Yesterday was the first time this year that I've used my irrigation system in the greenhouse to water the tomato plants. I've been setting this system up for the last couple of years because I can water almost all of the plants at the same time and that saves me a lot of work. I made an irrigation system using PVC water pipe, drilling a 1/16th inch hole at regular intervals along the pipe in a straight line. All the holes face the same direction so that I can control where the water goes. I put a garden hose adapter onto one end of the pipe, and a plug on the other end. I gravity feed the pipe from a plastic 55 gallon barrel that I have up on a stand inside the greenhouse. I use collected rainwater for the plants as much as I can by pumping rain water from the collection system into the greenhouse barrel.
Here's a look at the system. It's hard to see the little streams of water coming out of the holes in the pipe in this picture, but it's working.
Here's a look at the other end of the system. You can see how I have the hose hooked up to that end of the irrigation pipe.
Here's a look at the 55 gallon barrel that supplies the water to the irrigation pipe. I think the platform stand is about 3 feet tall. That is higher than the planter pots, so it has enough gravity flow, even when the water in the barrel is low.
It's easy to control the amount of water flow to the irrigation pipe by adjusting the valve. If you open the valve all the way, the gravity water pressure will squirt the water out of the holes in the pipe a couple of feet, and it doesn't go where I want it to. I just have it squirting out a couple of inches. If you don't give the pipe enough water pressure, it won't come out of all of the holes in the pipe, and some plants won't get watered that way. Of course, as you use up more of the water in the barrel, the gravity pressure goes down. If you forget that you're watering the greenhouse plants, it will keep going until the barrel is empty. Since I get distracted fairly easy, that happened several times last summer. That's why I only have 1 barrel hooked up for this purpose, less water wasted when I forget that it's on.
That's all I have for this post, I hope you found it interesting!
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