Water butt irrigation advice needed please

[boptrotme4u]

1x 55 gallon drum with tap
5x fruit bushes planted in a row at 6ft intervals

How best to irrigate the bushes?

Is it as easy as a length of hose with an end stop and some strategically placed holes?

Any help much appreciated

[Melbourne12]

We've used porous hose with some success.  The hose with sprinkler holes seems to need too much pressure to work effectively, and in any case delivers too high a rate of flow.

But even with porous hose, you need to keep the water butt topped up, or placed on a stand, to give enough pressure.

[pumpkinlover]

I'm wanting to do something like that but for things like lettuces. Thanks for asking and Welcome to A4A

[boptrotme4u]

The leaky/soaker hose is not an option as over the length of the 30ft row I only need to water five spots. I have looked at watermate.co.uk who use a 12mm main pipe off which 4mm microbore tubing delivers the water via a dripper but this system is a bit expensive and I am not sure if the butt would create enough pressure

Someone on an allotment somewhere must have come up with a cheap workable solution

[Digeroo]

Have you tried a watering can? 

[Robert_Brenchley]

Is it possible to bodge up a hose so it has porous sections at the appropriate places? There has to be an answer!

[Melbourne12]

The leaky/soaker hose is not an option as over the length of the 30ft row I only need to water five spots. I have looked at watermate.co.uk who use a 12mm main pipe off which 4mm microbore tubing delivers the water via a dripper but this system is a bit expensive and I am not sure if the butt would create enough pressure

Someone on an allotment somewhere must have come up with a cheap workable solution

Ah, OK, I understand.  What we did was to use lengths of porous hose, connected by lengths of ordinary hose.  It can be in-line, or spurs off the main hose.  We use simple push-fit connectors which weren't expensive.  We use our system for tomatoes, so we tend to have a long piece of porous pipe for a row of plants, then a connecting piece of ordinary hose, then another length of porous for the next row.

The hose is 16mm from LBS http://www.lbsgardenwarehouse.co.uk/Porous-Pipe-and-Fittings-PRDR-POR/

They also sell microbore pipe, but I'm afraid that I've no experience of it.

ETA: I haven't got a picture, I'm afraid, and it's all dismantled for the winter now.

[realfood]

I use an automatic watering system for my greenhouse from 2 water butts linked together by a syphon.
The materials are quite cheap if you buy the plastic tubing and the drippers separately at B&Q. Drippers are required to control the rate of flow, otherwise your barrel will empty very quickly. A similar system could be rigged up for your fruit bushes.

[boptrotme4u]

Mr melbourne12, you sir are a genius. I love that idea. Meanwhile I am not so enamoured with the person who suggested using a watering can. But thankyou all for your input. That particular problem has been annoying me for weeks

[gavinjconway]

Whats wrong with a watering can - it is easiest and most accurate for such a few plants...

[pumpkinlover]

Holidays

[Digeroo]

I would also suggest a large amount of mulch so you cut down on the need to water.

I have extremely dry conditions and one thing I have never watered is fruit bushes.   Now is a great time to get piles of damp leaves.   

[pumpkinlover]

Good advice from Digeroo. I've asked the council for a load of leaves for our site, and hope to get people interested in using it to make leaf mould
I rarely water the fruit bushes when they are established, occasionally the black currents.

[lincsyokel2]

Have you tried a watering can? 

water barrel pump will give you some pressure, they a useful investment. You can also use one to get round any rules about watering the plot off the mains tap.  I fill the barrels one day and use the pump to pump it out over the plot via  hose the next day.

[green lily]

My back is too done [knackered was the official medical term!] for watering cans and irrigation of a sort is next years project so I'm all ears/eyes . Keep throwing ideas out folks they're landing on good soil and I shall make very good use of them. At the moment I do use a water barrel pump but its a bit fierce and something gentler has to be sorted. One fine day in the spring tra la I shall get out my stash of bits and come back to your ideas for inspiration. Then my Latvian wonder woman and I shall get sorting! Happy Christmas everyone!

[alexE]

My 19ft polytunnel has an irrigation system that i designed built into it.

It's 3 210ltr waterbutts raised of the floor outside going into the poly and then connecting to soak hose (brought from lidl) via speedfit connectors, I have one butt at each end and one butt in the middle on each side (the middle uses a t-juction connector. It's all gravity fed and if i top it up once a week i don't need to water through the week. The soak hose is buried into the beds in the poly at a lower level than the roots so the roots grow down instead of up and then dry out quicker.

I'm also taking down the poly over winter and moving it to a different plot so will be rebuilding the irrigation system to combine it with a water collection system. If people want I can take photos so you can see what I do, which may make it easier for others to copy.

[ceres]

Photos would be great, irrigation systems is one of the topics that keeps coming up over and over again.

[chriscross1966]

How about a fan out of microbore hose to each plant with a dripper on the end of each microbore, then a header tank as high as you can go and a solar-powered fountain pump to feed the header.... remember to have an overflow return from the header to the main tank... if you want to be posh you could use a header big enough for a days watering adn put a timer on it to only release at night.... tis what I'll be doing on the plot this eyar...

chrisc

[green lily]

Chris and Alex this is sounding good.  If you could send me some pics I'd really appreciate it but I'm getting the gist. Mind you how I'd fix a header tank eludes me at the moment but I'm happy ponder in my heart and see what comes up- like a photo from one of you?
6 bins in my poly sounds cramped but I'm certainly up for 2or3 instead of 1.
I am considering... you should be able to hear my wheels going round from all over the country......
Many thanks..

[alexE]

have started to take down the polytunnel so will be able to do some pictures when rebuilding it. I'll do two threads, one for the pictures (numbered and any info given) and another for any questions/suggestions.

should be going up soon and i'm putting in a water collection system to fill the waterbutts for irrigation when it rains.

Pictures will have to be in stages as i reckon it's a days work to prep the base, a day to dismantle and
rebuild the polytunnel frame and put in the irrigation and the water harvesting systems and then a day to recover the poly.