On 10/06/2013 22:51, Roger Tonkin wrote:

I've bought an automatic water control from Aldi for
about £20. Works well, with lots of options, which is
the problem.

I am using it to water tomato plants growing in the
greenhouse in grobags, plus a few lettuces in the soil
there. Using small pipe drip feed system.

I have an option of 15, 30 or 60 mins once or twice a
day. How long and how often is appropriate? At the
moment I'm trying twice a day for 30 mins, which
looked to be about right during last weeks heat.
Trouble is I'm going away soon so I'll not have much
time to try other settings, hence the request for
advice.

Other concern is that there was no advice on battery
life, so I'm a little concerned that the batteries may
fail whilst I'm away for 3 weeks. Being Aldi supplied,
only contact was a German web site!


Put one of the drip nozzles into a container instead of by a plant to
measure the amount of water being delivered this should help you decide
on the setting you need.
As for the batteries use good ones and change to a new set just before
you go away.