In my bid to promote self watering of my tomatoes I have filled a couple of empty milk bottles, made a hole with a heated NEEDLE (so we are talking about a tiny hole) underneath hoping that the water would last at least a couple of days, and placed the bottle next to the tomato plant...
The 6 pints bottle was empty after about three hours! What have I done wrong? I did leave the lid on. Other suggestions?
The hole may not be so tiny as you believe. Or, if you are filling the bottles fully with cold water, they may be pressurizing when placed in the sun and literally start spraying their contents.
My first thought is that the bottles were not air tight before poking the holes in them. I would also suggest poking only one hole in the bottle. The idea is to have the water drawn out with capillary action into the soil being the driving force. I have glass bulbs with a long thin stem terminating in a tiny hole. It takes a bit of time to fill with water but it lasts for days after shoving into the soil of potted plants. It does empty more quickly when the weather is hot and/or the plant is really growing.
Other ideas:
Good Luck.
I was going to suggest the drip irrigation dripper myself. I have set up gravity feed sustems with them in the past and you get a regulated flow. One problem is that they usually work off a timer and run about
0.5 to 3 GPH, so too much without the timer.HomeOwnersHub website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here. All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.