Topic: Porous Pipe for allotment watering

[Melbourne12]

Last weekend I installed porous pipe on three of our raised beds for irrigation, just as an experiment.  Initial impression are that it’s brilliant.  It gives a very gentle flow, with no danger to delicate young plants, and it doesn’t wash the slug pellets away.  We’re using mains water rather than a water butt as the supply, partly because we’re nervous about blocking the pipe with algae, and partly because we don’t have enough water butt capacity!  Anyway, we're so impressed that we've ordered some more.

I’ve currently installed it as a continuous “snake”, with porous pipe down each bed joined by pieces of normal hose, like this:

The only problem is that the first bed gets more of a soaking than the third, as the pressure drops.  So I’m going to reinstall it like this:

I’ve used cheap barbed connectors rather than expensive Hozelock items.

If anyone’s tempted, these guys have got it on half price offer at the moment:

http://www.lbsgardendirect.com/

[kenkew]

I bet you're not on a water meter.

[Melbourne12]

You're right!  ;D ;D ;D

Although, so it's claimed, they waste much less water than sprinklers or hoses, presumably because there's less loss through evaporation.

[kenkew]

You can't be running water through your pipes for 24 hours, surely?

[Melbourne12]

Oh, bless you, no!

We find them especially useful because we both work and have limited time during the week for our allotment.  In dry weather, the task of carefully watering the beds in the evening was becoming time consuming (and we've not planted anything like the whole area yet  :o ).

So what we do is connect the porous pipes to the water supply, turn the tap on, and switch it off 30 or 45 minutes later.  Meanwhile we can do a little weeding or tidying up, or even leave it and come back later.  The amount of water used is obviously much less than running a hose at full throttle, since the porous pipe dispenses something like 2 to 3 litres per metre per hour.

[shaolin101]

Do these pipes sit on top of the soil, or do you bury them in to get the water to the roots?

[Melbourne12]

You can do either.  One of ours in on a strawberry bed which is covered in black plastic.  The hose slots neatly under the plastic sheeting.  The others are loose on the surface, but I'm going to peg them down so they are semi-buried.

Just got the T-adaptors, so I'm going to reconfigure it all this weekend.   :)

[Anne Robertson]

Wilkos have got 7mtr hoses with holes all the way along for 99p. Tried it out this morning and it worked great. I layed it down between my tomato rows, pegged it flat and switched the water on low so the spray just went to the base of the plants. I could then get on with harvesting, weeding and tidying.
I reckon I used a lot less water than normal.

[Garden Manager]

Tried this system myself for my runner beans. Got a 7m long hoselock type.

After trying manual watering and a 'dripper' irrigation system this works so much better.

In fact I will be replacing the dripper system with seephoses on my other veg beds as soon as i can, setting up a similar system to that illistrated above, in order to cross the paths between the beds without wastage

[james bole]

Fascinating.   I wonder if one can use a water butt as I cannot connect directly to my water supply.  I wonder if it will have the pressure behind it to force the water down the pipes. Any ideas as I am finding less and less time to get down to my allotment to water, and the poor old toms and beans are screaming for water.
I also noted recently that Lidl's were selling water pipe kit quite cheaply.

[Garden Manager]

Fascinating.   I wonder if one can use a water butt as I cannot connect directly to my water supply.  I wonder if it will have the pressure behind it to force the water down the pipes. Any ideas as I am finding less and less time to get down to my allotment to water, and the poor old toms and beans are screaming for water.
I also noted recently that Lidl's were selling water pipe kit quite cheaply.

James, the pipe I use wont take high pressure from a normal mains tap (it will burst), so it is posible butt water pressure will be enough.  I barely have to turn my outside tap on to get the right pressure - and thats going uphill to the veg plot as well! Question is is there enough water in the but to do much good?

Dont know anout anyone else but i exhausted my supply of collected rainwater weeks ago

[amphibian]

My plot is on a slope, and the mains fed water-butt is at the top of the hill, do you think I would get sufficient pressure if I was to install a pipe system and then syphon the water into the system?