Urban Vegetable Garden

Here is a letter from one of our customers who has designed a very unique and well designed urban space and water saving garden that is watered with the wetpot watering system.

It is very inspiring for us to see such innovation with the wetpot watering system. I particularly like the way John has made use of vertical space with the hanging pots and he has made a garden which is raised above the ground for easy access. The use of recycled materials is also great to see.

5th of February 2005.

Hi Joel,

The wetpots arrived yesterday all in good order.

Have attached two photos of our setup, have waited a few days before sending as the
day after planting was very hot and the plants took a big setback but tonight
they are looking much improved and are starting to grow.



The frame looks expensive but the steel came from our daughters alteration on the basement of her home and the wood is from a local recycling yard the rest is time to get it altogether. The watertank can slide up or down the post and lock in at the hight required while the hanging pots are standard pots with a steel band around them with hooks bent and welded to the band.

There is different types of plant containers on the bench being tried out the ceramic pots have tomatoes, the plastic bag strawberries, the plastic pots celery and parsley and the polystyrene box lettuce, one hanging pot has cucumbers in it. From now on I hope to grow from seed for a continues supply of vegetables and to expand the range of plants in the pots.

We have always had a verge garden but on long hot days it is hard to keep the water up to mature plants with water restrictions on so hope to solve that problem with wetpots and plants at a working height. Hope this is of interest to you as it is still early days and I have a lot to learn about this system.

Cheers,

John Massey
Talebudgera Qld, Australia.

The only suggestion I had for John was to put some type of shade material
over the water container, such as shade cloth or some type of material
cloth. This will prevent the black plastic container from heating up
in the sun.

It will be great to see more photos of Johns garden in the future. I
can picture it already with a bench full of plants and vines climbing
up over the top of the structure with fruit and vegies hanging down to
be picked.

Here is a another letter from John:


9th of February 2005

Hi Joel

You are welcome to make use of the photos and description for your website.
The pots are filled with a mixture of potting mix and home made compost, blood & bone
is added with chicken pellets and a little sulphate of potash any helpful hints on the mixture would be well received as growing vegies in pots is new to me.

I was very pleased to see not one plant collapsed in the high heat today so the wetpots must be getting the water to the right place, they would have suffered in the garden at this stage of there growth.

There are two large wetpots in the strawberries and the lettuces have one large and one small, two small would have done I think but only had one at the time, all the rest have a single wetpot.

Will send more photos as it all progresses.

Cheers,

John Massey
Talebudgera Qld, Australia.


Thanks John, keep up the great work! We look forward to seeing more photos of your garden in the future.

Joel Bruce
Co-Founding Watering Systems
http://wateringsystems.net
"Where there is water there is life"

Australian Native Plant Watering System

Today we are setting up a wetpot garden watering system to water some Australian natives plants. We will be using the inground wetpots.



Inground wetpots are buried below the soil surface beside the plants you are wanting to water.

One of the benefits of the wetpot watering system is that it can be setup very quickly and easily in any location in your garden. Other watering systems require digging trenches and laying pipes to connect to your mains water and adding back flow prevention valves etc. With wetpots its simply a mater placing one of our 30 litre or 60 litre storage containers in the area that you are wanting to water. This storage container can be filled once a week or as required with a garden hose.

The garden we are setting up today is separated from the rest of the garden by a circular driveway which means that if we wanted to install a regular irrigation system we would need to dig up our drive way in order to lay the pipe to connect to the mains water supply. We can avoid all this hard work with the self contained wetpot watering system. Once our Pandanas and other native ground covers have established we can remove the system and use it somewhere else in the garden to establish native trees.

First, we select a location for our water storage container. We have used a small brown ceramic urn in this garden because we are only watering a couple of plants so we won't be using much water. The ceramic urn also makes a nice feature on the rock in our front yard.



Next, we place our wetpots beside the locations that we have existing plants or where we plan to plant our ground covers. We push the plastic tee fittings into the top of each wetpot which will be used to connect our pipe to. We then measure out the required amount of 4 mm multi-flex pipe required to join the wetpots together. The pipe can be cut with a pair of scissors.

We then connect the pipe to the tees in the top of each wetpot and join the pipe to the water storage tank. By dipping the pipe in a cup of hot water it makes it much easier to push the pipe over the tee fittings.



Here we have placed news paper under our plant so that we can give it a chance to wrap its roots around the wetpot before the surrounding tree roots find the wetpot and compete with our plant for the water. Once our plant has established its roots will take all of the water from the wetpot and it won't matter if the newspaper biodegrades as the surrounding trees won't seek out the wetpot.

Next we are place a dripper on the end of our pipe. When the system is complete we fill the water storage container with water and wait for the air to be bleed out of the system via the dripper.

After a few 5- 10 minutes all the wetpots will be full of water and a steady stream of water will flow from our dripper so we can screw the cap back on to seal the system. When ever we let our water storage run out of water its important to repeat this process to remove any air that may have got into the system.

Now that our system is installed we can cover it over with soil and mulch. Now its just a matter of checking on our water storage container from time to time and topping it up with a garden hose.

Joel Bruce
Co-Founder Watering Systems
http://wateringsystems.net

"Where there is water there is life"

Hanging Plant Watering System

Hanging plants require watering more frequently than pot plants on the ground. This is because air circulates around the hanging plants pot causing the soil to dry out quickly.

Watering your hanging plants can be quite difficult as they are often hard to reach. Watering hanging plants can also be a messy job as water either overflows or drips out the bottom of your hanging basket or pot. Once the soil drys out its difficult to get water right to the bottom of the pot without it overflowing.


Today we are rescuing a hanging plant which because of its difficult to reach location has been neglected and hasn't received as much water as it requires. This plant is in particularly poor condition as it receives very hot afternoon sun.

We have put 1 small wetpot emitter into this hanging plant and connected it to a beautiful blue ceramic urn hand crafted and painted by Peter. The wetpot will slowly seep out water as the hanging plant requires and will never overflow or drip on the floor. To help keep the soil cool and to reduce water loss on the surface we will put some mulch on the surface of the pot.


The urn will only need to be filled once every couple of weeks.

To order a hanging plant watering system similar to the one we have used above, visit our wetpot order page here.

Joel Bruce
Co-Founder Sunshine Watering Systems
WateringSystems.net

"Where there is water there is life"

Door Step Garden Watering System

On Christmas day we installed a door step garden watering system in Casino, New South Wales, Australia. The watering system was quite small with only 3 large wetpots required to water 3 special plants on the front steps.

Like most Australian towns, Casino can have quite hot and dry afternoons, which can quickly dry out your pot plants if they are not watered regularly. The wetpot watering system takes care of this task for you, leaving the soil around your pot plants moist at all times.


The position of the water urn at the top of the steps allows it to be easily filled.


As you can see the artwork and design of the ceramic urn used as a water storage container was right at home on the the front steps of this house. The urn used to hold the water in this watering system was hand made as well as hand painted by Peter Wakely the developer of Wetpots.

A system such as this one with 3 large wetpots would use about 1.5 to 4.5 litres per week. The water urn will need to be refilled only once a week in summer and less often in winter.

To order a system similar to the one used in this door step garden visit our wetpot order page here.

Joel Bruce
Co-Founder Sunshine Watering Systems
http://wateringsystems.net

"Where there is water there is life"

Introduction to Watering Systems

Hello and Welcome to the Watering Systems Column.

My name is Joel Bruce, and I am the Co-Founder of Sunshine Watering Systems a business based on the Sunshine Coast in Queensland near Noosa Heads at Sunshine Beach. Sunshine Watering Systems is proud to be a distributor of the Wetpot® Watering System developed by Peter Wakely of Wetpot® Industries.

In the comming year I aim to cover a wide range of topics relating to wetpot watering systems including providing examples of watering systems we have installed in the Sunshine Coast region as well as the rest of Australia and the world.

I will provide photos and commentary on field trials, customer installations and experiments we are undertaking using the revolutionary Wetpot® watering system to demonstrate its excellent water efficiency, ease of installation, automation, simplicity and many other benefits.

I will also cover the coming global water crisis which is fast approaching and will dramatically change the type of watering systems we use in our farms and gardens.

Joel Bruce
Co-Founder Sunshine Watering Systems
http://wateringsystems.net

"Where there is water there is life"