Manually Watering Containers

[Crandrew]

Huh...That is strange. I bet those flys are fungus gnats. They are more bothersome than anything.
I never realized you had that many containers, I thought you mostly used raised beds.

[GoGayleGo]

Originally Posted by Crandrew

The inability to completely remove the risk of plant loss is why i went from 2 tomato plants last year to 20 this year. Im going to guarantee results one way or another.

Love it! I love the brute force approach! This is my first year, and I have 6 tomato plants, in fact six *different types* of tomato plants. Didn't want to put all my eggs in one basket...right now the four that went in earliest have all set fruit, and I have two that went in four weeks behind the first four. Fingers crossed!

[babice]

Originally Posted by Crandrew

Huh...That is strange. I bet those flys are fungus gnats. They are more bothersome than anything.
I never realized you had that many containers, I thought you mostly used raised beds.

Oh, yes. I have 73 containers (14 of which are toms). And I have 3 raised beds and 3 EBs. Then I also have a side garden at the base of my deck in the yard.

I'll look up fungus gnats to see if the ones in the front look like that. On the deck, the worm thingies that were in the CHM with the toms were larvae that - I ain't kiddin' - jumped. It was something seeing them jumping around. At first I thought they were falling off of the tom leaves. But then I realized they were actually hopping like 6 inches into the air. Happened after watering. When I looked that up I found a "cheese skipper"...which is a nice term for a maggot. Double-

[Jaysan]

I have a raised bed and 14-18 gallon containers. Until just Monday I had been hand watering with one of those extended wands which does work great but Monday afternoon I installed a drip irrigation kit and am using a timer and it is great!

I wanted to have the ability to water in the morning while getting ready for work to get the containers through the heat of the day. Before I didn't have time and could only water when I got home around 4. So far it is extremely convenient and does a good job at getting water spread around the container without getting the leaves wet.

This is the kit, the PRO one,

http://www.berryhilldrip.com/ANTELCO-KITS.html

and I got the one with the "shrubbler" spikes like this,

http://www.berryhilldrip.com/Shrubbl...and-Heads.html

They water in a star pattern and the size of the pattern is adjusted by simply turning the top. Really easy to install and use and at 36 bucks for the whole kit which included enough to do all my fourteen container with a lot left over.

There are some you tube vids on the "shrubbler" too.

Good luck with your quest to care for tomatoes. I understand completely.

[rflasck]

Hi Jaysan,
I just set up a similar drip system for my 18 gallon buckets. How much water do you give each bucket each day? Right now in Mid-March in Northern California, I'm starting off at about one-half (1/2) gallon a day. Does that seem about right?

[Jaysan]

I really don't know for sure how much water I was giving them. I went by time. Probably 20 minutes and then not everyday unless it was in the middle of summer.

I am in southern VA and I imagine our weather patterns are quite different than yours.

Then too it depends on the size of your plants. That time I gave was for full size plants.

They will let you know of they are not happy.