Raising a healthy garden in the desert heat. How we won, in the desert sun

[@KeepOnGrowin]

Thanks bruh!! Really enjoying it. My wife has us setting up a second one now to try some different stuff. Keep on Growin' cuz Together We Grow!

[@togetherwegrow8340]

My family loves your content, just straight brilliance man. You truly inspire.

[@Awesnap]

I always tell my friends who think they can't grow "the plants will tell you what they need." A video on heliotropy and gravitropy would be great for beginning botanists. Kaba. Together we grow.

[@togetherwegrow8340]

I totally agree!

[@largefamilylife9]

what a beautiful idea, and an even better attitude full of hope and humility. i hope you are blessed today brother

[@togetherwegrow8340]

My goodness, this not only inspires me but it fills my heart with joy. Thank you so much

[@mussim2919]

Love your channel!

[@togetherwegrow8340]

I really appreciate the love!

[@insAneTunA]

I can attest what Chuck says. There are so many similarities with what I am building and doing. I have a not so standard outdoor aquaponics system, and I use my pond that is obviously buried in the ground as a water source instead of a sump tank that is located above the ground. It is not a large pond, but a fairly long stretch of pipe is buried below the frost line, and the fish tanks are about a yard deep buried and connected together with pipes or connected directly together with holes in the walls so that the fish can swim around at different water levels. And I am in the middle of installing a frame with doors for my 4 growbeds, with wire mesh to keep the birds out, and I bought 30% shade cloth, which is blocking enough sun in my climate, that I am going to install to each individual door from each IBC growbed. I also gave my growbed system a wooden fascia with one inch thick insulating rubber behind it, and I added wooden trim on top of the edges from the growbeds, so that the growbed side walls and the space under the growbeds are not exposed to the full sun, and so that less heat or cold temperatures during the winter can enter the system. And it also looks awesome. You can barely see that I used IBC containers for the growbeds. Only a sharp observer can see it after I pointed it out. Checkout my video with major IBC aquaponics update, or something like that. But bare with me because I am not done building yet. we had a lot of rain and I have to do the work outside. I also insulated the walls from the buried fish tanks and my buried sump tank that also holds fish with 6 inch thick foam so that neither very cold or warm temperatures can enter the system via the side walls from the tanks. The bottom of the fish tanks and the sump tank are not insulated and therefore cooled or kept warm during the winter by the earth. Every pipe or filter, except for one vortex filter but that is a future project, that is located above the ground and that carries water is somehow insulated or extra protected with an enclosure against very hot and very cold weather. I even went as far as creating the pond in such way so that I could use plants to create extra shade for the pond water. And I also planted trees and shrubs to create some extra shade for the pond on the hottest hours of the day. Although one shrub broke in half during a storm last winter. So now I have a bit less shade. But it will grow back. In the full sun the surface from my growbeds can get very hot very quickly, much hotter as the ambient temperature because I use lava rock as a grow media because it doesn't freeze to pieces like clay balls do in my climate. And lava rocks can transfer that heat to the pond water very easily due to the nature of a flood and drain growbed, it suck in hot air as it drains the water. I monitor the temperatures from pretty much everything in my garden where temperature matters. Including the water temp and the growbed surface temp. And during heatwaves the growbed surface temperature can even get absurdly hot for my latitude. Last year I measured temperatures that exceeded 118F, or 50C and at the time I could not measure hotter temps because the temp gauge did not go any higher. And my strawberry plants and chive and monks cress got stunned and stopped growing and producing fruit and flowers. And I got a lot of aphids. It was just way too hot. The first year I had nothing insulated, and that resulted in frozen and broken pipes. After all my temperature control modifications I never had an issue with frozen pipes again, and I keep my system running all year around. However if we get severe frost for a longer stretch of time it might still freeze up, but I can shut down that section from my system while I can keep the rest of the system running as normal. And I keep it all running with a single variable pump that is currently using only 52 watt or so. And I estimate that right now with some losses because it needs to pump the water up for about two yards it is pumping between 5 and 6 thousand liters of water per hour. That is about 1300 gallons per hour. But at a maximum rate the pump should be able to pump 10.000 liters of water at approximately 85 watt. That is about 2200 gallon per hour minus some losses due to the 2 yard height that it needs to pump. I wrote this long story because I know this stuff, I have real life experience with it, and I invested money and time and blood and sweat and sometimes a little tear to make it work, so I can wholeheartedly and with a clear conscience confirm that every single word that Chuck has said in this and previous videos is the one and only truth. And Chuck knows what he is talking about. 👍

[@togetherwegrow8340]

I encourage everyone to READ this, and if you're like me, you're taking notes. This is my FRIGGIN DREAM!!! I'm so blown away and amazed

[@insAneTunA]

@@togetherwegrow8340 Like I said, I can see many similarities. So I enjoy and I truly understand your message to the very core. Not just the theoretical principles behind the system, but also the practical side with building materials, and all that sort of stuff. And I think that you are doing a fantastic job explaining it to people. I am not structured enough to speak in explainable language. And English is not my native language. However, I can write much easier in the English language as that I can speak out loud. So I much rather like to write comments and share my personal experiences instead of teaching by speaking.

[@shednalarue]

Great info. Also, your shirt is AWESOME! lol

[@togetherwegrow8340]

Thank you so much fam!

[@UninstructedProductions]

Just saw your paragraphic video! From Phoenix and I just wanna say I’m all in, I’m wanna make a change!

[@togetherwegrow8340]

You already made the first step!

[@michelleh.7010]

Thanks for showing us your aquaponics setup. What do you do about calcium deposits? Would your system work with an extended power outage? Also, is that lemongrass growing with your tomatoes?

[@togetherwegrow8340]

Hi, and great questions. We wash the grow bags in between seasons, and cycle them out. Because we use low energy equipment, our systems have run off the grid for over a week. This was with much newer batteries, though. That's not lemon grass. Good guess. It's actually clippings from green onions that are more the size of leeks :) I hope I helped a bit Together We Grow

[@michelleh.7010]

Very cool. Thank you!

[@susanbutterfly9579]

Way to go Chuck! I love the living wall concept, thank you for sharing!

[@togetherwegrow8340]

Thank you so much!

[@iammarkymarc]

All this Ice cube talk makes me want some Ice Tea now. LOL Good ideas Chuck. Thanks!

[@togetherwegrow8340]

Lol, I was totally inspired by this pitcher of Lemonade Rosie made lmao! Great minds man

[@julieannaadade8482]

Thank you so much Chuck for your tips, tricks, and suggestions for everything hydroponics!!

[@togetherwegrow8340]

Hi Julie, my absolute pleasure!

[@craikista]

Are your reservoir containers food grade? 🤔 i plan on building something just like yours, but I am focusing on food-grade containers.

[@togetherwegrow8340]

Great question. All materials are food grade and bph free.

[@togetherwegrowstuff]

Hey there fellow gardener and almost name twin! 👋 🌱💚 I'm active on insta and one of my friends tried to tag me and they left the stuff off and tagged a together we grow, but it wasn't a garden page 😅 made me remember Michael micro green guy mentioned a together we grow page but there's wasn't a tag. I think you're who Michael was referring to... If not let me know . Lol. Im curious if you're on insta and wanted to ask if we can link up online and grow stuff together 😄🌱💚

[@togetherwegrow8340]

Hi, I'm not really active on insta. Mostly here and fb