[orasis]

I own 20 ZipGrow towers and have become quite disillusioned with them across 3 growing seasons.

The biggest problem is that there is nothing to buffer moisture on the roots if there is an intermittent problem.

You might get a nice crop of basil growing and then a clogged emitter for 12 hours can be the death of those plants.

Here are all of the failure modes I have experienced:

- pump dying - Leak in base causing all water gone in 24 hours - clogged emitters - water choosing off route through tower and not hitting the plants on top - emitters getting blown off causing water to spray outside tower - circuit breakers trip from pump

Overall I’ve probably lost half of everything I’ve planted in a zipgrow.

A professional operation with a daily maintenance routine could probably use them, but they are no panacea.

[elasticventures]

It's worth mentioning that the facebook forums for hydroponics farming are full of people trying to sell these things second hand with no explanation 'why'.

[orasis]

Yeah, they were quite expensive and I'll probably just end up giving them away.

[syntaxing]

Would you happen to be in California? I would love to buy one from you (after this whole shelter in period)!

[orasis]

I would but I’m not near CA

[ansible]

People have been making flood and drain systems for years, controlled by a super-reliable mechanical system. The downside is that these are typically much larger and heavier. The ones I've seen have a bed of gravel as the grow medium. It also has many gallons of water in the system, and no doubt that evaporation is more of a concern.

[LoveMortuus]

Wouldn't something like Minecraft Vertical Farms be more effective, specially because you could just have a basin a top of another basin, and have the water drip from the top one to the ones below, thus requiring only one pump to pump the water that collects at the very bottom back up to the top. Of course, having aditional pump to add more water to the system would be helpful but not necessary. The only problem that I've faced with such a design is the amount of mass that all together would have and the required flood strength to support such a weight. That being said, having smaller such systems for room like enviroments shouldn't have many problems.

[syntaxing]

I want to get my feet wet with hydroponics because my daughter loves fresh produce and I love the idea growing her favorite fruits and veggies. Do you now how Zipgrow compares to Aerogarden (the "farm" size one).

[mythrwy]

An aquarium water pump https://www.ntotank.com/20gallon-duracast-rv-water-tank-x348..., a liquid holding container https://www.ntotank.com/20gallon-duracast-rv-water-tank-x348..., one or more large Tupperware (or whatever you find) tray(s) draining back into the liquid holder, Rockwell bricks (or another grow medium) in the trays, a cheap timer for the pump and you have your own ebb and flow system for a couple hundred bucks.

I've build several of these over the years. There's no need to spend extra money. But the soil and the sun are free if you can get it and imo better.

[noobly]

You may be forgetting that the sun causes cancer[0].

0: https://www.cancerresearchuk.org/about-cancer/causes-of-canc...

[ShakataGaNai]

The Aerogarden Farm and ZipGrow 2-Tower setup are fairly close in price (About $600 USD). Beyond that they're fairly different. The ZipGrow is certainly targeting a more prosumer/commercial demographic where as the Aerogarden, even the farm, tops out at high-end prosumer.

If you're an average person who isn't interested in dedicating their life to hydroponics, the Aerogarden is going to be the safer bet. It's small-ish, it's simple, it has a nice touch screen and beeps reminders at you.

[Fiahil]

If you like fresh products, I'd suggest to stay away from anything like hydroponics. Vegetables won't taste good.

[bryanrasmussen]

Ok but the selling point generally seems to involve how you will have fresh vegetables/fruits year round, or in a place where you cannot have your own garden. So you are saying that the selling point these products always make is false, I think that requires some citation/argument as to why it should be so - not just a flat statement.

on edit: example remarking on freshness being a feature https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22723373

[Fiahil]

> I think that requires some citation/argument as to why it should be so - not just a flat statement.

Just plant a tomato in a pot, put it by the window and wait. I could find you citation about the "freshness" of your garden products, but nothing beat experiencing it for yourself.

Hydroponics and LEDs are good for mass-producing a bit of basil and a lot of tomatoes, but the taste is just not there. They're bland, and unsavory.

[syntaxing]

Can you please elaborate on that? This was actually one of my concerns since I would assume the "flavor(?)" is coming from whatever is in the water.

[zo1]

The "food" you give to the plants is in the water, including oxygen. They get everything they need from it, the taste is identical, and I have no doubt that a double-blind study would show that if it hasn't already. There is no "magic" inside soil other than its a media that happens to allow nutrients to exist next to the roots that absorb them, while allowing the plant to support its own weight and stay fixed.

You can grow using media such as sand, rocks, water, air, sponge, even packing peanuts. And in terms of fertilizer, it's the same as traditional farming except they have to be water-soluble. I spent a lot of time researching hydroponics, and once you peel back the layers, it really is simple with no magic involved.

Edit. Obviously this might be different for root vegetables like potatoes (they don't do well sitting in water). Though I've seen some articles with NASA attempting them with some luck in soil-less media.

[asdkjh345fd]

>They get everything they need from it

Except carbon which they get from the air.

>the taste is identical

Identical to what? Strawberries grown in boron deficient soil taste worse than strawberries grown in soil with adequate boron. There is no yield difference, the plant does not die from the low boron. But it is unable to make large enough quantities of certain flavonoids that contribute to the flavor of the berries. We do not know how to synthetically feed plants in hydroponic situations well enough to even get optimal yield, much less optimal flavor or nutrition. Maximum yields from healthy soil still exceed maximum yields from synthetic fertilization.

>There is no "magic" inside soil other than its a media that happens to allow nutrients to exist next to the roots that absorb them, while allowing the plant to support its own weight and stay fixed.

That is a really unfortunate misconception. The difference is very real, but it is science not magic. Soil is not an inert media, it is a massive and complex ecosystem with an entire food web. Fungi actually penetrate the roots of plants and directly exchange nutrients and energy with them. Microbes can create entire amino acids, and directly give them to plants in exchange for glucose. This is very different from an inert medium that simply holds ions in water for plants to absorb. Hormones released by the plant roots appear to change the organic acid production of certain fungi, which affects how much of which minerals are solublized from the mineral component of the soil (dirt). Millions of years of co-evolution have created a system where plants are able to direct microbes to meet their specific nutritional needs at any particular time. In the process, these microbes defend the plants they have formed these symbiotic relationships with from other microbes, such as those that cause fungal diseases like blight.

>it's the same as traditional farming except they have to be water-soluble

They have to be water-soluble with conventional farming too. This is the big problem with conventional agriculture, it is really just industrial scale hydroponics done using the ground as a cheap medium. Traditional farming predates synthetic fertilizer and relied on soil.

[orasis]

I should clarify that the problems I experience are probably not specific to ZipGrow, but would happen to any vertical hydroponics that require functioning system to keep roots damp.

Soil is an amazing technology.