Watering tips for long trips - Orchid Board

MateoinLosAngeles · #1 10-27-2023, 09:03 PM

This would fit in the growing under lights, windowsill growing, and most indoor growing setups... so I decided to post it on the beginner's forum!

What are your recommendations for taking care of your precious collection during long absences? I'm thinking of the upcoming holiday season in which after 4 long years of not being able to visit my family in Spain, mostly due to the pandemic, its aftermath, and a very long immigration process, I'll be able to spend a whopping 4 weeks in the homeland!

However, there are so many more instances in which we might be too busy to take care of our plants... family (or our own!) illnesses, hospital stays, last-minute work stuff... endless!

What ideas have you come up with to ensure your plants stay in tip-top shape during your absence, or at the very least, survive it? Especially indoors, where misting systems might be tricky, especially unsupervised.

Some that come to mind and their setbacks:

- Drip irrigation - Feels too complicated for a high number of plants, plus you don't wanna have water running indoors without at least some supervision.
- S/H - It's great, but it only solves the problem if you want to pot all of your plants in S/H, and it might be troubling in hotter weather if you spend a month without flushing the pot.
- Letting them be without adjustments – Very dependent on the season, probably can work great for winter vacations, maybe late summer, and setup... under lights? Maybe, windowsill... can you trust the sun?
- Letting them be with adjustments: lower light, HVAC to control temperature, maybe increased RH with a humidifier on. –*It can be expensive to leave HVAC on for so long, and humidifiers need refilling and can get nasty after two weeks.
- Train a friend or a paid person to water the plants correctly. – Probably my preferred option... but still... gotta trust them!

Louis_W · #2 10-27-2023, 09:42 PM

I want to be able to have a life too, so I do a combo!

I only do one style of culture, and I only grow plants that fit in. Every single plant is in SH so It's quite easy to ask someone to water once or twice a week. No further explanation required! Can't be overwatered, and as long as some water gets in each pot they are basically fine. For that time I also forego fertilizers and additives to keep it simple.

alecStewart1 · #3 10-30-2023, 11:48 AM

It depends on what you have an where you are.

I have other plants besides orchids, so while I agree with Louis_W if you're new, if you're getting into orchids after having grown other plants it can get a bit more difficult.

Luckily I have family nearby, and watering instructions are simple regardless of season.

The only recommendations I have, as these are some things I need to myself, is to automate other things.

For lights, you can get a timed power strip that'll power off lights after however many hours you set it to. You can buy humidity controllers and heater controllers that will let you access them remotely via an app and/or set a timer for them.

If you can keep things to "come over once a week and water these plants" or "every other day water these plants" and not have anyone worry about other stuff, the better.

greyblackfish · #4 10-30-2023, 12:43 PM

That’s a thing I have do deal with many times a year. Since most of my orchids are kept indoors, I give them a normal watering before I go and I reduce the amount of light they get. I’ll turn off the grow lights and close the blinds a little bit more. This worked for most of my orchids. I did lose a few seedlings this past year but not necessarily from being away.

I have a few orchids I would prefer to water daily in the summer. In that case I would like to get a timed mister in a greenhouse eventually. Most orchids get the winter rest so it’s not as big of an issue and the biggest problem is keeping them warm. That’s why I got a grow tent setup.

Dalachin · #5 10-30-2023, 11:47 PM

For 4 weeks, I’d have to have a plant sitter. Last time I was gone (for 2 weeks) I was lucky enough to engage the services of someone in my town who has been in the plant business. Considering what I’ve investing in my collection, it was worth it.

The larger pots are fine for a week or more, but I have lots of small pots and mounted plants which really need a good soaking at least twice a week in the summer.

I do try to automate as much as possible… I have an auto misting system and auto lights. I have all the components to try a drip system, but it’s pretty complicated to set up something for all my little pots. Perhaps not impossible though. But someone would still have to check on it.

katsucats · #6 11-03-2023, 07:13 AM

I've experimented with this very thing. Rather than drip irrigation, flood irrigation is more efficient. If you can trust that a Rubbermaid or plastic trashcan wouldn't spontaneously burst from the pressure of water, and that simple timers plugged into an outlet won't fail, then I think it's safe to leave without supervision for a few weeks. If you're worried about the former, you could buy professional hydroponics bins, or for cheaper professional restaurant quality trash cans on Webstaurant that's made to contain large amounts of water and food.

The setup is simple. You have a water pump inside a source reservoir that pumps water over each plant. Each plant sits in a saucer with a small pinhole poked in the bottom. You can measure how long it would take to fill such a saucer without overflowing, maybe 10-20 seconds or so, depending on your pump and number of plants. The pinhole would allow the water to slow drip away.

Then all the plants and saucers are placed in a large tray, slanted, with another hole near the bottom that connects to a waste reservoir of the same size.

If you use a large reservoir, say 40 gallons, put your lights on dim, water only once or twice a week, then you could probably run this system for a couple months.

If you could group your plants in a way that you don't mind that they share reservoirs, whether because they all came from the same vendor, same flask, or you virus tested them all, etc., then you could have the grouped plants sit in their own tray, and instead of the water running into a waste reservoir, it could recirculate back to the source one. Then the system would last a longer time.

I think if I needed to leave for a long time, I'd run such an automated system, but still have someone over once a week, or maybe put a wifi camera overhead so I could check to see if there are any problems and shut down the water if necessary.

MateoinLosAngeles · #7 11-03-2023, 05:32 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by katsucats

The setup is simple. You have a water pump inside a source reservoir that pumps water over each plant. Each plant sits in a saucer with a small pinhole poked in the bottom. You can measure how long it would take to fill such a saucer without overflowing, maybe 10-20 seconds or so, depending on your pump and number of plants. The pinhole would allow the water to slow drip away.

Then all the plants and saucers are placed in a large tray, slanted, with another hole near the bottom that connects to a waste reservoir of the same size.

This is a great idea, my plants are currently in trays on shelves (photo attached). It's part of my to-do list to drill a drainage hole/tube into the trays and place the plants on egg crate. I have a bench with a system like that and it works nicely (third picture). I could then simply add the saucers to slow down the drainage process, which I think is a great idea.

My question though, what kind of tubing would you use between the pump and the plants? Are you suggesting classic flood irrigation to fill up the saucers and let the water slowly trickle up or are you suggesting overhead irrigation?

Thanks a lot for your thoughts!

katsucats · #8 11-03-2023, 06:20 PM

From water pumps, there is usually a 1/2" thread so that 1/2" pipes could be run with an adapter. Even though in my tests bulkhead fittings seem to work 100% and never leak, we could run this pipe out the top of the reservoir bin or drill a hole on the side near the top just in case. After all, if a 10-40 gallon reservoir starts leaking, I think that's the only possible "catastrophic" event.

From the 1/2" tubing, I'd run 1/4" tubing to the plant saucers overhead, but with a plant stake or clip to force them to fire in the right direction.

The return drain would be standard flood and drain equipment, with a 1/2" or 3/4" bulkhead fitting from the tray back down into a reservoir, whether recirculating or waste.

Unfortunately, bulkhead fittings are kind of expensive, so I would not suggest plugging those onto each saucer to fill them up. If you're using the grouped plants idea, you could use standard flood irrigation to fill up the trays, as that would be more cost effective.

For the saucers, I bought these deli containers bulk:
Genpak SC025 25 oz. Clear Round Deli Container - 300/Case - Splyco

They're 3" tall and about 5.5" diameter. Obviously if any water overflows they'd go back into the tray underneath, but if we want a shorter overflow we could just punch a large hole on the side at the level we want.

Over here we also have Daiso, a Japanese dollar store type of thing, and they sell kitchenware trays/totes probably 2-3" tall for under $2 that could be used as saucers for wider plants or baskets.

katsucats · #9 11-03-2023, 06:31 PM

Here's a prototype to serve as an example. I never used this one because I decided to go with something more extendable with reservoirs separate from the trays like I've been describing. But the irrigation would be similar. In this case, there's a deli container that I cut to about half height in each of the net pots in the photo. The pump would fill the saucers with those flags, and excess water recirculates.

MateoinLosAngeles · #10 11-03-2023, 06:58 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by katsucats

Here's a prototype to serve as an example. I never used this one because I decided to go with something more extendable with reservoirs separate from the trays like I've been describing. But the irrigation would be similar. In this case, there's a deli container that I cut to about half height in each of the net pots in the photo. The pump would fill the saucers with those flags, and excess water recirculates.

Very nice!