Watering, when away on holiday

[petlor]

Can any body suggest the best method of watering tomatoes plants in the greenhouse while i am away for two weeks . Neighbours are away as well .If I water well before going away will they last for two week without further watering

[janeyo]

Hi I think there is a recent thread on here somewhere about putting upside down bottles in the soil with a drip hole in for watering. Not sure what the outcome of how effective it was though but might be worth experimenting with different size holes etc before you go? Or you can get an irrigation system thing which attaches to your tap I think and drips where you need it but on all the time. I suppose you could put it on a timer too.
Failing that maybe you could take them to a friend's house for plant sitting?

I don't think toms will last 2 weeks with no water.
janeyo

[brooklynodog]

Can any body suggest the best method of watering tomatoes plants in the greenhouse while i am away for two weeks . Neighbours are away as well .If I water well before going away will they last for two week without further watering

I wouldnt have thought so.

[Nicos]

Nope- the longest I have left mine have been 4 days in summer - and that was leaving an inverted bottle next to each plant.

If it rains non stop, you'd be fine for a week, or even a bit longer, but if it's hot and sunny (as we have today)...no chance

[Alison]

I left mine for 3 weeks in June once with a dripper system fed from a water butt on a timer. Worked very well but it was a jungle in there when I got home!

[NOG]

Buy a water butt (£20) and a irrigation system from PoundStreacher (£5).

Fill waterButt put the drippers on the growbags.

Go on Holiday/.

[Capsid]

I have the Gardena water timer connected to tubing and drip nozzles. The timer is expensive but worth it IMO.

[Alison]

You can buy cheaper models of the timers - they're more basic but work well. A friend of mine bought on from Lidl earlier in the year and I think they have some in Wilkos also.

[Matt.]

It also depends when you're going and what the weather will be like (at your home not on your holiday...)

I wouldn't suggest you provide the details but if its soon the plants will be small and not needing much water per day. A good soak should see them through. If its at the back end of the growing season you can chop off the leaves to save on water uptake. The plant doesn't really need the leaves and all they do is allow the plant's water to evapourate. Your fruit will still continue to swell and ripen without them. The difficult time is at peak growing when you have big plants 4' high full of leaves but only just flowering and making tomatoes. If its really hot and sunny the water needed will be more than cold and damp.

[Lazarus0]

Can any body suggest the best method of watering tomatoes plants in the greenhouse while i am away for two weeks . Neighbours are away as well .If I water well before going away will they last for two week without further watering

Personally, I don't think your tomatoes will remain watered for two weeks, so here are three methods you can try. First, all of my plants have been specially setup to have drippers which run on a sprinkler timer. It's very easy to do, especially if you already have sprinkler valves in your yard. For my peppers, etc., I took one of the unused valves, and bought another sprinkler timer box, and connected that one valve to it's own timer box. A second method is to hook up the drippers to your hose bib, but use one of those special hose timers instead of a sprinkler timer. The third idea you can try if you have any 2-liter soda bottles around. If you can manage to put a small pin-hole in the neck of the bottle, fill it with water and screw on the cap (if you have a Harbor Freights store around, they sell special cones with holes in the side that screw onto the top of the bottle). Then bury the bottle upside-down a few inches into the soil so it stands upright with the neck into the soil (or stick the cone into the soil, if you got one of them). The water should seep slowly out of the pin hole as the plants need it so they never go dry....whichever method you use, test it before you go out of town...

[slooky]

we pay £1 a day for a teenager from the village to water ours. We are lucky as we use the same family each time and her mum is a keen gardener