Greenhouse Irrigation

Hello, I am looking to purchase a greenhouse irrigation set to run off our outside tap. Any suggestions on brands, prices or sites?

Many Thanks!

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What are you wanting to water?

Some Tomato plants at even spacing, the same layout each year? or a bunch of pot plants on a bench that move around from season-to-season? ... or some other configuration perhaps?

Is this just for holiday cover, or as a general every-day labour & time saving device?

 

Its basically holiday cover. Most things will be on the staging and only a couple of pots on the floor.

 

I don't think you really want drippers then, one-per-pot, fiddly to set up and if one of them blocks then that plant won't get watered ... probably rather expensive too (although you would then have automated watering thereafter ...)

You could put some capillary matting on the bench, and the pots on that, and then all you have to do is get the capillary matting wet. I do that from a reservoir along the length (which I fill manually twice a day from the water butt), but something connected to your hose that delivered a litre per hour, or four litres once every 4 hours, or something like that would do. I don't think once or twice a day would be enough though (the matting would dry out completely in between times)

Capillary matting will "suck" water up, so getting the water onto it, somewhere (e.g. in the middle), should then enable it to spread it around, or you could have a leaky-hose along the length of the bench, connected to the hose (and a timer) to spread the water about a bit.

My greenhouse benches (covered with capillary matting) are about 10 sq.m. in area and I use about 60 litres per day. So 6 litres per sq.m. per day should be about right. (Mine are COVERED with pots, so could use less if yours are well spaced out). If you set yours up to "flood" with more water than that the excess will just run off, which should be fine? So one minute, 4 times a day, might well be "more than enough". I think most hose tap timers will do "X-minutes 4 times a day".

I recommend that you cover the capillary matting with "micropore plastic sheet" which stops algae growing on the capillary matting.

If you have very few pots there are other systems available which have a sort of "wick" that goes to each pot, but if you've got more than a dozen or so pots you'd be better with capillary matting. That won't help for things on the floor though ... unless you set up a separate system on the floor too.

The matting is not exactly cheap, but will last several years. The micropore plastic sheet is much cheaper.

It would be wise if a friend dropped in to check the system. They just need to feel that the matting is wet, and the hose has not flown off the tap/timer or some similar disaster!