easy watering setup
over the winter i have built and designed a new room to keep all of my plants in till spring. with just over 100 plants now it was taking close to a hour to water everything. i am not a morning person so getting up at 2:30 was out of the question. i came up with a surflo pump complete with a 2 gallon stainless tank built on to it from ebay for 69.00, purchased four 55 gallon black plastic drums for 5 dollars each and had a drip watering kit that was purchased about 5 years ago for the wife who never used it. the drip kit will hold up to 240 drip emitters at 1 gallon per hour so this would not be a problem with 100 or so plants. next i purchased a 1000 watt hps light ballest and a conversion bulb to get my color back down to the blue level and then started seting the plants on shelves according to light needs. tnis light puts out just over 10000 lumens and gets warm enough to keep the room in the 70 degree range so aux. heating was not going to be needed. after the light was hung and the plants were set on the shelves i started to run the water lines. the main line is about 5/8 inside diameter so it is fairly easy to handle, once this was in place i ran a 1/4 inch line from the main line to each plant including the mounted ones, the ones that are in bark i did not want to water everyday so on them i installed a valve to turn them on and off the mounted phals get watered everyday so no valves on these. once the 1/4 inch lines were in place i installed a drip emitter or a variable sprayer depending on the plant and pot size. i then took a 55 gallon drum and drilled a 11/16 hole near the bottom and tapped it with a 1/2 x 11 pipe tap to install a boiler drain valve(this valve has the garden hose hook up on the end) filled the barrell wwith free rain water hooked up the lines to the pump and with in five minutes had watered all the plants with out breaking a sweat. after a few days of making sure everything was going to work ok i installed a seperate timer for the punp to run when i get up so all i had to do was stand there and watch it do the work. once winter had fully set in and the wood burner was running everyday i noticed the humidity level was dropping in the room. went back to the drip shop and purchased five misters to work on the drip lines and a couple of valves. i installed electric solenoid on the water line and a t fitting to run another line on the added line i ran along the ceiling in a circle and installed the misters, after a couple of trial runs i cut the misters down to just two running and are set to turn on 7 times a day for 1 minute each time, when i want to water all i have to do is turn the mister valve off and the water valve on and it will water everything the first thing in the morning, after it is done watering i switch the valves back to mist and leave for the day.i have since acquired some vandas now that i have the proper lighting for them and they now sit in a open pot with no media getting misted everyday, the roots are getting as green as a irish man on st patricks day. after everything was up and running with out anymore adjustments i added up my cost and figured it cost around 27 cents a month to grow each plant with the electric being used and all of my materials i purchased. now when i add a plant to the room i just punch another hole into the line and add a emitter to the pot and i am done with it till spring. all said and done i have around 400.00 dollars invested into this setup and as far as the water goes every thaw and rain we get i get another 200 gallons of fresh rain water, i keep one barrell mixed with msu fertilizer to water everynow and then by hand. we have started growing fresh vegatables in there as well and they are loving it
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