Autonomous Plant Watering
blog.monotonous.org
blog.monotonous.org
I haven't decided what to plant it with, though.
Hugels hold water and slowly allow plants to wick the moisture when it is needed. They really start working well at year 2-3.
You should probably dig (loose a little the soil) the base of the raised bed garden before build it, or maybe to choose better your species list to fit your climate.
An upsidedown 2L bottle sits above a reservoir and if the water gets too low it glubs out some more water. Air gets in, water comes out, now more air can't get in because the reservoir water is too high.
A set of aquarium tubes keeps the water level even between the reservoir and each plant. The plants are all in double planters, with water in the bottom one. Clothes strips wick the water up throughout the soil in the top planters, keeping the soil constantly moist.
It's been less than a day, so we'll see how it goes but the whole thing was cheap and simple.
You should start seeing fungus gnats in a week or so.
I based this system off a large number of videos showing the double-bucket wicking system. Folks in those said they had lots of success using them. Does that only affect certain plant types?
Edit: some material I found suggests that because the surface soil stays dry, the fungus gnats have a hard time getting into the roots, propagating.
http://www.insideurbangreen.org/2010/07/subirrigated-planter...
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My father's house has a greywater septic system. The treated water is sprayed on an "orchard". The trees don't get watered when people aren't in the house, so most the trees are gone. I'm going to plant raspberries. :)
This wouldn't work if you want 1 minute a week (since the cycle repeats every 35 minutes), but for hydroponics sometimes you want a short duration with very frequent repetitions, and the electronic timers (which are preferable in most other ways) don't provide enough on/off cycles per day or week.
You would plug in timer 1, so that its output (output 1) is on. You would set timer 2 so that output 2 would turn on as soon as timer 2 receives power. When there are only 30 seconds left in timer 1's on cycle, you would plug timer 2 into a separate outlet.
Since they are synced, but only overlap by 30 seconds, they will only both be on for 30 seconds. You would then need some kind of AND that would only turn on the pump if output 2 and output 1 are both on.
You'd need to separate the timer power from the switched power. Easy to do, but not how the cheap ones work.
Also, the settings are not precise enough to get a repeatable interval across two devices.
On the other hand, it's a very simple DIY electronics project. Arduino is extreme overkill, but will also work.
"A Word on WiFi Sockets: They suck. They take the simplest operation of closing a circuit and abstract it in a shitty smartphone app that only works half the time."
Short interval timers are a bit harder to come by, as several others have mentioned, but they do exist and aren't very expensive. E.g. this one can go as short as one minute per week:
http://plumbdeal.com/product_info.php/grasslin-digital-plugi...
The IoT future is looking very bleak, with all the vulnerabilities it's going to introduce.
For those who are curious: In simple terms, pressure is proportional to depth. Assuming the air pump is outputting constant pressure, the pressure exerting on the top surface of the water would be constant. On the other hand, the amount of pressure experienced at a point near the bottom of the container depends on the its depth- the deeper the more pressure.
When there is more fluid, there is more pressure near the bottom due to the weight of the fluid itself, which allows greater output (water going into the soil). As the fluid's depth decreases, so will the pressure experienced by a point near the bottom.
And that kind of makes me think we are implementing some sort of new, unnatural ecosystem where energy is expended by robots. But will it be self sufficient and sustainable?
* "the deeper your reservoir the more efficient the water gets pumped. As the water gets consumed, the pump gives less output"
* "If the reservoir runs dry the motor won’t catch fire. That apparently is a thing water pumps."
* "Since the water is only going through a simple tube and not an expensive motor, you can pump a nutrient solution. If you want to pamper your plants, we don’t."
There are very few pumps on the market nowadays (even the super cheap ones) that don't have run-dry protection. In any case, no pump is going to catch fire running for 20 seconds.
It is very common to add fertilizer to planted aquariums. It's dissolved in the water, and therefore makes no difference to the pump (it doesn't change the "pumping" properties of the water at all).
Sounds like the typical eureka moment.
But for the HNers with a slightly greener thumb: I have a big sanseviera which I use as a kind of alarm clock. Whenever it gets droopy, I know it's time to water all my plants. And because it's a big and hardy plant, it prevents me from overwatering my other plants.
Do you have any recommendations?
Why didn't they pump the water from the tank to the plants? Why did they rely on pressure? That puts a whole lot of strain on the pump.