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Do you want to have/buy my mini maintenance free allotment?
MrsWCA has decided that as we are having a new balustrade around the patio I have to get rid of my self watering garden. This is fed from water butt down a pipe to a water valve that controls the flow of the water into the watering channel. The pots (buckets) sit over this water channel and use the capillary effect to suck up any water they need.
This means the plants are always getting the right amount of water meaning you can grow the plants much closer together and you don't need to bother watering them. The dense planting means few weeds the the raised buckets means few slugs / snails so almost maintenance free.
The five pots are currently planted with lettuce, tomato, gooseberry, strawberry, rhubarb. raspberry, black current and cucumber. The current set up is an 8 foot length but it would be easy to alter, shorten or extend.
I put it together for a bit of fun in April 2018 and have enjoyed 2 seasons of 'free' vegetables and fruit. Anyone want to take it for their home?
Watch this video from about 3:50 to see how it is built
I remember when you built this; I had an allotment at the time but I was still impressed at the design & results.
I don't have an allotment now and I'd bloody love that, but I live in W Yorks. Someone near you is going to get a fantastic irrigation system.
Or Come to W Yorks for a holiday! The weather's average and we only steal your car if it's a Golf R; lunatic SLKs aren't really on our radar 🙂
Feel free to borrow the design, I did. It works well for everything except root veg which stop growing down at about 2 inches. Great for round carrots and parsnips. Is really good for salad crops and other water hungry stuff such as cucumbers and melons
Bumped for the Monday lunchtime crowd
I have had a couple of people interested in the gutter garden but honestly, if you are not near Southampton to collect it then it would be cheaper to build it.
Decide what shape you want. I did a single straight row for simplicity but no reason you couldn't do a U or L shape gutter, just make sure you get the Square profile rather than the U shape.
Mine was a single 4m length (£8.50) and two end caps (2x£1.64)
You then need some wood the screw each side of the gutter for the buckets to sit on. I used something like the link below (4x£4.32)
https://www.wickes.co.uk/Wickes-Treated-Sawn-Timber---22mm-x-75mm-x-2-4m/p/9000036481
I can't find the exact float valve I used but it was something like the link below (£4.62)
5 x food grade buckets (5x£3.33)
https://www.auer-packaging.com/gb/en/Pails-round/ER-20-326DK.html?customer_type=private&gclid=Cj0KCQjwl4v4BRDaARIsAFjATPlaPDbGdCq8_-1OBbD7_MkxcLJUUSJAFzFqOeS986e6jtCy6OnA1-MaAq_bEALw_wcB
A couple of bags of compost (2x£8)
https://www.wickes.co.uk/Wickes-Multi-Purpose-Compost---120L/p/185216