Quote:
Originally Posted by alan_m
Pre-soaking the gel on its own and you end up with a jelly the
consistency of wall paper paste and it's difficult to judge how much gel
you are adding. You need approx 1 gram of "dry" gel per litre of compost
so for a 50l bag add 50g of dry water retaining gel (50g = approx 10
level tablespoons). From garden shops this gel can be very expensive.
I've purchased 1kg bags from Ebay for around £12.50 - there a few
sellers at this price.
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Thanks for the pointers on how best to mix/use the gel. I shall pass these to my wife as that will be her job
The only gel I found that specifically states it's suitable for edibles was the Westland Water Saving Gel. The others either specifically stated they weren't suitable for use with edibles or didn't say either way. I picked up a couple of bags from Amazon:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Westland-Wa...gateway&sr=8-1
They currently have it at £3/250g as a filler item (free with delivery's of £20+), incase anyone else is looking for some. Was the cheapest price I could find.
Quote:
Originally Posted by alan_m
I wonder how the drip system is going to be implemented. One dripper per
pot or just the upper layers being watered and gravity watering the
others with the overflow.
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I have one dripper per pot and each is adjustable. You can make out the orange drippers on the first picture. I hadn't wired up the second one when I took the pictures.
Micro irrigation seems to be relatively cheap these days so I thought I may as well do one dripper per plant. That way I can adjust the flow independently.
Quote:
Originally Posted by alan_m
In my experience with a micro irrigation and a watering timer/computer
is that around 4 times a year you have to reprogram the timer. Say, one
watering of five minutes per day spring/autumn to 3 periods of 10
minutes during the heat of summer. Program the timer to water during the
middle of the night.
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This is useful info for a novice
It gives me a good starting point and I can then adjust to my own conditions. I guess you just have to keep an eye on the plants/soil and vary timer or the dripper periodically.
Quote:
Originally Posted by alan_m
I've had a micro system for the past 15 years or so and I've found that
some of the cheap timers work just as well or better than some of the
more expensive offerings.
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Fortuitously AMEX sent my wife and I £25 off £40 spend codes for Amazon. So I grabbed the Orbit HF Buddy II:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Orbit-96782...gateway&sr=8-1
After the code it was £15.99
I used my wife's code for the other bits I needed to complete the setup. I'm sure the £50 saved will just go on plants instead :/