My Self watering garden – just what you need in this weather – Page 2 – Chat Forum

WorldClassAccident · 2018-04-08T18:05:47Z

I have been pretty much stuck indoors since the start of February when I had the ankle operation. Being on a pair of crutches really limits what you can do as you cannot carry anything. The fact that it has rained every day since the operation is also quite depressing. We finally got a couple of dry(ish) days so I thought I would start a new project. The new project had to be quick to complete and not involve much lifting any carrying or lead to much future time commitment. I had seen some Americans doing something called Rain Gutter Gardening which basically involved sticking a hose pipe with a float valve into a rain gutter to keep it filled with a constant depth of water. You then place buckets with holes in their bases and a wicking material inside and put your plants in the bucket. The capillary effect sucks the water out of the gutter to water the plants as they need it and the hose pipe and float valve top the water back up. Connect the other end of the hose to a rain but and all you need to do is plant the crops and then pick them when ready. That seemed easy enough to me. This can be done cheaper but re-using old material and quicker by having two working legs but this is how I did it. Feel free to copy or improve. Get a rain but. This is a small slim one as I was working on a narrow bit of patio at the side of the house. Not the perfect place but there was a convenient down pipe and the wife wouldn't let me ruin the main garden. Once I had the rain but in place I had to gather all of the other material. Ideally you would do the building in a nice open area and then move the result to the final planting site but my lack of mobility prevented that. In fact, if you look through the pillars you will see my truck parked on the drive. All of the materials were picked out of the boot and thrown over the balustrade into the pile that you see. Looking at the picture from the left the materials you will need for this project are: Some food grade plastic buckets. Mine are 30 litre buckets sold for home brewing as this seemed the cheapest way to get new buckets in the UK. 3 metres of square based white rain gutter from the local DIY store 4 metres of green capillary matting from a local garden centre 150 litres of potting compost. It must be potting compost and not general purpose compost to work apparently. I actually had to buy an extra 100 litres to fill the buckets. I wonder if they were 40 litre buckets instead of 30 litre? 2 x 3 meters of treated timber about an inch thick and a little taller than the white guttering. 2 end caps for the gutter so the water stays in place. Somewhere in the picture there is a float valve. I bought mine from a local fish and aquarium store but they are way cheaper on eBay from China. In fact I think everything I bought locally would have been way cheaper on eBay from China This is a quick shot to sort of show what we are aiming for. The wood goes either side of the gutter and the bucket sits on top of the wood. There is a hole in the bottom of the bucket and the plants suck up the water they need. How hard can it be? First use some short screws to fix the wood to the gutter. I out mine about every 50 centimetres or just over a paving slab apart. The aim here is to keep the wood from falling over when you put the buckets on it and stop the gutter flaring out when filled with water. Make sure your screws are shorter than the thickness of the wood otherwise you will have lots of nasty spikes on the outside of the trough The water float was probably the trickiest part for me. This is because I bought an aquarium float valve rather than the cheap Chinese ones which meant it was designed to work with small bore pipe rather than hose pipe. S small bit of bodging later and it was fitted. There is a clear plastic bracket I found in the garage that is screwed to the wood I put across the top of the trough. Because this is only held with one screw I can alter the angle and thus the height at which the valve shuts. If you try this, make sure you can adjust the height or be very sure of the water depth you want. </p> And here is the float valve in action letting water from the water but fill the gutter. This is a pretty dumb thing to do at this stage as I spent the rest of the build with a gutter full of water sloshing around.. I drilled some holes in the buckets. The ones around the sides are for 'air pruning'. This is meant to prevent the plants from getting pot bound roots as they avoid the holes. Sounds a bit like Elvish magic but it is easy to do so why not. The one at the bottom is my bottom hole (tee hee!). The holes in the side are small diameter drilled with my nice expensive hole saw bits but they weren't really big enough for the hole at the bottom so it was off to B&Q. The hole saws I bought previously were for work on the car and were £10 - £20 each so I was not looking forward to buying another one just to drill five holes. Imagine my delight when I found a set ...

Smudger666

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self watering

Posted : 20/06/2018 6:04 pm

Smudger666

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can anyone else see that pic above?

Posted : 20/06/2018 6:06 pm

WorldClassAccident

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Yes - it looks similar to this one of mine

[url= https://farm1.staticflickr.com/928/41599920951_f42868c565_z.jp g" target="_blank">https://farm1.staticflickr.com/928/41599920951_f42868c565_z.jp g"/> [/img][/url][url= https://flic.kr/p/26o3tbp ]4 Float Valve[/url] by [url= https://www.flickr.com/photos/89686376@N04/ ]WCA![/url], on Flickr#

Posted : 20/06/2018 6:12 pm

Smudger666

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yup - great inspiration there - I've made a 'U' shaped trough in the greenhouse......

so I've chucked some salad leaf seeds in the smaller pots, and am trying a cucumber on the right - apparently they don't like their roots being wet all the time but thought I'd give it a go.

doing it in the 5 x 3m polytunnel will cost about £200 so we're holding off till next spring to set that up.

Posted : 21/06/2018 4:02 pm

WorldClassAccident

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Very good. I planted about 5-6 chard to use as either salad or spinach substitute and within weeks we were both sick of the stuff, it grew that well. Courgette and tomatoes seem to be putting on a growth spurt right now and the mange toute are giving us a couple of good servings each week.

I am pleased that it has worked so well, it really is zero maintenance other than picking.

I will probably start thinking about what to replace the summer crop with and plant with a bit more planning.

I am also wondering about some Growmore fertiliser granules into the gutter to slowly dissolve and get absorbed up. I think I will wait until I clear out the peas and carrots first though.

Posted : 21/06/2018 5:26 pm

Smudger666

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I am also wondering about some Growmore fertiliser granules into the gutter to slowly dissolve and get absorbed up.

interesting - I had a similar thought about some liquid fertiliser we have but worried about the application - its very neat and i wasnt sure about the distribution in the gutter - the granules would be easier to distribute evenly.

Posted : 21/06/2018 5:58 pm

ebygomm

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Do you still have rain in your water butts to keep this going?

Posted : 01/07/2018 3:38 pm

WorldClassAccident

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Mine rain but ran empty about a week ago so I just refilled it from the hosepipe and it is now about 3/4 full

Posted : 01/07/2018 3:49 pm

Smudger666

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Yeah same - we have three Waterbutts but the one feeding the SWG and the chicken feeder has been topped up twice.

Posted : 01/07/2018 11:58 pm

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