Sunday, November 04, 2012

NFT (tube) Gardens in the winter

Well, fall is here and winter is most certainly on its way.  Seems to me that unless an NFT system (tube garden) is in a perfectly controlled environment they are going to transfer so much heat as to make them a total waste of power ....  Should I be using some sort of insulation on the pipes?  I have a couple of aquaponic beds on flood and drain cycles, where it looks like the pebbles and pellets are acting as a thermal bank ... and I can put mini greenhouse domes over those beds to trap the heat a little more but I just don't see it working out for the NFT system this winter at any rate.
I suspect that I'll just end up taking it out and replacing it with another flood and drain bed filled with pea gravel, but I would love to hear what other greenhouse system gardeners have to say.

1 comment:

  1. So I ended up taking those out but still haven't gotten around to building that extra bed yet. I'm thinking it might be better to wait for spring with that project.

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