Hydroponic Food Safe Gutter Rails

Homemade hydroponic system using gutters.

Hydroponic food safe gutter rails.

We are blessed to live in a world where norm. For instance we drink beverages from aluminum cans. Whether you are producing flowers tomatoes cucumbers capsicum microgreens zucchini strawberries lettuce herbs or larger leafy crops there is a hydrocycle nft channel. Hydroponic systems can do the work of a much bigger soil based garden but in a significantly smaller space such as your deck or a room in the house.

But is it safe to use around food plants. Based on all the research papers i ve read i believe it s clear pvc is a toxic material that has no place in an organic garden or anywhere. My best suggestion is to use food grade or food safe materials for all surfaces that come in contact with the plants and the hydroponic solution. I think the other writers have done a pretty good job at answering the question and the only thing i will add is this.

All plastics can leach toxic substances to some degree given the right conditions there are however safer plastics than others. We always recommend checking with the manufacturer about the food safe status. This is a very inexpensive way to get a hold of large food safe buckets for your garden if available in your area. Non food grade plastics can be used for drains or other non contact surfaces.

Choose white or other light color aluminum to reduce potential of heat absorption. Pvc plastic leaches toxic chemicals. I ve been feeling an urgency to get this blog post update out because i have been seeing ridiculous growing traffic on our strawberry planting in rain gutters post and i think we should let you all know that growing strawberry plants in rain gutters hasn t turned out so well for us. Aluminum gutters may absorb more heat than vinyl gutter which may harm plant roots.

This can also be used for sip rain gutter grow system aka larry hall system. They are labeled with the recycle triangle 2 hdpe high density polyethelene. If you are really worried about something find a way to go out there and test it. Each end cap costs more than the entire 10 foot piece of gutter material.

After a few months of good rainfall which filled up my ibc tank with rainwater i decided it was time to start up my aquaponics system. And by that i mean well they are all dead big gardening fail. There is no indication that eating food grown in an aluminum or vinyl gutter garden is capable of causing harm. Hydrocycle nft hydroponic channels are popular because of their ease of use unique design efficiency and versatility.