I used to hand water all of the vegetable gardens, generally filling up a large tub with water first,
and then using a couple of watering cans to distribute the water to all of the plants that
needed it. This was a reasonably effective way of watering all of the plants in the one polytunnel
that I had at the time, though it was a lot of work to keep up with a very regular watering that
was needed. I use the same method to water the plants outside when it was necessary,
but whenever it was really dry I found it really difficult to keep on top of all the watering in
such a large space. I eventually added a sprinkler system to the polytunnel and then a dripline
system on the growing beds and this combination of watering infrastructure made it a lot easier
to keep all of the plants in this protected growing space a lot healthier and happier.
But I've resisted putting in this kind of watering infrastructure in the outside gardens,
as here in Ireland It generally rains enough for most of the season and when it was dry I generally
relied on hand watering. I just didn't think it was necessary to use all of this plastic and the
cost of the infrastructure when it was only needed for a couple of weeks of the year. I eventually
built a couple of sprinkler bars to help water the gardens during the dry spells, but it still took
a fair amount of time and effort over a couple of days to continually move these sprinkler bars
to new locations in the gardens, and there was a fair amount of water that was wasted. So earlier
this year I installed dripline watering systems in all of the outside Gardens as well as some other
key watering infrastructure. And although we've only used it for a couple of weeks this year,
because we've had a very rainy summer, I still think that it's probably worth it in this context.
We're quite fortunate here in Ireland as we generally get enough rain throughout the
growing season for all of the types of vegetable plants that we grow in the outside Gardens,
though sometimes we get too much rain. But we do get a couple of dry spells every year,
and a few years ago we had quite a significant drought, so I need to expect that every season
there is going to be some kind of water stress in the vegetable gardens. On this particular site
we have a sandy loam soil which is quite free draining and we're up on a bit of a hill so the
soil doesn't hold a huge amount of water. We have used a number of different techniques to improve
the water holding capacity of the soil in some of the different Gardens, and we could do a lot more
including using more mulches. But there are limits to how effective these different approaches can be
and when the gardens are full of lots of large plants their extensive root systems can pull a
huge amount of water out of the soil on warm sunny days. And I think at these times the transpiration
of water up through the plants can be much greater than the amount of water lost through evaporation.
So I try to water when necessary, and in the past it has been the amount of time that it takes,
and the low water pressure that we used to have on this site, that put limits on how much
watering I could actually do. But recently I've become more interested in watering for
optimum growth of the plants, which can require quite a bit more water than I have been adding.
We are not in a water stressed area, and the Municipal Water Supply in the area has
not been stressed with any of the droughts that we've had in the past. But we have had specific
water supply issues on this particular site, with reduced amount of water flow and pressure that
needed to be shared with the local Community Farm, other growers in the allotments area,
and the gardens that we manage. This limited water supply was a real problem five years ago when we
had a prolonged drought and high temperatures, at least for Irish standards. There is only really a
trickle of water coming down the pipe to fill up the tanks, and we were regularly coming up
and trying to use the watering cans to spread as much water as we can, to at least keep a lot of
the plants alive. Thankfully we had watering infrastructure in the polytunnels so we were
able to water these Gardens at night when other people weren't using the water. But to water the
outside Gardens it took a lot of work and effort and the plants still didn't grow very well.
I finally got around to replacing the problematic water pipe last year, and we now have much better
water flow and pressure, though perhaps not ideal for the number of Growers who are relying on it,
so we still need to share. When it's really dry and warm the supply is sufficient for the
sprinkler systems in the polytunnel or the drip line pipes, and for powering the one sprinkler
bars that we use in the outside Gardens. But we need to move this line of sprinklers every 30
to 40 minutes to a new part of the garden, and because of the number of Gardens that we have
outside we have to do this quite regularly in order to get all of the gardens watered
within a day or two. And during the dry spells it often felt that we were constantly under pressure
to try to keep up, and we still had to share the fairly limited supplies with other growers
So earlier this summer I finally decided to invest in dripline watering systems for
most of the outside vegetable gardens. I had to buy in a few large rolls of drip line watering
pipe and quite a few fittings, which was a lot of plastic and a fair amount of money.
It also took a fair amount of time to install, at a time when there was already lots to do in
the gardens. And like so many things we figured out better methods as we went along so that it
took a significantly less time to install the dripline watering system on the fifth Garden
compared to the first Garden that we did. So now it's really easy to water a full Garden, simply
connecting the hose and leaving it on for as long as necessary and there's also significantly
less evaporation or water loss compared to the sprinkler systems that we used to use.
And it's even more convenient with a timer that I have with two ports,
so that I can water one Garden after another. And with the help of this timer I can water all
five family scale outside Gardens, the polytunnel in the same space, and the two additional growing
spaces beside the polytunnel, all in one day with only four visits to the gardens.
And now that all of this watering infrastructure is installed the main task involves dragging some
hoses around and setting the timer. And I can even set the timers to water a few of the gardens
overnight so that this will free up the supplies of water for anyone else who needs it. And in
the two larger polytunnels of the black plot I can still use the drip line watering systems on
the beds or the overhead sprinklers, and in the newly established beds for quick rotation crops
I've decided to rely on the sprinkler bars for most of that watering. It is such a relief to
be able to do the main watering in all of these growing spaces every day without too much effort.
Of course dripline watering systems have limitations, and the way I've set up the
systems they water the entire Garden the same amount, regardless of the individual
demands of the different crops. Some crops need significantly more water than others and with
transplants and direct sown seedlings needing special attention, with a fair amount of liquid
feeding and a few other pots and growing spaces, I still rely on a fair amount of hand watering.
So I decided to upgrade the system that I use for filling watering cans as well.
I set up a thousand litre tank on a couple of pallets, with a 300 litre tank underneath,
for filling the watering cans. This means that the tank can fill up much faster, rather than
waiting for it to fill up with the hose, and there's a lot more water available if somebody
else is using the water supplies, and it has a chance to warm up a bit. And because I can keep
this tank fairly full it means that I don't have to bend over so much to fill the watering cans,
which takes less effort and is better for my back. And we've also started using a garden cart,
loading it with six watering cans at a time, rather than walking back and forth between
the tank and the gardens carrying two large watering cans, which makes things a lot easier.
Now we can get a lot of hand watering done in the gardens in a fairly short period of time,
it's easier, faster and more convenient, and I can top up the large tank whenever is necessary
with the timer. And having this larger volume of water on hand is much more resilient, as I can
do all of the necessary watering whenever it's convenient for me rather than waiting for other
people to finish with the supply. And I've set up a similar system in the Black Plot which makes the
additional watering that we need to do in these larger growing spaces a lot easier. Now I wonder
why I hadn't set this up before, as I had all of the pieces, I just hadn't put them all together.
The other significant watering system that I installed this year is a dripper system for all
of the bags and pots that we grow in. Last year I bought a lot of large grow bags, mainly to run
a couple of trials where I grew potatoes to test different growing medium and different types of
fertility and I'm also using these bags to grow strawberries and a fair amount of other crops.
Watering all of these bags was a big task last year during the dry periods, and it was hard to
keep up with it all. And the soil or growing medium in the bags tended to dry out in the
middle, which can be an issue when growing in any type of container, and once it got dry it
could be very difficult to wet again. And when I was trying to quickly water all of the bags,
either with a watering can or a hose, a lot of the water seemed to just flow around the
outside of the root ball and out the holes in the bottom of the bags. So I knew I needed to invest
in a dripper system this year, which I was able to source from a mainstream horticultural supplier.
As apparently the main benefit of a dripper system is it adds a small amount of water
over a longer period of time, which allows much more of the growing medium to become saturated.
In order to effectively use a system like this I needed to reorganize all of the grow bags,
and to put them all in one location. I set the large bags in double rows with a distribution
water pipe down the centre, that I used a punch to make a hole in for an emitter,
which would limit the amount of water at each location. On each emitter I put a pre-assembled
unit of four thin pipes, with a spike at the end of each pipe to go into each grow bag.
And with most of the large grow bags in one space, and three long double rows,
I could use a timer to water all 180 bags at once. This was a definite time saver and the
plants were a lot happier and healthier during the dry spell that we had. I still hand water
these grow bags occasionally partially to keep the surface of the growing medium moist,
but then also to compensate for the fact that I am liquid feeding some of the bags and not others.
But the bulk of the watering is done very quickly and easily especially when it matters the most.
Inside the polytunnels this kind of watering infrastructure is really useful all year round,
but in the outside Gardens, especially in this climate, I'm not so sure how necessary it is.
We had a three-week period at the end of May and beginning of June this year without any rain at
all, when it was quite sunny and warm, with a fair amount of wind, and the plants and the gardens
were still developing their roots. We had all this extra watering infrastructure set up for the
beginning of this dry period so it was a really good test, and it definitely saved some time and
we were able to keep the soil moisture levels at a really good level. The drip line systems for the
outside Gardens hooked up to a timer were really effective. The tank for hand watering was really
useful and we ended up doing more hand watering than we would otherwise have done, because it was
so easy. And the dripper systems for the grow bags were more effective and a lot easier than hand
watering during this dry period. I really felt that the infrastructure we had put in was worth
it as I was confident that the plants were getting the water that they needed. And it saved a lot of
time and was easier and we were able to devote more time to all the other tasks in the gardens
and because we rely so much on the soil biology to help feed the plants in most of the growing spaces
keeping all of this soil moist definitely helped, and the plants seemed to grow a lot better.
But since then we've had a lot of rain, its rained most days and the total amount of rain has been a
lot more than usual, and we've had less sun and less warmth while the rest of Europe seems to be
struggling with the heat. So the drip line systems and the dripper systems in the outside Gardens are
sitting idle, and we hardly do any hand watering, and there doesn't seem to be any change to this in
the forecast. At the moment it feels like it was a waste of effort and time, and a lot of plastic,
which is all in the way in the gardens. And if I was just growing food for myself, I'm not sure
whether it would have been worth it. But that will change of course and I suspect we will get
a lot of dry periods in the future. So I see this watering infrastructure in the outside Gardens as
an investment in the future, to help build the resilience of the gardens and of this project.
And the water stress in the gardens that occurs during these hot and dry periods only ever happens
during the really busy parts of the growing season, when there's so many other things to
do. So anything that can help save time during these periods is definitely worth considering,
even if it's going to remain idle for a lot of the rest of the year. And for key aspects of this
research project that we were working on, it is really important, especially for the grow bags,
as it removes a variable that was causing problems with some of the explorations.
And when it is unusually warm and sunny here in Ireland we can have much better
growth in the vegetable gardens, with stronger plants and bigger harvests,
especially if the plants and the soil biology has all the water that is needed.