ackeiyword wrote:
In my bid to promote self watering of my tomatoes I have filled a
couple of empty milk bottles, made a hole with a heated NEEDLE (so we
are talking about a tiny hole) underneath hoping that the water would
last at least a couple of days, and placed the bottle next to the
tomato plant...


The 6 pints bottle was empty after about three hours! What have I done
wrong? I did leave the lid on. Other suggestions?

You could try running a cotton string down from the bottle (down to the bottom)
to the soil (buryed a bit). Water would wick down the string. Increase the
string diameter to increase the water flow, and vice-versa.

Or, you could try using a commercial drip irrigation "dripper" and the
appropriate tube coming out of the bottom of the bottle (or, maybe even
siphoning from the top) and see how that works. You might have to raise the
bottle to get enough pressure.

Rick wrote:
On Wed, 13 Jul 2011 20:18:08 -0700, "Bob F"
wrote:

ackeiyword wrote:
In my bid to promote self watering of my tomatoes I have filled a
couple of empty milk bottles, made a hole with a heated NEEDLE (so
we are talking about a tiny hole) underneath hoping that the water
would last at least a couple of days, and placed the bottle next to
the tomato plant...


The 6 pints bottle was empty after about three hours! What have I
done wrong? I did leave the lid on. Other suggestions?

You could try running a cotton string down from the bottle (down to
the bottom) to the soil (buryed a bit). Water would wick down the
string. Increase the string diameter to increase the water flow, and
vice-versa.

Or, you could try using a commercial drip irrigation "dripper" and
the appropriate tube coming out of the bottom of the bottle (or,
maybe even siphoning from the top) and see how that works. You might
have to raise the bottle to get enough pressure.


I was going to suggest the drip irrigation dripper myself. I have set
up gravity feed sustems with them in the past and you get a regulated
flow. One problem is that they usually work off a timer and run about
0.5 to 3 GPH, so too much without the timer.

With gravity feed pressures, they may work fine.