As I may be going to live long enough to go on me holliers after all, is there a method of watering my balcony plants in any way similar to this?
A large plastic milk bottle full of water on my balcony floor, with a tube from it going straight up the wall to plants on shelves. Is it possible to apply anything like the right kind of pressure without recourse to electricity and pumps?
capillary matting?
I think some people successfully do it the opposite way around - like an intravenous drip. Perforated hollow spike in plant pot soil, gravity fed water through tube into spike, back-pressure regulates flow of water into pot. I would guess that they probably have ready-made kits in garden centres if you don't fancy playing with the idea yourself.
Nick
Nick
Medical drip bag hung on wall and then fed through an adjustable mechanical drip flow meter to plant(s)
Could fashion one out of a scrap 3L wine box bag (tap is removable after drinking said contents)
I'll try to describe my setup. Put your plants in a pot, the pot sitting in a shallow container. Rig up a full water bottle with a tube attached to the lid. suspend/Hang the full water bottle at some height now upside down with tube coming from the lid at the lowest point. Fix the other end of the tube so the end is about 10mm or so from the base of the shallow container. The water in the shallow container will gradually fill from the bottle until the water level reaches the tube. It will then stop as no air can get back to the water container. As the water level in the shallow container drops, air will be allowed back up the tube and realease more water. This will carry on over several days or weeks until the water bottle is empty.
Its often better to use several bottles in trays of capillary matting with the planters sucking it up from the tray. I've done this with a whole greenhouse and a lot of water bottles inverted full of water using galvanised steel wire bent as stands and spacers at the bottle top which of course is now on the bottom. Might be a lot easier to find a person to do it though! Brian
what about extending on those Guinea pig/rabbit water bottles on their cages but add a 2nd pipe of slightly shorter length to the original one?
then a shallw tray filled with water. Position feeding bottle so both nozzles are submerged.
Then as water level falls, that uncovers one of the pipes to admit air into bottle and lets water out.
it will the stop as the water level in shallow tray then rises and reovers the pipe end?
That's how some automatic waterers for hens work. And they do work, very well.
Bill
You may be surprised how much water is required for week during the summer, assuming that we don't have a lot more snow because of the climate crisis.
A tube going up? The flow will stop as soon as the water level in the bottle is lower than the output.
Tip, always replace the batteries in a water timer a week before you go away on holiday. Ideally water during the night and not during the day.
Neighbours ?
Or put them inside under that leaky black/blue pipework :-)
What a brilliant range of ideas! Thanks for all the tips. I'll try them out. While the inside of my airing cupboard may be well moist enough a lot of the time, it's a bit dark in there. Mushrooms maybe.
Reminds me of my delighful mother in law who would often ask, "Are you going to do it, or shall I get a proper man in?"
No. You would need a pump to make water flow up hill.
One way that works provided that they are in sunshine is a bottle with a small pipe in it that is bent to a J shape and glued into a hole in the cap. The long leg should reach down to the base of the bottle and the curve of the J should be above the plant you want watered. Needs an airtight seal to work.
White paper wrapped around where the water is (to stop it concentrating the sun on curtains and keep the water coolish) and some black tape on the air filled void above the water. Expansion of the air forces some water out whenever it is sunny. The amount of water gradually increasing as the volume of air gets bigger each day.
You can also get drip release values that go onto lemonade type bottles and a tent peg like hollow cone that goes into the pot. The bottle being inverted so that water slowly drips out.
I found that they tended to jam frequently though. YMMV
I actually made a nominally solar powered pump (intended for a fountain) but on a lead acid battery which drew water from a large sump and a conventional drip watering system intended for mains water. Half an hour a day was more than enough to keep everything watered. Again I needed a good inlet filter or mosquito larvae clogged up the valves.
You could use a ram pump, doesn't need electricity :-P
Needs a continuous flow of water
Hence the tongue in cheek.
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