!!URGENT!! Volksgarden Info

PLEASE HELP! I have a small window for ordering ALL the supplies I need to begin my grow op. I have a good amount of money to spend and I need to spend it soon! I am very interested in the Volksgarden which would save me countless dollars on bulbs, ballasts, reflectors, pots, soil, and so much more. SO MY QUESTION goes out to anyone with knowledge or experience with Omega Gardens and/or more specifically the Volksgarden:
1. How long you have owned the Omega Garden/Volksgarden?
2. How it has held up (Durability)?
3. Is it worth the money?
4. Where or what website did you purchas the item from?
5. How many plants do you put in the garden
6. !!IMPORTANT!! What type of yields do you receive?
7. How many weeks from first placing the plant in the garden to harvest?
8. !!IMORTANT!! What bulb do you use and what is the max I could use without burning the plants. I am very worried 1,000 watt HPS would be too much, and that's why I'm asking.
The more responses the easier my decision will be so please RIU Community help me out!

The Producer said:

PLEASE HELP! I have a small window for ordering ALL the supplies I need to begin my grow op. I have a good amount of money to spend and I need to spend it soon! I am very interested in the Volksgarden which would save me countless dollars on bulbs, ballasts, reflectors, pots, soil, and so much more. SO MY QUESTION goes out to anyone with knowledge or experience with Omega Gardens and/or more specifically the Volksgarden:
1. How long you have owned the Omega Garden/Volksgarden?
2. How it has held up (Durability)?
3. Is it worth the money?
4. Where or what website did you purchas the item from?
5. How many plants do you put in the garden
6. !!IMPORTANT!! What type of yields do you receive?
7. How many weeks from first placing the plant in the garden to harvest?
8. !!IMORTANT!! What bulb do you use and what is the max I could use without burning the plants. I am very worried 1,000 watt HPS would be too much, and that's why I'm asking.
The more responses the easier my decision will be so please RIU Community help me out!

Click to expand...

1. had omegas years ago then switched to volksgardens cause of the ease of moving them.
2. i would say that the volks is just as durable and maybe even better then the omega
3. its worth the money to me.
4. omegagarden.com - might as well go to the source
5. it depends on the plant i am using as to the spacing but usually 40 to 60ish
6/7/8. 3 to 4+ lbs in 7 weeks with 600 watts. i have used 1000 in an omega and you cant get as close to the light running 1000s but that can work out, but you will have more heat issues in general in your room. i like the 600s way better

There is a seller on e-bay that throws in a 600 watt digital ballst plus 100 rockwool blocks for the same price as omega sells just the volks...

Hey omega you say you switched to volks to make moving them easier.

But isnt a 4 foot wide wheel harder to move then a dissmantable wheel with the omega?

omegafarmer i have 2 questions for u

1 is it possible to lower or higher the light so the whole thing works like a light mover?
2 if so , have u tried it?

You can actually rig a light mover but it moves the light forward and back inside the cool tube to spread it out... Not the cooltube moving up or down itself...

ok
but if the light just dident sit in the center it would give the plants diferent amount of lumenence depending on where the plant is u know

The cylinder rotates.. It makes one full roation a hour...

Im sensing your not getting this...

ok i understand ... now

ganjagoddess said:

There is a seller on e-bay that throws in a 600 watt digital ballst plus 100 rockwool blocks for the same price as omega sells just the volks...

Hey omega you say you switched to volks to make moving them easier.

But isnt a 4 foot wide wheel harder to move then a dissmantable wheel with the omega?

Click to expand...

volksgarden has a 4 foot diameter but the depth is less then 2 foot so it goes through a doorway no problem. the tray is about 30" so some doorways will accommodate the whole unit without taking the cylinder off of the stand.

the cylinder has to go through residential doorways or you really limit your market to only commercial. the larger units have to come apart in order to get them through doorways. the omega is about a 2 hour install and the volksgarden is 5 minutes.

Two grand is a lot of money for something that, with a bit of junk collecting, someone could possibly build for themselves.
I'm thinking; two bicycle wheels, screwed to pairs of ceiling batons with holes drilled in them, (one big one for the stem to grow through and under it many others to let in the hydro fluids), perhaps clamped together to hold in place the rock wool cubes, or maybe pinned, bolted to a steel pole stand fitted with bearings, sitting above a plastic tub fixed to a sheet of chipboard, (waterproofed with paint and varnish), standing on screw in wheels. As a drip shield for the globe, an ordinary clear glass bottle with both ends cut off and even possibly laterally cut in half to allow the heat to simply overflow from it.
A $4.98 preprogrammed timer that turns the motor on and off enough times in an hour to do a full rotation over a 50 minute period, or just a slow motor connected using the sprockets and chain from a bicycle... and there we have it, the poor man's 'Volksgarden'!
You could even tweak it a bit, add a carbon air filter to one end and to the other an air inlet fan, place reflectors in the spaces between the rock wool cubes and a parabolic mirror at either end to enhance light activity and seal the whole unit in a box or a wardrobe.
It would be cheaper. You'd need a few tools, some nuts and bolts, screws, bearings, an old bike, steel rods, but I reckon all up if you really looked hard for the junk to make it from, you could do it for under $50.00.
Just don't fly too close to the Sun!

as i understand it , it won't be much space for the roots in this kinda system but i might be wrong

Never having done this before myself, but from the theories that I understand of the basic principles of hydroponic growing, I would imagine that as long as the supply of nutrients and water is adequate, the roots would not require being large to support growth.
From what I can gather, the rock wool cubes have an amazing propensity to absorb and contain an adequate volume of water and they can thereby provide a supply to the plants that is more than enough for them to thrive on.
In the case of a rock wool cube, in this device, they would probably remain small throughout the plant's entire life cycle, serving merely as a plug for the plant to remain in its storage receptacle site for the times when it hangs from above, and around the light, and of course, to take up water.
The energy that the plant then does not have to use by expending on the growing of its roots, it can then put into the production of foliage instead, leading to a potentiating of the volume that it can eventually create as buds and thereby yielding vastly greater sums than can be expected of even the best-grown 'gravity-opposed' plants.
Is this the beginning of the dispersion of some information that might possibly become significant, common-place knowledge amongst boo growers and the start of something that will signal a change in their traditional methodology?
I've always thought that if you grew a plant completely upside down then you would be utilizing the down ward force of gravity and creating a situation of better than average plant growth, but it seems that the rotation of the device, and the plants' fighting against gravity to remain upright, is the more important influence in their accelerated growth and increase in yield.
It's a great device, but I wonder if this really will take off?

realmeatdildo said:

Two grand is a lot of money for something that, with a bit of junk collecting, someone could possibly build for themselves.
I'm thinking; two bicycle wheels, screwed to pairs of ceiling batons with holes drilled in them, (one big one for the stem to grow through and under it many others to let in the hydro fluids), perhaps clamped together to hold in place the rock wool cubes, or maybe pinned, bolted to a steel pole stand fitted with bearings, sitting above a plastic tub fixed to a sheet of chipboard, (waterproofed with paint and varnish), standing on screw in wheels. As a drip shield for the globe, an ordinary clear glass bottle with both ends cut off and even possibly laterally cut in half to allow the heat to simply overflow from it.
A $4.98 preprogrammed timer that turns the motor on and off enough times in an hour to do a full rotation over a 50 minute period, or just a slow motor connected using the sprockets and chain from a bicycle... and there we have it, the poor man's 'Volksgarden'!
You could even tweak it a bit, add a carbon air filter to one end and to the other an air inlet fan, place reflectors in the spaces between the rock wool cubes and a parabolic mirror at either end to enhance light activity and seal the whole unit in a box or a wardrobe.
It would be cheaper. You'd need a few tools, some nuts and bolts, screws, bearings, an old bike, steel rods, but I reckon all up if you really looked hard for the junk to make it from, you could do it for under $50.00.
Just don't fly too close to the Sun!

Click to expand...

and what could be cheaper then this? talking about it.

are you counting any labor in there? even at $20 an hour i bet you cant build a working system for less then you can buy a new volksgarden and in the 6 weeks or so that you work in it you could have your first harvest in and by looking at buying a couple more with the profits from the first run.

Don't get me wrong, i would love to see you take it on and build one just like you say. you can turn it into a reality show and maybe get on the show Weeds.

I have seen a few posts in other places that made a start in this direction but fizzled out. i bet it would make for a very popular thread.

I'll re-state I have built two Omega Type rotating systems, and the total cost on each one came to over $2500.00 they did hold 400 plants each however....

This was including dual cool tubes 60" that cost $350 each.

Also Included were the cost of two 1000 watt magnetic ballasts however...

In the long run I should have bought them but I was too comitted to them already...

Also They Had "problems"

ganjagoddess said:

I'll re-state I have built two Omega Type rotating systems, and the total cost on each one came to over $2500.00 they did hold 400 plants each however....

This was including dual cool tubes 60" that cost $350 each.

Also Included were the cost of two 1000 watt magnetic ballasts however...

In the long run I should have bought them but I was too comitted to them already...

Also They Had "problems"

Click to expand...

did you document your experience?

in your post of 07-12-2008 09:19 AM you say "Never having done this before myself, but from the theories that I understand of the basic principles of hydroponic growing, I would imagine that as long as the supply of nutrients and water is adequate, the roots would not require being large to support growth.
From what I can gather, the rock wool cubes have an amazing propensity to absorb and contain an adequate volume of water and they can thereby provide a supply to the plants that is more than enough for them to thrive on."

am i missing something here? you say you have built them, then you say you have not done this, which is it? are you caught in some kind of time loop

Umm you have that post confused with someone else, I have never said

"Never having done this before myself, but from the theories that I understand of the basic principles of hydroponic growing, I would imagine that as long as the supply of nutrients and water is adequate, the roots would not require being large to support growth.
From what I can gather, the rock wool cubes have an amazing propensity to absorb and contain an adequate volume of water and they can thereby provide a supply to the plants that is more than enough for them to thrive on."

Click to expand...

Seriously can you pull the quote for me, because I have never typed that sentence.

In fact click my name and go to show all posts, I never made a post at 7-12-2008 at 9.19am...

Im usually asleep at 9:00 in the morning haha

the persen he confused u with is realmeatdildo and its the 12th post in this topic

If any of you guys are any good with carpentry, you can use this Plastic wood to build the wheel itself, it held up great for us....

Plastic Plywood Sheets - Marine Plywood - Plywood Sheeting

Its is waterproof, doesnt swell, and comes in 4x8 sheets of plywood.

For the rings of the wheel we used 1 sheet of 4x8 at 1.5 inch thick,

For the Trays that the rockwool sits in we used 4 inch PVC pipes, and made square rockwool blocks conform to the circular shape, I feel it also helped hold them in place.

Cheers

GG

oops sorry my bad