Pallet wood Hydro-driver for 2018 season

[veggiechicken]

Charles Dowding's approach is not new or purely his idea; there are many advocates for not disturbing the soil structure and improving it with a mulch and have been for many years. At its essence, its how nature works, trees shed their leaves and plants die, and cover the soil where they decompose and are taken down into the soil by worms and other wildlife.
It makes far more sense to me than burying a pallet.

As they say on Dragon's Den, I'm out!

[Snoop Puss]

no-akira, the problem for me is that you present a lot of hypotheses and physics, but you haven't provided any data that demonstrates the effectiveness of your design. It just comes across as an idea with a fancy name, but there's no evidence it works apart from your say-so. And it's so very similar yet so very different to your previous design that it's hard to know what to think.

I'm all for new ideas, but this one seems not to justify the effort required to make it, install it and then maintain it.

To convince us, you need some data on your results.

[no_akira]

but you haven't provided any data that demonstrates the effectiveness of your design

SP wrote...


Remember I am only a "Water engineer" with 75m2 of stony and heavy clay soil. I'm not Rothamsted Research centre or RHS Risley gardens. My resources (money) and time are limited between earning a living and trying to grow some veggies (3 yrs to get to this point)

There are two possible ways to achieve the "Data" your after

1# Grow a "control bed" next to a Hydro-driver set up planting bed both with exactly the same plants in. Water & feed them exactly the same and then measure (weigh) the crops (yield) harvested all through the season and total up at the end of the season.

2# Use a data logger with soil-moisture-level (ML) sensors to create a SML profile through the bed to show the ebb & flow of moisture levels within the bed. This also would still require a "control bed". Trouble is these sensors are very variable. As much as I would love to have a go at this method its beyond me. Its almost a PHD thesis.



An easier alternative is the "open source" technique which is to get lots of curious minded people to have a go and therefore help with its development.


Show me the data for boxed-in "Raised beds"... Yet that hasn't stopped the virus like deployment of wooden bordered beds across the nations allotments.

[Snoop Puss]

Your records could be as simple as photos and weight of harvest. No more complicated than that. But you're right, you would need control beds for the purposes of comparison.

If you have demonstrated your device's success, the people most likely to adopt it are others on your allotment site, who will also have seen your results for themselves.

If we're talking on the basis of hypotheses only, mine are that you will be making your clay soil colder in spring due to latent heat of vaporization, and drier in summer. But I'm not going to be making one of your devices to prove something that is counterproductive to me, I'm afraid.

Just so's we clear, I am not a water engineer, but I did understand the page on your site that you linked to. I think your claims as to its effects are overstated. To back them up, you do need some kind of proof. And to go back to my first long post, you need to have a better understanding of the problems you think you're addressing.

I was curious and have given it the time needed to read your website and to read around the reasons why you think it works and what its effects are, and I have read all your posts in this thread. I've even checked what you present as a quotation but for which there is not one single hit in Google. Everyone who has engaged with you in this thread has a curious mind and we have taken the time to share our views with you.

[Greenleaves]

Sharing your ideas is one thing, preaching about their untested virtues is another.

I am one of those people who uses timber raised beds because it works for me and not because I am following a trend.

[Snoop Puss]

What a fool I've been...

I've just read the thread that VC linked to, in which you make the following claims about your earlier device, no-akira:

"+ These beds are quicker to create as the soil is heaped against the divider and then just left for gravity and the weather to break the soil down.

+ Less water being carried between site water taps and your growing beds.

+ Soil takes longer to compact as it is leaning against the divider. Stays fluffy for longer.

+ easier to apply feed through pallet

+ Better access to bed for weeding, as soil bank is angled towards you.

+ More successful planting, higher yields, less demoralising."

On page one of this thread, you say of your earlier device:

"Watering into the void just left you with a saturated central zone & dry plants..."

So it didn't work, despite the claims you made for it. Had I read the previous thread and page one of this thread, I wouldn't have spent the time on this device.

So that's it for me. I'm out too.

[veggiechicken]

I agree Snoop, we've travelled down this road before - and that road had to be closed by the Mods.
Life's too short etc.................

[Greenleaves]

Speaking of which I think that's thread has reached its natural conclusion.