Subsistence Farming via Grow-pipe Technology

By Renaldo Lewis

Subsistence Farming is an effective way to reduce one’s food bill, add greenery to your home and add leisure to your life. It can also be used to help develop a sense of responsibility in children if they are charged with the care of the crops planted. Urbanization however has caused a reduction in the amount of yard space found around modern homes and high-raise buildings, where there is none at all. This new trend has greatly compromised the ability of people to plant food where they live and has increased the dependency on grocery/market shopping for vegetable produce. In times past it was the norm to have pigeon peas, lettuce and other crops in one’s back yard, but now a lack of planting space is only one preventative issue as lifestyles have become increasingly hectic and persons can seldom find the time to tend to kitchen gardens.

Container farming has been proposed as an alternative to back yard planting for persons with little to no available space. Grow-pipe technology is one form of container farming. Similar to grow-box technology where a suitable growing medium is prepared and put in place for farming, four (4) inch PVC pipes are used as the container to hold the growth medium. The growing medium can vary depending on the crop(s) of interest, material cost / availability and other factors but in the end its composition usually has a soil like consistency. Materials typically used in grow-pipes and other forms of container farming include compost, manure, sharp-sand, gravel and or purolite, either individually or in various mixtures.

Grow-pipes, unlike traditional container planters (i.e. pots and buckets), add a sense of novelty, style and aesthetics to one’s kitchen garden. The use of PVC makes it easy to construct, relatively cheap and very durable.  They can be built vertically (otherwise referred to as “growing towers”) or horizontally and PVC fittings such as elbows and tees can be used to connect more than one unit together. This again emphasizes the ease of construction. Perhaps the greatest benefit of using grow-pipe systems is the low level of maintenance required. It is only at the points where the 2-inch holes are cut to insert seedlings are the growing materials exposed. This means that there is little or no need to weed grow-pipe systems. The systems can also be fitted with an internal ½-inch perforated pipe which can serve to irrigate the crops planted. One can even go as far as connecting the ½-inch pipe to an irrigation timer so that the water will be turned off and on at intervals without the need for the owner to remember to water the plants or to turn on a tap.

Grow-pipes take up very little space. They can even be placed on one’s balcony as the only additional requirement is sunlight. The right choice in crops and growing medium mixture would ensure that all the necessary nutrients are within the system and that there is little to no need for synthetic fertilizers and/or pesticides. These advantages make grow pipes an excellent option for the modern family to carry out kitchen gardening to produce vegetables and seasoning herbs for the household.

*Renaldo Lewis is a director and current Technical Officer of CPEF who has many years experience in agricultural work. Feel free to leave a comment for Renaldo or let us know what you think about this article!