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This little Instructable is for people that have very small gardens in an urban setting perhaps, the sort of plot you might find in a CSA garden. The kind of garden that used to be called a kitchen garden.
For example, I'm growing pumpkins in a non-traditional garden. It's located on the embankment of a town road that runs by my home. It's convenient for me. I get my mail, weed, water and generally check on the progress of my pumpkins every day.
Traditional watering methods are geared towards having a ready and large supply of water. This ready availability isn't always the case anymore. I'm not going to drag a hose back and forth for twelve plants.
I've read that drip irrigation systems are better for the plants and better for the environment. With this in mind and my usual thrift (cheapness) I've designed a drip irrigation system that uses 100% recycled items and derives from power that I would be using anyway, my freezer.
If you think I've taken a bit long on the intro, not to worry. The "Instructable" its self is quick.
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Signing UpStep 1Freeze the water filled bottle
This is pretty simple. Freeze a one liter PET bottle of water. Be sure to leave a space for the water to expand as it freezes so it won't burst inside your freezer. Leave the label on or take it off.
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How cool would that be?
#1) be threatening and ignore everyone else. Not much fun
#2) be inclusive and invite everyone to a breakfast or picnic or ice cream social sort of thing. Get on a committee with the person that doesn't like you and let them get to know you better. That usually works best.
OR your neighbor could just move or put up a fence.
Last winter I cleared my whole neighborhoods driveways of snow each time it snowed. Made some new friends and converted some skeptics so, I winned 8-D.
Good luck with the punkin' growin'. keep me updated, please.
I hadn't really thought about that aspect of gardening- guerilla gardening and all that. When I drive on a highway that has one of those 200' wide medians I'm always thinking of ways to put that dirt to use, so how did I just entirely overlook that aspect, pretty funny.
This started as a joke about this house being "The Pumpkin Atelier" and morphed into a public experiment on carefree / careless / brainless gardening. (Long story) The dirt is road side fill. It's sandy with lots of weeds, rock and after years of snow plows there's a high salt content too. To plant them I kicked holes in the dirt and tossed some seeds in and covered them up. No counting, No hilling, No weeding just toss and go. To my surprise some managed to sprout. At that point I became more interested in their welfare 8-D
If I actually get some pumpkins I'll just give them to the little kids in the neighborhood. I've got nearly 20 flower buds on twelve plants so far. As long as no critters eat them for a snack I'll have a pumpkin for every kid. I mean really, what am I going to do with 20+ pumpkins? Have you ever tried to eat one of these things? Ugh!
At any rate, the Garden IcePops came about because it's been so humid with no rain and really hot for a few weeks now. I didn't want to make a big deal of watering them but I didn't want them to have sprouted only to wither away. It seemed like a nice compromise to use recycled items on these particular plants and since I'd never seen this anywhere else I thought I'd share the idea.
Guerilla gardening you say . . . that's funny. I read about that in Mother Earth News and I admire those that make all that effort to make a statement. I'm just trying to grow some pumpkins for kids and have some fun at the same time.
M.
Serendipity eh?
I know that I would be incredibly disappointed to find them all gone one morning, even if it was minimal work to begin with!
I really didn't care too much when I started but ,as people will, I began to make plans and now I've developed a level of concern about these silly pumpkins.
I have nothing else to be concerned about. *sheesh* *facepalm*
In the last image I've shown the difference between traditional watering and this type of drip irrigation. Regular watering has dried up hours before and left it as dry and hard as before I watered, the IcePop watered plants dirt is still moist. Mind you, i've made no amendments to the soil to improve it's water retention abilities.
"a small hole drilled in the cap works nicely to allow drippage" I like the hole idea- what size drill do you use? I didn't drill a hole because I wasn't sure what size I should use and the simple unscrew adjustment worked well enough for my needs.
"I haven't tried the freezing part b4" The frozen part is twofold concept- In humans cold water hydrates better- perhaps it's good for plants too. I know that warm or hot water will wilt a plant. Melting the frozen water is this systems method of flow control (as well as the cap) too.
"Im not sure that one liter is enough water for one squash plant a day let alone several." Before I was doing this they weren't getting any water so there's that to be considered. You could also bump it up to a two or three liter bottle if your conditions warrant more water.
1. Room temperature water makes more sense to me for human absorption (see link above).
2. Simply unscrewing the cap slightly will cause a minor leak.
3. The colder water is better in terms of slowing down evaporation.
4. Gardening rule of thumb is one inch of rainfall per week for 'normal' climate conditions.
Thank you for the instructable. Yours and others will help my plants out tremendously.
I'll be investing in a small chest tyep freezer sometime soon, and I always use extra bottles of frozen water to make it more efficient; its easier to maintain your freezer's temperature if you have soething like that to fill the 'empty spaces', so someone else's over-analyzed assessment is their baliwick, not mine; let them stress over things that I know better about.
I container garden when I do garden; and this year, this would have worked out much better than the put one tote inside another system I used; it would have been MUCH more efficient and delivered much more water to the root system than the other methid. Once I get things set back up; recently moved to Texas where this method will work GREAT for me; I am going to use this method of watering my plants and know that they will have the water the need without it being wasted.
I will DEFINITELY use this idea as soon as I get things set up and get some small bottles to do this with; I will look around and find like 8 ounce bottles so I can use this idea for my houseplants, KUDOS! for this one!
I think this is very environment-friendly.
I'm no shrinking violet and in fact I love a good roast but this isn't anything but simple-minded gainsay.
I did look for ways to develop an Ignore list but gave up.
Thank you for the support-I appreciate it
For your edification, please read BobCat's entry. It's cute. I wouldn't want to live next door to him though.
And for the record I have lifted this directly from the 'ible-
"This little Instructable is for people that have very small gardens in an urban setting perhaps" AND THEN THERE'S
"I tend to not plant in rows but in bunches.-snip-
One of the benefits is that using this planting system I can use one bottle to water several plants at once"
So I got that going for me. But you know, haters gonna hate. Thanks for the support though I appreciate it.
Also, this instructable is wasteful of electricity, as I and others here have pointed out.
1) My fridge has an attached freezer. It's on top of the refrigerator portion of the machine and not a separate unit. My freezer is only half full at any given tim . I can't change the settings for each portion independently. In less expensive units like mine, the freezer is cooled first and then the rest of the unit and finally the crispers. The freezer freezes full or empty, can't help that. I don't pack the freezer full of bottles and I don't reccommend that to anyone else either.
2) This was intended for small gardens with limited plantings. Also please see the part about planting in bunches and not in a row formation. This makes it possible to get the most benefit from each bottle and to be able to use fewer Garden IcePops. Think "Container Gardening not "filling the root cellar" gardening, sort of a kitchen garden, a window box garden if you will.
3) My tap water is quite chilly - about 55-58 degrees so a drop of 26 (or so) degrees isn't that wasteful to my way of thinking.
4)" to freeze a liter of water per plant per day..." Please see the last image. That bunch of pumpkin plants was still a bit damp the next morning after I took those pictures. I was amazed. If the everyday, everyday thing is worrisome then try it every other day or every third day. The cooling water delivered over time reduces the dirts temp and soaks the dirt all of which enhances deeper root growth. Lawn professionals advise that you water your lawn deeply once or twice a week, not lightly every day. This makes the roots dive deeper for the water. I'm hoping for the same effect here with my silly Itty-Bitty Pumpkin Patch.
I also felt that it was more environmentally friendly to use wasted refrigeration cycles and a single liter of water (+,-) in a fully recycled container two or three times a week than to purchase a hose (manufactured on the other side of the world and transported to my local store) to drag across 150' of yard to dribble water from a well across a ten foot garden area for and hour a day every day.
It is the most environmental bang for the buck.
At least that's the way I looked at it.
As always, your mileage may vary 8-D
I know you mean well, but you simply have no grasp of physics if you think this is in any way environmentally friendly. It is in fact one of the worst ideas I have ever seen here.
By the way, your freezer is actually set to 0-5 degrees
http://www.austinenergy.com/energy%20efficiency/tools%20and%20tips/residential/energy%20efficiency%20tips/appliances.htm
so not only did you miscalculate the temperature drop, but you ignored
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enthalpy_of_fusion
it takes *at least* 50 watt-hours just to freeze 1 liter of water that is *already* at 32F. Just as a rough estimate, adding the 50F temperature drop, and because the efficiency is actually much lower, I'd say you are using several hundred watt-hours per bottle.
Fill your bottles with water, pour them on *well mulched* plants, and save money and reduce your carbon footprint. Pumpkins don't need constant drip irrigation anyway.
And
"I know you mean well, but you simply have no grasp of physics if you think this is in any way environmentally friendly. It is in fact one of the worst ideas I have ever seen here."
are biting, to the point and patronizing. It’s the patronizing that’s most annoying. Well, that and the fact that you’ve ignored reality.
BobCat, you must have noticed that there are things known as "Ice Cube Trays" and that these items arrive in each and every new refrigerator and can be purchased independently of a refrigerator at many retail locations around the United States. There are also (if you can believe it) Automatic Ice Cube Makers that reside inside the more expensive refrigerators. Restaurants have machines that can produce tons yes, tons of ice each and every hour. Horrendous in scale don’t you agree? As an aside- this is sarcasm. I’m not being patronizing. There is a huge difference.
So I have to ask you BobCat, why the hate? What have ice cubes done to you?
You see (and here is the crux of your lack of reality check) two trays of ice cubes from official ice cube trays are approx 1L of fluid. EACH cube is (+ -) 1 oz
it takes *at least* 50 watt-hours just to freeze 1 liter of water that is *already* at 32F. Just as a rough estimate, adding the 50F temperature drop, and because the efficiency is actually much lower, I'd say you are using several hundred watt-hours per bottle.
At this point in your patronizing comment your logic was fully off the rails cost wise and, well, any way you look at it, you had shot your bolt.
BobCat old chum, I think that -
#1 you failed to do a Reality Check before you posted your poorly researched comment. Really, think about what you wrote there. If this were truly the case, wouldn’t there be more discussion regarding the banning of Automatic ice cube makers by Green Peace or the Sierra Club?
#2 you are unnecessarily rude and patronizing with this comment.
#3 I think that you are no longer reading this because you have given up reading and are trying to write a reply full of justifications and hubris. (Look it up.)
#4 for the record it is you with the poor grasp of physics and, as stated prior, reality.
#5 it took me this long to reply as I wanted to be sure that I wouldn’t be as rude as you. I’m not sure I made it though. Oh well. Please put me on your “Ignore” list. I think it’s best.
Best regards,
Marcintosh
If you unplug one of those stand-alone ice cube makers, you save 100% of the electricity. Do you agree that this is a fact?
Now, plug it in, make ice, and melt it outside. Do this over and over. How much electricity have you used? More than zero, obviously. Actually, quite a lot, and I calculated the amount for you.
Now, go ahead and be as upset as you want, it makes no difference, the universe works the way it works, and you simply do not understand its ways.
Oh, and your hubris will be followed by ate. Look it up. Nah, I'll do it for you.
http://www.freeonlineresearchpapers.com/teaching-creons-personality
my garden is often dry again after a couple of hour . . .
The effect lasted, for quite a while but I'd suggest using a bit of thin foam between the bottle and the mylar. That might extend your melting time and yes a bigger bottle would most likely help. I've used styro peanuts that I crushed but you could use a styro take-out box that you cut up. Previously I had access to foam that came between sheets of printing materials (printing plates) That was about 3/16ths or so. If you had some foam core that was beat up you could use that as well I think.
Since you are gone for the day I'd suggest that you try it on a weekend day first. That way you could keep track of it a bit better. If in fact you felt you needed to keep track of this. For me, it didn't matter and anything was better than what I was doing.
is the timespan for one day or longer?
I'm not exactly sure what you mean here. The images I used are from a single day, from about 10am to 4pm or so. The water is dispensed slowly over time and as such, it soaks into the dirt as opposed to when I would just pour water around the plants for a minute or so. I can't say with any accuracy when the ice melts or how long it lasts as I'm busy and forget to check on it's progress. I can say for certain though that the ice is gone within very few hours (@ 90deg) if that long.
I think that covers it. If not then by all means, please try again. Some days I'm better than on other days.
M.