Watering in the greenhouse question

When it is very cold or freezing outside, water from a hose would be very cold. I am wondering what to do to make the water warmer so as not to harm my plants.

Carol

Carol,
I'd use 5 gal buckets. Fill them with water, leave them in the GH. They will heat up with the sun, giving you warm enough water to use. This also helps keep the temp in the GH up. The water absorbs then releases the heat.
Barb

We did that last year, but I just wondered if there was a better way... We had to us larger cotainers than 5 gal buckets as we have way too many plants! Dipped smaller containers into the large ones so we could carry the water.

Thanks for the input tho...

I know it's not the best thing to do, but I water my plants with the water from the hose even though it's cold. I always water them in the morning on sunny days and I figure that'll warm them back up quickly enough. I know it would be better to use warmer water, but I've never killed anything with the hose water so if you're lazy like I am that may work for you too.

We're in Zone 9A, so it doesn't get very cold here. I used the water from the hose all last winter in my makeshift GH and didn't kill anything either. I would water in the afternoon. Plan to do the same this year!

I do the same, I water with the hose. I know that it cools the plants down, but if you do it in the morning, and only water on sunny days, they have all day to warm back up.
If you want to get really better than that, you have to install another water heater.

Our water comes from a well that's almost 300 feet down and stays at a constant 72F year round. Plus, we had the hose bibs placed actually INSIDE the greenhouse so the hoses don;t lay in cooler air until the water comes out.

You might consider wrapping the length of hose that is exposed to the air outside in pipe insulation wrap, that foam stuff that you use tp protect your exposed pipes from freezing. It could keep the water warmer.

Good idea!

The pipes for my outside hose run beneath my house, so I let the water run a bit letting the colder water out. Sure enough you can feel the temp difference after about a minute or less.

If your really concerned about it, you might research portable tankless water heater. You can find them for 200.00 or less. It heats up the water instantly.

Thanks everyone for the input! I have decided it is not as big an issue as I thought. The water underground is probably ok, so I will just run what water is in the hose out before I bring it in. In my first greenhouse which was just the plastic sheeting, I watered with the hose all winter and neaver thought a thing about it. But for some reason, thinking about putting cold water on them when they are nice and warm made me worry. I am sure they will be fine... ^_^

Carol

Just another thought for you Carol. In my greenhouse I have 4 "new" trashcans. I fill them with water and use it by dipping my watercan in there. Have to fill them up everynow and then, but was pretty simple.

That is more or less what we did last year. But I really wanted something simpler than that! Especially if we want to take a trip and have to have someone else to water... WIth the amount of plants we have I really hate to ask anyone to do it. Even my kids cause they live an hour away and then it would take a long time to water and then an hour back home. I also wish I could get an automatic watering system too! LOL Maybe someday!

It's not as expensive to set up drip as you'd think. We're switching over slowly as we can figure it all out and get time, but the little timers only cost about 15$ at Menards or Home depot, and the solenoids only about $10, then the water line costs about $30 or 40 for a roll, and the drippers--we haven't had to buy any yet because a friend of mine has a barrel full of them, but I'm sure they're not too high. We've been using hanging basket waterers on everything.
We did all our mums that way this fall and next year we're doing all our hostas and perennials that way too.
We also put misters for summer inside our greenhouses using those same timers and you can set them to mist 6x a day, for 1-2 minutes at a time--so even with hand watering in there, we only had to do it once a day, even with the exhaust fans on all day and it 90 degrees. BIG improvement! Even just installing the mist by itself would help because if you run it enough (turn it on manually or change the program for one day to run each cycle longer), you can carry over your plants and "take the day off" from watering. Even in the summer!
And for the first year, our spider mites and whiteflies were very controllable, almost non-existent. What a difference.

Sandy,

It would be really nice to have a system like that, but I don't think it would work for me. Most of my plants are on shelf units that have five shelves each and even in the center DH built a high "table" and there are plants on top and underneath. I don't know how we would manage to get a dripper to each plant, And from year to year they would not be in the exact same place. If you can imagine this, we fit out plants in like a jigsaw puzzle. I don't mean they are crammed up against each other, but we put a plant where it will fit.

...

see what I mean?

Sorry, but I don't 'see what you mean'. =)

I started with this:
http://www.dripirrigation.com/drip_irrigation_info.php?products_id=1076

It's a good starter kit, IMO. it will water 100 containers, and is easily expanded. Just about everything in my greenhouse is now on the drip, save for the succulents and cactii.Some large containers on the floor aren't connected, because the pre-cut lengths of microtubing are too short. I'll simply buy a roll of microtubing next year, and cut longer lengths. For now, it's much less to hand water. =)

I didn't run plumbing from the supply to the greenhouse, because it is situated about 5-6 feet from an outdoor spigot. A short length of hose, with a quick-connector on the end, make getting water to the greenhouse quite easy. Removing and connecting the hose during the winter as needed, is literally "a snap".

Emmiters clog occasionally (I have fairly "hard" water), but they only cost pennies, so they get tossed and replaced as needed.

Looking at your setup, it would be quite easy to install an efficient, effective drip system. When the greenhouse is empty, or nearly empty, you could run the main line around the perimeter, about halfway up the wall. Put a "T" at one end of the GH, running a line up to the ceiling, and down the center of the house. It's then simply a matter of cutting microtubing to lengths that will reach all areas of the benches.

HTH,
Eggs

Eggs,

I guess I must still not understand how it works. It just seems to me that I have too many little pots and I would have to run a line to each one...

Yes, you would have to run a line to each one. It doesn't take that long, and it's really not that difficult. =)

But wouldn't thst mean there would be tubing everywhere and crossing the aisles?

You take the 1/2 inch main tubing and put that around the perimeter of the greenhouse. It looks like you've got a center island, so all you do for that is make a T connection somewhere in the 1/2 inch tubing and extend that along the floor across the aisle (duct tape it to the floor or something if you're afraid you'll trip on it). Then you connect the 1/4 inch tubing that goes to each plant off of that main line, so the only tubing going across the aisle will be that one piece of 1/2 inch.

Oh, I see! Could you run it across the top instead? After you run the tubing across, then you run it down the length of the island, and run the little tubes from it?

Ok, I get the set up I think, but I really think I have too many plants per foot of tubing to be able to run lines for each one. There wouldn't be enough room on the 1/2 in tubing to accomadate all of them.

Sure, you can run it across the top if that works better. As far as how to cover a number of plants, you've got a couple of options. One would you could put in a few more T's to get more length of half inch tubing--maybe you run a separate length of 1/2 inch tubing along each one of your shelves for example and then that length of 1/2 inch only has to supply the pots on that particular shelf. On the island, instead of running it just one way down the island you can run 2 lengths of it instead. Or you can usually string 3-4 drippers together along one piece of 1/4 inch tubing, so you could do a couple of pots together rather than an individual tube out of the main line for every single plant. You can't string a million drippers together though, I know on the system I have you're not supposed to put more than 4 on one 1/4 tubing piece. Depending on how much length of tubing you end up with, you may also need to set it up as 2 zones rather than trying to water everything at once in order to make sure you have enough water pressure. Here's a site that has a drip irrigation calculator--if you have too much length of tubing needed to cover your area then it'll tell you that and you'll know you need to divide into a couple zones. It will also give you a shopping list of what you need in terms of length of tubing, etc http://www.dripirrigation.ca/introduction.asp When you use the calculator, since you've got that center island I'd probably put in your greenhouse length as twice what it actually is since their calculator assumes the tubing is just going around the perimeter.

Plus, there are different drip emitters. Some have a single microtube coming off of them, others can have four microtubes coming off. So, it's not like you need to have a single emitter for each potted plant you have.

Good luck =)

Well, ya'll have convinced me it can be done! Now all I have to do is convince and persuade DH to do it! This will be the hard part! LOL

I have a question. How would you set up the system for Epiphyllums? They are cactus but the need more water than desert cactus.

How much water per week do you use for the cactii?

In the summer they need to be watered every couple of days. They are jungle cactus. They need to be kept slightly moist

That still didn't answer my question, "how much". You would need to know that, in order to set the timer to deliver the amount of water you desire.

Knowing the GPH of the drip emiitters you have installed, you would simply adjust the timer's setting for "when" and "how long" to run.

For a very simple example:

If you have 1GPH emitters, and you normally water each container with 1/2gal, three times a week, you could set the timer to run for 1/2 hour three times a week.

A larger container, that requires twice the water, could still be on the same timer, you would just put two lines in that container, instead of one. Each would deliver the 1/2gal, but with two lines delivering 1/2gal you get 1gal in the same amount of time.

HTH,
Eggs

I would say more like a pint of water three times a week. The pots are not to large

Again, what I gave was a 'very simple example'. You would simply adjust the time to such that you only deliver a pint of water (approximately 8 minutes, using 1GPH emitters).

Thank you