2012-10-23 - Day 37
2012-10-31 Gutter Waterer Tour
Video Of Watering System
This page and my particular gutter garden is a product of MouseWorks, a wholly owned subsidiary of Windhaven Group, LLC. Owned and operated and managed. Mostly.
The content of this page belongs to Windhaven Group, LLC. You are welcome to build your own gutter garden and may I suggest that you go take a look at Larry Hall's Gutter Garden youtube video. Much better than anything I could make:
Earlier this year, for the first time, I built some self-watering buckets - really nice system, but in this Texas heat I still had to go out and water twice a day. Not deluxe. If you're interested in them there's a nice little video put together by a couple of kids that are trying to save the world, one small 'bucket garden' at a time:
I wanted something a little more self-maintaining and when I ran across Larry Hall's clever idea of using a gutter and a float valve attached to a hose, I had to try it. (See above link)
I've departed from some of his methods, for example, I use a different mix: 1/4 perlite, 1/4 potting soil, 1/2 peat moss, 1 cup of garden lime is mixed into the first 10" of each bucket.
I put 1 cup of 10-10-10 granular (slow release) fertilizer around the top of the bucket once it nearly full and is planted. Then I heap up soil to a nice mound shape. Cut an X into a white plastic bag and secure it with custom made bungee cords (bungee by the yard from West Marine, plus a bag of small bungee's for about $6, with stainless hooks - replaced the short bungee with custom size and voila!) Zip ties would work as well. The bungee's should last for years, though.
I also used a slightly larger net cup - 4" - not necessary, the plants get plenty of water from this system. He uses the 3", I believe and I m convinced it would work just as well.
So, here are the pictures of my first effort.
All of that yellow in the pictures, by the way, are blossoms. I have never seen so many blossoms on a tomato plant! The Sweet 100 should be Sweet 10,000!
Oh, here are the varieties left to right:
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| 2012-10-23 - Day 37 |
2012-10-31 Gutter Waterer Tour |
Video Of Watering System |
 2012-09-19 - Day 3 3254 KB |
 2012-09-22 - Day 6 3031 KB |
 2012-09-29 - Day 13 2943 KB |
 2012-10-06 - Day 20 2998 KB |
 2012-10-11 - Day 25 2457 KB |
 2012-10-18 - Day 32 3421 KB |
 2012-10-20 - Day 34 3151 KB |
 2012-10-24 - Day 38 3003 KB |
 2012-10-25 - Day 39 3285 KB |
 2012-10-31 - Day 45 3363 KB |
 2012-11-03 0010 3536 KB |
 Roots In Gutter 1672 KB |
 Water Barrel 2755 KB |
 Wilt After Hydrated Lime Application 2866 KB |