watering 101

[GBOOST]

I had a bit of a brain explosion today on the outdoor watering idea. What if you buried a 20-40 litre plastic drum so the top was about 3ft underground. You would then fill above the drum with your top soil or growing medium, and use a thick cotton style rope, or multiple ropes to feed the plant as a wick style system. You could join a filler pipe to the cap, thus keeping the system sealed, run it up to above the ground level slightly, and put a cork in the end or cap.

 

When you come to fill the drums up each watering time, you could also give the soil a water. You'd probably have to experiemnet with 3-4 plants with a different number of wicks each and watering times to get the best solution between adequate hydration and longest watering intervals, but I think it could be a highly productive and handy method. Might be a lot of labour digging the holes tho!! More of an outdoor method, on your own property, rather than a guerrilla growing method, unless you have the time, patience and muscles to carry out the labour involved

 

GB

[mark601]

I've been growing outdoors for heaps of years & never needed to water I find in most areas of Aust, apart from the desert areas, there is heaps of natural underground water. Trick is to identify natural bush that taps into it, certain bush growth indicates how deep underground the water is. Hint, fetched lakes.

[Chronmasta]

good point mate

and a tip for those that must a petrol powered pump.......try and use the natural elements to cover the sound, eg; sakata`s, fast/loud water rapids, wind....

also, natural looking/man made hollow rocks make for great noise reduction and stealth

 

[smashed1]

hi guys just thout id add what i used when i lived in tamworth,

i lived on a property whith a big hill rite behind the house , i had my plots halfway up the hill an it was that steep it was to hard to carry the water. so i got a heap of hesion bags a big roll of the thickest plastic i could get an i dug the hole 40 foot away from my plot (couse the roos an other animals can smell water )then i dug a masive deep hole 3 meters wide an almost 1 meter deep, then i laid the hesion bags in the botom an up the sides (so roots want peirce the plastic) then laid 2 layers of plastic then put rocks arond the edges to help hold the plastic, then couse the mountain was prity steep i cut a heap of gutters heading down into the hole like a big v, an i was very suprisded how quick it filled, but u must put some kind of fence around it. i used the trees for the posts an ran barbwire around it i had to much water after that

[shroomyshroom]

hi guys just thout id add what i used when i lived in tamworth,

i lived on a property whith a big hill rite behind the house , i had my plots halfway up the hill an it was that steep it was to hard to carry the water. so i got a heap of hesion bags a big roll of the thickest plastic i could get an i dug the hole 40 foot away from my plot (couse the roos an other animals can smell water )then i dug a masive deep hole 3 meters wide an almost 1 meter deep, then i laid the hesion bags in the botom an up the sides (so roots want peirce the plastic) then laid 2 layers of plastic then put rocks arond the edges to help hold the plastic, then couse the mountain was prity steep i cut a heap of gutters heading down into the hole like a big v, an i was very suprisded how quick it filled, but u must put some kind of fence around it. i used the trees for the posts an ran barbwire around it i had to much water after that

 

did you implement any type of over flow system ? I can see that getting real nasty real quick with no type of over flow

[smashed1]

hi shroomyshroom, nar i didnt but it was prity flat were i dug it it was very steep at the bottom but half way up it flatend out like a long ledge then it was prity steep the rest of the way, an it was in the middle of some pritty big gum trees. an i went up once an id say a roo was trying to get to the water becouse there was a heap of blood on the groud snakes were prity keen on it to had to be carful but wen theres no water around other than down the hill throu my property an across the road it atracks the critters specialy in the dry heat in tamworth. i dont live there any more

 

an down by the river id put big pots up in the willow trees have a rope with a buket tied to it to water them no good puting them near the ground couse it would flood

[shroomyshroom]

sweet as im gonna try something simular this year

[willis2031]

did a search but there hasnt been much discussed on the topic. but was wondering if desalinisation could be an idea for those growing on saltwater river banks and such. surely there would have to be a cost effective way of doing it. pumping water from the river through some sort of filtration process and straight to the lovelies. any thoughts???

[borkles]

I'm pretty sure desal is expensive, both monetarily and energy wise. Certainly at the quantities you'd be needing. I'll see if I can do some research and if I find/think of anything I'll let you know. Would live to do this as my mums house is right on a coastal estuary and could easily run 10 or so plants up in bush next to her property.

[borkles]

Ok so the two main desalt methods you could do are distilling (heating salt water, collecting steam and cooling in a distillery tube) which wouldn't give you the output you'd need, iirc the pot still at Uni did about 100mls per half hour, so it'd need to run 24/7. This would require enough heat to keep that pot boiling 24/7.

 

The other is reverse osmosis, which involves forcing salt water through a semipermiable membrane (a special type of polymer). The salt ions are literally filtered out. These membrane devices are frightfully expensive, and even if you did get one, you need to force the seawater through it at about 300 psi.