The new irrigation system

At the end of July 2011 we added to the irrigation system to make it easier to get water up to the roof. I had been hauling the hose up there approximately every 4 days. We put a y-connector to our existing hose and put a run of hose up to a bucket with a valve. The valve is a toilet float modified by Martin for use on the roof.

Float Bucket

From this bucket we then distributed to a couple of centralized buckets from which we connected the siphon tubes to the grow buckets. We had some problems with the siphons losing their prime though and this resulted in dry buckets a couple of times when we were gone for an extended period (more than 1 week). So this year we added a permanent irrigation system instead of siphons. This should have two benefits, 1) I won't have to go up to the top as often merely to fill water buckets and check the siphons and 2) if we're away for more than a week, we can be sure that the buckets won't go dry due to siphon failure as a couple did last year.

This entailed adding thru-hulls to each grow bucket so they could be connected to irrigation hoses that connect to to float bucket which sets the overall level of the water across all buckets.

Thru-hull

Buckets connected to irrigation system

In addition, we added styrofoam under the buckets to protect the roof surface and to facilitate leveling. The buckets closer to the edge of the roof are on 2" styrofoam while those farther from the edge are on 1/2", given the slant of the roof, this works out just right.




So this is the practical plumbing stuff that I hope will lead to another year of delicious vegetables.

Thanks to Martin for his superb plumbing skills and patience ;-). And both Martin and my niece Nat who were most helpful in drilling, cutting, filling, planting and hauling buckets. You will both benefit from the end results!

Most of the planting happened last weekend (May 26th) with the exception of the San Marzano's which I started from seed and I thought I'd give them a little more time to acclimatize to full spectrum sunlight.

San Marzano (and other) Seedlings