miles from field to fork. It will go from my dining room to my kitchen back to my dining room. Now I need to find some lettuce recipes besides salad. Any ideas?