Salviador Posted April 8, 2007 I was looking for large pots today, (hard to find and bloody expensive), and i stumbled upon this brilliant invention Basically you have a line attached to a water tank and bury small porous ceramic pots amongst your plants, they leak out moisture dependent on the levels already in the soil, and the plants root system eventually grows around it. This invention i think is particularly useful for those of us in Queensland atm http://wateringsystems.net/ Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Amulte Posted April 8, 2007 AWESOME system! thanks for sharing that will definately come in handy! anyone already using it? results? Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
ThunderIdeal Posted April 8, 2007 bill mollison, the primary founder of permaculture, said that this was probably the most efficient and effective system of dryland watering he had ever encountered. he was in hyperabad, india, so presumably they invented it, and the mouth of the pot was aboveground to be filled with watering-cans. i've never seen them but anyone know how you could make a porous ceramic pot? Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
ajna Posted April 8, 2007 yeah that's a fantastic idea! *ponders the possibility of a budget home-made version* Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
ThunderIdeal Posted April 8, 2007 hold up there ajna... first you need to be able to dig at least 40cm down without encountering rock! Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
ramon Posted April 8, 2007 yeah that's a fantastic idea! *ponders the possibility of a budget home-made version* not sure what the proper version costs but last year I used soaker hoses in a similar fashion. dug them into the ground and connected them up to tank for a hour or so when I thought the plants needed it. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Salviador Posted April 9, 2007 I think i might invest when i have a garden to myself. It's clearly a small business, and as such i would be happy to support his great idea. But yeah good idea and good luck to all who make cheap alternatives Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Vertmorpheus Posted April 9, 2007 (edited) Some of these systems are great...as ideas that is, the pricing tends to verge on the ridiculous...like the "aquatubes" from bunnings etc...its just bloody ag pipe cut into two foot lengths but somehow worth 10 bucks a piece sometimes, haha. I use similar things in my veggie patch...all you need is a reservoir of some kind... some people just dig holes n backfill with drainage gravel... I use plastic pots with some very coarse deco sand in the bottom, or those big 2.5-3L juice bottles...bury up to the shoulders after taking to the base of em with a needlle or panel pin ... a few tiny holes seem to work better than one or two big pissers. And if you have a high clay content/high fine silt particle content in your area, you might find the smaller gooier bits of soil end up "settling out" in a "field" around the container... water can have a hard time moving past all the clogged areas (tiny particles being washed laterally into macropores ...a kind of compaction I guess) and then you're back where you started.Just more reason to keep building that soil eh? Bit of gypsum might be a thought in some areas. unglazed pots can be had from pot shop oddments, craft stores, local art schools n tafes, even bunnings and the like sometimes have em in for the crafty folk out there (thats why they sell the cans of aerosol sealant, for people that want to paint them first) Olllllld terracotta pots tend to go very porous eventually, kind of crumbly, perfect for this kind of thing. I used gourds with a few lil holes in em for a few season,w orked very well but make sure you get all the seeds out or its gourds galore.One vine grown from wastewater can give enough useful sized gourds to keep quite a lot of beds irrigated and in the meantime the growing vine can shade a lot of soil, plant amongst it and take advantage!Any container will work for these kind of subsoil systems but the unglazed terra ones have the advantage of a nice slow , steady release...sometimes too slow though, if your soil moisture reserves are usually very depleted it can help to install and use systems like these off the back of a decent lot of rain so you can "keep a step ahead" for a while to come.Release rates with plastic bottles etc are easy to modify, just add more holes, or less but larger holes, til you get what you need.You can kind of bypass all of this by making raised, mounded beds with a depression in the centre 1/3 the height of the bed, planted on the top and outside slopes of the bed mean you can basically dump water in the top and walk off, makes fertilising a bit simpler too as long as all the plants in the bed have the same kinda needs.If you do buy wetting agents, the bottles n tubs that stuff comes in are good recycled here, as on the first few flushes you use the last of the agent lining the container , where it is needed most! Some people have subsoil "pipelines" of sand or gravel running under their beds or near trees with one end picking up on a dripping water source, wasterwater etc...handy idea for "cleaning up" water thats a little grubby as it keeps it tucked away down there for the critters to deal with and away from your veggies. Other than that my favourite water savin things are.... using cocopeat...grow suitable plants for your area.... MULCH POTS...sand, gravel, hessian, compost...anything... also wrapping pots in white shiny pots or something insulative, hessian etc, helps a lot too. I don't use wetting agent at home but sometimes use pulped aloe vera as a plant tonic, has a similar effect due to saponins etc I guess. Water crystals strike me as a little pointless in anything other than areas with very marginal rainfall as their sole source of water,but they keep people happy :D (I'd rather water properly to start with to avoid there being excess to start with, and use potting mix or soils with an appropriate AFP and water holding qualities) Keep things organic, less need for "flushing" etc and better all around stress resistance. Keep up the micronutes. Grow things in as deep a shade as you can get away with (most parts of aus , the plants get photosaturated by about lunchtime and spend the rest of the day going "ahhhh fuck I wish I had feet or a beer"). Shadecloth - calico is good, use it one season in the air, another season upright at ground levels as windbreak or fencing, then mulch or weedmat with it (the unbleached kind I mean). Grow veg from tough places..arid america and south america and the middle east etc - also perennials, as a decent whack of "imported" water goes into establishing plants, might as well establish one that can take care of itself for another 10 years. Success can be a matter of a change of selection..large tomatos like oxhearts etc never work around here due to moisture fluctuation issues...romas work in pots or situation where you can pay em close attention, but yellow plum toms and cheery toms are failsafe, much tougher, fruit forms more quickly so splitting is less of a problem, fruit over a longer period... so i still get toms without the swearing. Scape your beds etc so that on the off chance it does decide to rain one day (rain...whats that) it has a chance to settle into the beds , but any excess goes somewhere useful too...anywhere weeds keep poppin up is a good place to plant something useful, or just find a way to eat smoke or drink the weeds haha.French Intensive and terraced bed layouts are a good way to go about things , for my needs. Bill Mollison has written some great things, seriously worth a look, a lot of solid wisdom... but in the meantime try to find a copy of the Earth Garden Water Book, handy stuff for those of us in TankGirlLand :D water water everywhere, but mostly in yuppie's pools... GD Edited April 9, 2007 by greendreams Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
