Well, here is one I had not thought of until now. I have been obsessed with farming vertically for some time, as most of you would know if you have read my blog before today.
These little carnivorous guys have a new home as of today, and let me tell you how they came to change out their little round pot for a luxurious tower!
It all started when I got a new roommate who brings a 3D Printer into the picture. Just plan and print anything that comes to mind. I am new to this kind of printing but my roomy said I could print whatever I like as long as I buy the rolls of plastic stuff with which to make said whatever.
it prints, this triangle face down
The thin squiggles will become the support structure to hold it up as it prints. The piece you see above is the only kind that is not going to be a place into which a plant may be planted. It is called the "footer" and is the base of the tower.
All of the pots you see below are relatively small and I do not want this to tip over. I will be making a hanging plant tower for my smaller carnivorous plants.
Before I show you how it will hang, let me show you one of the stacking planters being printed...
Each planter stacks by plugging the printed pegs (facing right in the photo) into the next pot below it. For that reason, each pot has a place on top (left) for something to go into the top of the pot, and each has the convex poky things to hold it linked to the pot below it. We will see more about that as I assemble it all.
I started out with a 5/8 dowel rod that I happened to have on hand and I checked it to see if it would allow assembly of the tower, covered below. I drilled holes at the ends of it as seen here.
I then took a normal plate that would go under a planted pot and heated the center of it and pushed the dowel through it. I used a bobby pin to hold the dowel from pulling back out.
I filled the hole that I drilled with strong cement and I got a little on the plate as well. Still I can change the plate if necessary later.
The footers are flat on the bottom and only need to receive the poky things from the planter that will be above them.
It is time to lock in the first actual planter in place. On the left, I am showing you the bottom with the pins, if you can call them that, that will hold two footer pieces together and keep the planter from sliding off the assembly. On the right, you can see into the planter where there is a drain hole. That can be used for watering them all from the top of the stack if you do not fill the middle with a rod for hanging. When I do a free standing, larger version, I will play with tubing that will run down the middle.
You will now notice that I trimmed the plastic plate to allow the newly seated planter to protrude outward past the edge of the plate.
Now we have the first two, then the third stacking planters assembled around the dowel rod. Each one of these planters takes six hours to print. I made a plate that prints three at one time which takes about 9 hours.
I am about halve done with this post, but I wanted to acknowledge the designer with a link to download this apparatus and his own words on how the design should be used...
If you have a printer you can head over to thingiverse and see the design or download the files to print it. I have the three base pieces and five planter installed as you can see down below. Here is what the designer had to say about his work.
And, as always, my designs are completely open-source, public-domain dedicated. Feel free to alter in any way you like, even to commercialize them immediately. In fact, if I don't see these for sale in Home Depot by the end of the year, I will be disappointed :P
Home Depot is not a thing where I live. I am just printing them for my own personal use.
Time to hang this bad boy!
This is just an experiment to try out the design, so I am rigging it as shown without guarantee or other strangeness that the legal world might push on us. I like open source stuff in general. That is the way life should work always.
My rigging involves trusty zip-ties. The red one fits through the hole I drilled and the yellow one will not harm the tree I am using to hang it.
Here is your first view of the hanging assembly, and I can stack a total of 39 planters on this one rod. If I do that, I will need a ladder to plant in them or water them.
I have five planters that I am putting in service today. I will be doing all carnivorous plants in this stack. I start with some perlite and whole-grain sphagnum moss near the drain hole in the back.
The first one to go in is a Drosera Capensis - it is one of the most hearty Sundew plants you can grow. I want to try plants that I have a lot of in case there is anything in the plastic, freshly printed, planters that might harm theses sensitive beauties.
This plant will outgrow the size of the planter in a month or two, but it is a good test plant.
The next few are Drosera Spatulata - another type of Sundew that doesn't seem to grow very far outward. Mine are flowering right now and I hope this attractive new planter will attract both pollinators and food to these sticky plants.
These guys look pretty happy in their new home. Cozy and snug with a partial roof over their heads.
Lastly, a look at the project from both sides. In this photo, you can see the potential of stacking nearly 40 planters on one hanging rod, if I am able to print that many.
I hope to have a scaled up version of this for vegetables in the near future! What do you think of it?
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