greenhouse irrigation

[Pottypotter]

Just got myself a greenhouse and trying to find a way of watering my toms in the summer without having to go down the allotment everyday. There is no power and water would be from a water but. Any help gratefully received.

[mandyballantyne]

Hi Potty Potter,

Welcome to the vine, I am sure you will get loads of advise here.

I am looking at one from www.greenhousepeople.co.uk It is a 2 gallon bag which you hang up and it opperates by dripping water through little tubes.

I am not sure how long this would last and how aften you would need to refill but I think it is what I am going to try this year as my first greenhouse has just arrived yipee.. sorry got me started again.

I am sure the other grapes will have other ideas.

Enjoy, Mandy

[Pottypotter]

Thanks Mandy will have a look at that, good luck with your greenhouse.

Deborah

[mandyballantyne]

Try this link too they are cheaper on here.

http://www.harrodhorticultural.com/H...nt/GWT-007.htm

Let usknow how you get on, Mandy

[Alison]

I posted something about this last autumn. I irrigate my greenhouse via a water butt outside the greenhouse. There is a battery operated timer on the hose from the butt which then goes through a hole in the base at low level. I have a variety of drippers off the butt and with a bit of trial and error it works a treat. No good for any fancy spray bars but lasted well whilst I was on holiday for a week last August. If you do a search you'll probably find the discussion.

[SueA]

Hi Pottypotter, a really cheap method which you could use to cover you for a few days at a time is to get a large plastic bottle with a screw-on top, cut the bottom off, invert it, fill it with water, unscrew the top just a tiny bit so that water seeps out & push it into the ground/grow bag next to your toms so that the water gradually seeps out.

[pigletwillie]

I use low pressure leaky hose fed via an IBC which will last for up to 3 weeks. I use the same system in my tunnels.

[Geordie]

Just got myself a greenhouse and trying to find a way of watering my toms in the summer without having to go down the allotment everyday.

No partner then???

[Pottypotter]

Thanks for all the replies I think I will try a combinatio of water butt and bottles as anything new is likley to disapear of my plot

[NOG]

Pound Streacher were doing irrigation kits last year for £4. you get 20m of small bore tube plus 20 drippers and a hose atachment. I connected it all up to a water butt raised up on thee pallets and it worked a dream.

Raising the but helps the pressure.

[Protea]

Big Drippa - Big Wasta time!

I bought 3 'big-Drippa's' last year (2 gallon bags you hang in the greenhouse with drip line to pots/growbags) specifically because i was going away for nerly 3 weeks and wanted to make it as easy as possible for my neighbours to water my toms and chillies for me.

It sounds like a good idea in principle, but the drippas on the line are difficult to regulate and i found after days and days of adjustments that they either dripped to fast (i.e. a stream of water) or they didn't drip at all, or they started dripping at the perfect speed, and within 5 minutes they had stopped. I gave up in the end - it was easier to water with a watering can!

The height the bags had to be at also made them difficult to fill (and i'm not that much of a short-arse!)

A motorised drip line on the water butt sounds just the ticket - will have a search for the thread - or if anyone else finds it can they bump it up to the top of the page please?

In an ideal world i'd have an outside tap i could connect a timed irrigation drip line to (no hose-pipe ban here).....

[Alison]

I've found that the dripper bags work well too although to be fair I've fed off the water butt on a daily basis and only used the dripper bags (connected into the same dripper nozzles as the irrigation hose which may be where we differ) to slowly feed the plants when required as it wouldn't be practicable to put the feed in the water butt!

Don't understand your comment re height, I've had mine hung just above border level, that way, not much head therefore lower flow into beds.

[Protea]

Sorry alison i should have explained - my chillies were on benches in the greenhouse, rather than on the gound, hence the bag had to hang at the same level as the pot rims (the toms were in pots on the gound - so one bag was OK).

The other problem i found with them (for the OP) was that they emptied in only a few hours, so you still had to fill them every day in the heat of summer.

[seasprout]

No Drippa....

My Big drippa kept blocking up in the bag, its very difficult to clean out with such a small hole at the top. Also gave up in the end.

[Alison]

Ahhh, that makes sense! Guess by total fluke I've avoided most of the problems as I only use them for feeding as oppose to keeping them watered over the holiday.