Irrigation

[Josepina]

Hi all, I'm after a bit of advice regarding my greenhouse watering system. As my greenhouse is on the patio I grow things mostly in Morrison buckets which then stand in drip trays (the long ones used for grow bags).
I've got drippers for 4mm tubing, do you think its best to water straight into the drip trays or put drippers into each pot or am I worrying too much and it makes no difference?
I've got 2 weeks to sort this out as I'm off to Greece for a fortnight
I'm growing Tomatoes, Aubergines, cucumbers and chillis.

[Jay-ell]

What type of drippers are they - can you adjust the amount of drip?

How is the water getting to the drippers - are you setting up a timer?

Do the trays have capillary matting?

To work out how much your drippers will water put one in a leakproof container and let it drip for 10min then measure how much has dripped then work out how many 10 minutes needed to give a good drink.

Is the system going to be connected straight to the mains water supply or to a water but?

How many plants are you talking about?

I have variable drippers in each mfb which can be adjusted to suit the plant.

[Josepina]

Hi thanks for the help.

My system will run from mains tap --- hozelock timer.

I have ordered drippers from Amazon - say "adjustable micro drip" (fairly cheap 100 for a fiver so hope they will be ok!)

I have 21 pots in total - 12 MFB's in trays - no cap matting (can add some tho?) and 9 smaller pots (with chillis) on shelving which has cap matting.

Great idea to run it into a jug for 10 mins I think this will really help to judge how long it needs. I'm in off on Thursday so I'm hoping my drippers will arrive and I can start setting it all up

[Jay-ell]

If it's this type
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Adhere-Fly-...ble+micro+drip
the blurb says that it can do up to 70 litres and hour so if it was fully open it would drip about 10-12 litres in the 10 minute test.

Do you have "T" pieces coming as well? The above types are end drippers which means that they are at the end of a length of tubing. You'll need your main line with the "T"s coming off it to each pot. The MFB/Toms would have the dial turned up a bit more than the chillies/small pots as they'll need more water.

Do you also have a pressure reducer - plugging these kits into mains pressure can make them blow out or act like shower heads. If you got a kit like the W1lk0s king fisher kit it'll have the Ts and reducer in it (the drippers in the kit aren't that good though but the kit is cheap for the rest of the items).

You will find out that it's a great timesaver and then you only have to go round once a week with the feed (I don't even do that - I make 200l of week feed solution so they get a little bit of feed every water and inject that into the butts when I fill them so it's nice and mixed). even with the GH being close you may think about keeping it permanently so I'd recommend thinking about the layout and, if you are might upgrade it, have enough 4.mm tube on the drippers to make refitting them easy.

I run an irrigation setup in the green house which is fed from 2 100l waterbutts and a low pressure timer with a filter. Last year I used 4mm pipe throughout including the backbone/main supply line but this often clogged up and is a pain to trace and unblock.

This year I've changed it to 13mm backbone (regular garden hose) with the same tube T'd off to make 10 arms (with valves on one end to be able to shut off the entire arm and end plugs to close them). The 4mm only connect the drippers to the arms - max of 6 per arm (each arm is 2' apart and this is enough to hold 6 MFBs) each dripper on it's own length of 4mm. This way I get better flow all the way to the end which the 4mm struggled with a bit - last years system also used in line drippers as well as end drippers.

Mine comes on twice a day for three minutes each time which at the moment is sufficient to supply water to the 16 toms, 11 peppers, 4 cucumbers, 2 melon and a Yacon. As they grow and need more I can crank the drippers open quite a bit more. Larger planters can have 2 or more drippers set lower so you have the capacity to dial it up if the weather gets hotter or as the plant gets bigger.

I like the fact that after 5 days of no attendance I walked in today and saw all the plants alive and perky, the cucumbers covered in flowers, the Yacon taller, the toms with flower and the chillies about to open. Far easier than panicking because it's been a hot day and I have to rush down to water the toms or fitting the watering into 12 hour night shifts and 2 hours travelling a day. The biggest challenge was removing the armpits from the toms.

DON'T BE ALARMED IF YOU LOOK AT THE COMPOST AND IT'S BONE DRY. As each drip soaks in when it hits the surface then the total moisture spreads out beneath the top it can look as if it's dry as a bone, but poke your finger underneath the surface and it'll be lovely and moist. This dry crust can help conserve water as well as it can prevent evaporation.

[Josepina]

Thank you so much for a really thorough and comprehensive reply
Yes those are the drippers and yes I have 50 T pieces.
Your irrigation sounds like a feat of engineering - wow!
I'm going to draw it out, put it together and test run it before setting up in greenhouse - I'll let you know how it goes (I might try pics but I'm not very techie)

Maybe make this a sticky as I reckon this is an excellent guide for setting up irrigation

Thanks Jo x

[Jay-ell]

Glad to help, hope you get it sorted in time. Pikkies would be good

[Josepina]

Irrigation factory!

Well I didn't manage to finish everything, my tubing was a bit narrow for connections so needed time patience and lots of hot water
I decided to bring the system in through the louvres at the back as last year I kept tripping over it, I will disconnect when it gets cold so closing louvres shouldn't be a problem.
When I did try to test it it seemed like the water dripped out very fast? Hope drippers are ok because it was tough getting them in
Got a busy few days in work but will try to get finished Monday
Hope pics work!



Pic1
Pic2