I'm planning my automatic self watering system, now that my self staking systems are thought out and the plans are on full speed ahead. I want to hook up a self watering device on a timer to water my E buckets, EBs, GPs, and totes and 5 gallon bags. I was thinking about laying waterhose tubing between the line of E buckets and then drilling holes and inserting 1/4" poly tubing in the holes and then inserting the other end of the poly tubing into the water fill tubes. But, will the water travel up the tube? As the waterhose will be on the ground and the tubing will have to be long and reach from the waterhose up to the water fill tubes. Show me your pics people?
joy
Self watering systems on timers pics please!
Check out Boca Bob's Watering System: http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/t/917064/
Juanita: Yes, that's the pic I wanted. That is pretty near the same system I'm wanting to use. I just wasn't sure if I could put the poly hose on the ground and have the poly tubes going upwards to the waterfill tubes, as seen in that pic, you can!!!! Notice in this pic of my e buckets I have a 3 ft aisle open between the 4 rows of 10 e buckets and I have water fill tubes on the left and right of that aisle? I was thinking maybe poly hose on the ground and running tubing to the 20 e buckets ( 10 on each side)?
joy
Shouldn't be any problem, Joy. I will try to send a picture later......but I have over 20 "grow-poles" (stacked containers) that stand 4 to 5 feet high. They all get watered at the same time from 1/2 inch poly tubing laying on the ground and 1/4 inch tubing from there up to the top of each stack. Rather than an automatic timer, I have a manually set timer (about $16 bucks at home depot), just twist the knob for 5 mins, 10 mins.....whatever I think is desired depending on weather and wind conditions. As the summer comes on with hotter and windier weather and larger amounts of greenery grows in the stacks, I will increase watering to two times a day......or three times as necessary. My grow mix in the poles is now running about 75% per-lite and 25% coir so I probably could not overwater if I let the water run all the time.
I just let the 1/4 inch tubes run full force into the top of the stacks untill all the stacks start dripping water out of the bottom of all the stacks. Whether you can do that with your set-up or not, I dont know. It depends on the water holding capacity of your grow mix and the size of the plants in each container plus weather and wind conditions. You may need to get adjustable drip emitters for each container. WalMart, Home Depot, Lowes, etc has all the fittings and tubing you will need and they are not expensive. Be sure to put a pressure regulator/filter on the water faucet that supplies water to your watering system.
That is a good looking set-up you are building there. You have been a busy little bee this year. You really are going to need some type of automatic or semi-automatic watering system with a large set up like that. Have fun................and chiropractors can do wonders with aching backs !!
Whoops!! Have to edit post to correct my misstakes. I forgot you were using all e-buckets and earthboxes and such so just a 1/4 inch tube to each container should work find, no drip emitters required.
This message was edited Mar 29, 2010 5:01 PM
Jaywhacker: Just learning as I go, I think I'm going to use a 4 way manifold putting the timer on the existing facet, then hooking up the 4 way manifold. I will run poly hose instead of water hose I think, I believe it is cheaper. If you notice when you go down aisle 1, to the right you will see row one's water fill tubes staring you in the face, to the left you will see row two's water fill tubes staring you in the face, same with the other aisle, so I can probably get away with one 50 ft poly water hose running it down both aisles and making 20 holes for the poly tubing on both aisles it goes down. That will be 40 plants being watered from one 50 ft poly watering tube. Will try the same with the EBs and with my totes and can probably do it with 4 poly hoses, cheap right?
joy