DIY Self Regulating Irrigation
How to keep your plants watered during droughts or while you go on vacation without the need of an expensive or complicated irrigation system.
I finally got around to planting a summer crop in the greenhouse and I quickly discovered that hand watering was super inefficient. Here’s a super brief update on where I’m at with the greenhouse.
I got all my starts planted outside in the garden! Well, almost all of them, the cilantro is still growing in a few pots and I need to find space for more of the tomatoes, but things are looking good. I spent an early morning cleaning up the propagation station in the greenhouse: pulled weeds, took out the empty soil bags, evened out the soil in the beds, and just gave it a quick clean up. The only other plants I had leftover that didn’t make it into the garden were my luffa plants and I admittedly should have planted them out much sooner than I did. I say this because they grew super fast and became very large and leggy. But, we do what we can, when we can, and things will generally work themselves out.
I had 6 great looking luffa plants and after a little bit of research, I decided the greenhouse might be a great place for them this summer. I read that they love the heat and also need a long growing season, but I am a little nervous about them getting too much heat here. This isn’t a regular greenhouse and these beds are so close to the glass ceiling, that I worry these might just totally burn up. But, home gardening is all about the experiment and adventure, so we’ll see how it goes!
In planting these, I dug a hole about three times the size of the pot and filled it with composted manure, potting mix, and some pelletized chicken fertilizer. Then I filled these holes with a whole watering can of water, planted the luffa, and then watered once more with another full can of water. Another great benefit of planting these in the greenhouse, is that luffa needs a support for the vines to grow on, and here in the greenhouse there is a sturdy pipe that runs above the beds. Some of the bigger plants were already long enough that they could reach this pole and so I encouraged them to wrap around it and continue their growth. The smaller plants, I just added a bit of string to the pole and wrapped it around the vine so that once it got a little more upward growth, I’d invite it to continue along the pole.
The very next day after planting, I already began to realize the watering challenge ahead of me. First, the largest plant had suffered transplant shock and I lost nearly half of the vine. Second, all of the plants were already struggling with water, even though I had given them what I thought to be a sufficient amount. I thought wrong! This time, I watered more broadly, making sure the surrounding soil was also well saturated to slow down evaporation.
After making sure they were all well watered, I put some cardboard down around the base of the plants to act as a mulch to keep the moisture in the soil. I’m not in the position to invest in an irrigation system for this greenhouse, especially as I am only renting this place and don’t know how long I’ll even be here. If I owned the place and was thinking long term, setting up a reliable and sturdy irrigation system is one of the first things I would be focused on. But, since that’s not the case, I need to get crafty. Luckily, I have a lot of skin in this game and learned a great trick from one of the most entertaining educators of my time: Bill Nye the Science Guy.
When I lived in Los Angeles, I worked for a flower farm that also had private clients where we tended to their vegetable gardens. Bill Nye was one of those clients and in his garden I saw for the first time an ingenious trick that one company has since perfected and marketed, but you can easily and cheaply do it yourself. Unfortunately for me, Bill was out of town whenever I went to his garden and never got to meet him. I watched his show religiously as a kid and now as an adult I was still learning from him.
So what was his brilliant gardening hack?
