Watering cans and easy watering in the polytunnel

With the warmer weather this week I have been lugging a lot of these around.

It can get really hot inside a polytunnel during the day and all my precious plants need lots of watering.

As you all know, I love my polytunnel. But one of the things I don't love, is that the previous owners of our house erected the polytunnel on top of subsoil, dumped from when they had the garage built. This means I can't grow directly into the soil in beds but have to use large pots ( I use builders buckets with holes in) to grow my plants in. My system works well and I get great crops, but I do have to water everything, by hand, a lot more than if the plants grew in the ground.




In the height of summer that means at least 20 mins, morning and evening, spent watering the polytunnel. I don't begrudge the time spent as I enjoy tending my plants, but it also means I can't go away for more than a day unless I arrange for someone to come in and water the polytunnel, in my place.

I use a hose and a watering lance for larger plants, but at the moment the tomato plants are still small and seedlings need watering with something a bit more delicate and directable, hence all the watering cans!

I have often wondered about setting up an automatic watering system inside the polytunnel for use in the height of summer, which I could connect to the tap and set with a timer. We use Hozelock type fittings on all the taps and I have been looking at various online sites for suppliers and found Easy Watering to have some good ideas. I just need to work out how much it might cost, which system would work best for us and who to buy it from.

Inside the polytunnel I need to apply the water either on the top of the pots directly or into the gravel trays they stand in, so I think some sort of  drip irrigation system  (also available from Easy Watering)  might work best in there. I could lay the main hose up the middle of the floor with the side branch hoses leading to the trays or pots - each tray holds three big pots so I wouldn't need too many side hoses (there are typically 16- 20 gravel trays on the floor at the height of the growing season.)
 
Outside in the veg garden I use soaker hoses laid on the soil in the beds, as well as assorted spray fountains placed on the soil. I only use the soaker hose when needed and always when we are around to monitor it so I don't need an automated system there. I also use the water we collect in the water butts where ever I can.

By the way, this is the experimental potato bed, finally fully planted up with the straw/compost top mulch layer in place.  I will let you know how the experiment goes and how it compares to the harvest from the adjacent bed, which I planted up using my normal method.

So, it is time for me to have a think about our future irrigation needs, both automatic watering systems  and any different/additional  manual equipment we need to source.  I tell you though, if we ever get the new polytunnel up and running in the newly cleared and levelled area it will have raised beds I can plant into!