Wednesday 23 May 2012

Watering #1 – The Garage Bed and Water Barrel

Throughout the years, I’ve spent a fair amount of time experimenting and developing my garden watering systems.  My main goal has been to water the garden efficiently in order to waste as little time and water as possible.  Secondary goals are to use systems that are simple, tidy and healthy for the plants.  Because this is a fairly involved topic I will break it down into a few posts.  This post discusses only the garden bed beside the garage.

A large eave overhangs the garage bed which actually intercepts a lot of the direct rain.  This, along with the facts that it is south facing and bordered by a stone wall, means it dries out quickly so it needs to be watered more frequently than the main garden beds.  It’s important to note that sun and heat also make this bed my most prolific producers of tomatoes and peppers.
Cosmo garding his peppers.
Since there is a downspout at the end of this bed, i installed a convenient water dirverter which feeds the rain barrel.

 

















I drain the barrel using a thin, 1/2” PVC trunk line (from Lee Valley) with holes punched into it every dozen inches or so.  The photos below show little streams of watter squirting out from the hose -- the rain barrel will take about 30 minutes to drain.















Because it can be many days between rain falls, I also lay out 1/2" soaker hose with a quick-connect.  This balanced approach to keeping this bed properly watered works really well.

I place the hoses immediately after planting in order to avoid damaging the plants when they are bigger.


1 comment:

  1. A huge eave overhangs the garage area bed which actually intercepts a lot of the immediate rainfall. This, along with the important points that it is southern experiencing and outlined by a rock walls, indicates it gets dry out easily so it needs to be well watered more regularly than the primary lawn mattresses. It’s worth noting that sun and warm also make this bed my most legendary manufacturers of tomato vegetables and sweet peppers.

    Adelaroger @ pool landscape brisbane

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