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Disaster with the floating garden (lemmy.world)

submitted 5 months ago by mipadaitu@lemmy.world to c/gardening@lemmy.world

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The experimental mat has been out for about a week now, but extremely high winds during a storm last night pulled up a corner of the mat spilling out the contents.

Luckily the majority of the plants were able to be saved, so we have one empty spot now.

I added some weights to the four corners to hopefully prevent this from happening again.

This is why we're experimenting! Learning what works and what doesn't with the setup.

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[-] mipadaitu@lemmy.world 34 points 5 months ago

Post cleanup picture, lots of silt was stirred up while I was reorganizing and tying off new lines.

[-] lurch@sh.itjust.works 32 points 5 months ago

i did not expect this level of action ngl

[-] mipadaitu@lemmy.world 7 points 5 months ago

Neither did we!

[-] mipadaitu@lemmy.world 16 points 5 months ago

Original post.
https://lemmy.world/post/15830343

[-] homesweethomeMrL@lemmy.world 15 points 5 months ago

Dang ol nature man, tell you whut

[-] Ageroth@reddthat.com 11 points 5 months ago

How uv stable is the foam? Not much can survive being in the sun all day without degrading

[-] mipadaitu@lemmy.world 20 points 5 months ago

Yes, this type of foam is used for docks, boats, sports, and more importantly... this is what the original papers used. All of the parts are rated for water, temperature, and UV resistance.

[-] ThrowawaySobriquet@lemmy.world 11 points 5 months ago

Ah, bummer. But like you said, this is why we experiment. Negative results are still results!

[-] mipadaitu@lemmy.world 9 points 5 months ago

If you only share perfection people don't see what some of the pitfalls could be! I love seeing results, no matter which way they fall.

[-] ChocoboRocket@lemmy.world 8 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

I didn't look very close at the growing medium, so the "spill" looked like deer poops and I imagined a deer was tricked onto water and literally all the shit was scared out of 'em when they fell in

Happy to see your garden was salvaged and improved, but a little sad that my deer theory wasn't accurate

[-] mipadaitu@lemmy.world 13 points 5 months ago

The growing medium is LECA, but we did catch a deer nearby, so I guess it's POSSIBLE it was deer inflicted.

[-] bobburger@fedia.io 7 points 5 months ago

The past few days have taught me it's a lot harder to get floating projects right than I thought it would be.

[-] catloaf@lemm.ee 7 points 5 months ago

That's why people rarely do it. Nature be crazy, and wind and water are the things that hit hardest.

[-] Glent@lemmy.ca 7 points 5 months ago

Cool experiment. Natural hydroponics? What are the plants?

[-] mipadaitu@lemmy.world 7 points 5 months ago

Zinnias, marigolds, sunflowers, and a few randos.

[-] prettybunnys@sh.itjust.works 6 points 5 months ago

Unless you’re securing the sections together beyond the interlocking bits I’d expect to eventually run into a scenario where everything breaks apart too.

[-] pepperonisalami@sh.itjust.works 4 points 5 months ago

Any plans for an improved version?

[-] mipadaitu@lemmy.world 3 points 5 months ago

I'm sure there will be a lot of small improvements over time..I already added weights to the corners, and will probably try some design ideas from a link suggested from the original thread.

https://howtorewild.co.uk/actions/build-a-floating-bog/