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Students from Penn State gave 8hrs of the time to help build a Springs garden from recycle plastic containers. For the next four classes they'll build Pods and Nanny Pods. Normally these 5lb deli cups would be tossed into the recycling instead of finding a completely new life growing food for years to come.
The outside 5lb cup is spray painted to use Sunlight to move the water for circulation. The Pods are painted to increase the effect of sunlight on the plastic. The long strip of masking tape is used to create a water sight line to determine the water level and a Velcro tab with a hole so the plant won't drown. The hole is covered with another Velcro tab to keep out insects.
If you think of this as regular pond water you get a better understanding of how these work. The plant itself produces the waste which the bacteria lives on. It's the dead bacteria that produces the food for the plant.
Since I use bacteria as the food source it has to be a wet environment. The Pod comes in two parts.
The reason for painting the cups black is to help with the transport of water by convection. you have a hot side and a cool side it moves water this way in the sealed containers.
This a 3ltr soda and 1gal juice bottle. The 3ltr bottle has the bottom cut off and heated on a pan to warp the bottle to invert the plastic to make a rim to catch the moisture that will built up along sides. The terri cloth strips are there to wick water up from the bottom 3ltr juice bottom. The bottom 3ltr bottle has a hole cut beneath the neck to as a drain. While I like this method the problem become getting that root system out the bottles. Now if your not going to use it to grow corn why not grapes. That's a plant that doesn't need to be dug out each year.
The pictures above are about the Nanny Pods. Another form of containers to grow corn. Now by corn I mean a single stalk of Sweet Corn. The First of the month I'm using these to start Sweet corn for the 4th of July. I grow seeds of various types just to have on hand. These were Mimi- Orange tree seeds. Since they fruit true on their on roots they grow true from seed. Wash as much of the dirt off the roots as you can. It helps the plant to start the right type of roots right away. Spread out the roots and add mix.
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