Lately I've been thinking about the greenhouse and how I'm gonna water it. Right now I've got water to the greenhouse but thats about it. I'd like to get it set up so I can turn a valve open and the entire greenhouse will get watered. Of course the working capital budget is strained so inexpensive but effective is the order of the day.

I've seen these plastic watering spray nozzles that "plug" into black poly pipe. It seems like this would be a cheap way to go since they're just little plastic doobers. You must have to drill a hole in the poly pipe and push this nozzle thing into the hole. Does anyone know about these things? How wide is the spray pattern? Are these misting nozzles or actual spray nozzles? Where can I learn more about them?

-- john (natlivent@pcpros.net), March 19, 2002

Answers

Hi John, Here is how I did mine. Plastic twirling sprinklers from wally world $1.97- 50 foot of 1/2 inch water hose $4.49 2 -1 1/2 inch wood screws. Screwed the sprinkler upside down to the peak beam in the greenhouse-ran the hose down the wall and outside to the faucet,turn it on instant rain. You can add more sprinklers with a Y but one covers my 20 foot greenhouse. Hard to get it cheaper than that. I've had it hooked up about a year,still works like a charm. Daryll

-- Daryll in NW FLA (twincrk@hotmail.com), March 20, 2002.

John, the plan that I'm considering is based on not necessarily having the water pump running all the time, so what the plan is is to have a water tank, 45gallon drum? or two? and have hoses fill them when I turn the pump on. From the bottom of each drum comes a perferated garden hose that goes into the garden beds. Gravity does the work after the pump is off. As for your plastic nozzle doobers, I recall reading a bit about watering systems on Mike McGroarty's site www.freeplants.com. I don't think that he gives spacifics on his watering system design without paying for the info, but there is plenty of great free information on his site, and the info that I have purchased from him has been worth the money. Take a look there, and ask the question on his message board. Mike uses, and highly recommends intermittant mist systems to induce cuttings to root. Somebody there is bound to be a thrifty, and resourceful type, they're all garden nuts, and many of them love to help a guy out.

-- roberto pokachinni (pokachinni@yahoo.com), March 20, 2002.

When I built the pvc frame greenhouse featured in the Sept/Oct 2001 Countryside, I fit the pvc with the nozzles like are used in produce counters. Perhaps you could add a few pvc ribs to the structure you have as watering points.

-- Jay Blair in N. AL (jayblair678@yahoo.com), March 20, 2002.

I’ve looked at putting in a system and have more questions than answers. I read that with the small tubing systems you have to be more careful about the purity of your water source, doesn’t take much crud/deposit(s) to clog everything up, so a good filtering system is very important. DripWorks, www.dripworksusa.com has a nice selection of everything you might need and offer a free ½ hr. of design time/service in their 2002 catalog, has anybody use this service? Along this same line, if you put in an overhead system, how hard will it be to clean out the system and not get your flushing/cleaning solution all over your plants shelves, etc. and what type of heating system(s) are compatible with an overhead sprinkler system.

-- BC (desertdweller44@yahoo.com), March 20, 2002.

The hole is put in with a punch you purchase for the system. The emitters then are pressed into the hole. Or you can purchase the little devices to press in and use smaller tubing to the emitter.

The emitters are rated by the amount of water (gallons per hr) they put out...kinda a drip system..however; you can get some that really put out the water.

It is a good system which can be put on a timer automate the system. You can also get spray nozzles and misters for the system. Get a brochure from your local dealer....it will list all the parts..I don't recall the mfg off hand.

-- mg (mg@juno.com), March 20, 2002.

I'm not sure if you are raising plants for resale or just for planting but when we had our greenhouse business we sold potted plants on the retail market and we used those individual waterers that are punched into the main water line every so many inches and then each one sits in a different pot. The control at the end that sits in each pot allows you to control how much water each plant gets so you can water different pots at different rates. It was a very inexpensive system to install. Hubby did ours himself. We didn't have it on a timer because we were there all the time but it could have been on one. It was much better to use this system than to use a hand watering system. I highly recommend it.

-- Colleen (pyramidgreatdanes@erols.com), March 20, 2002.

I like your idea alot Darryl but my water supply, especially in the winter time is iffy, so I'm concerned about waste. My greenhouse is 11' x 52' with a 3' aisle so there'd be alot of water running down the walls and in the walk aisle.

This summer I hope to ad on another 6 1/2' to the width which would make it 52' x 17 1/2'. The greenhouse is about 200' from the house where the water comes from so I've got a 200' piece of 3/4" polypipe running underground. In the summer its ok but, although I haven't used it yet in the winter, freeze-up is a concern. In the winter I'll fill the 1500 gallon storage tank from the pipe that runs from the house. Then I'll have to drain the pipe each time I use it in the winter. I've got that figured out. It should just siphon out because the greenhouse is uphill from the house and drain by itself.

There's a 1500 gallon bulk milk tank in the greenhouse. The plan is to keep it from freezing with a 6, 3x8', panel array of solar hot water panels. The idea is to fill the tank, keep it from freezing, and use that as the water supply. Hopefully when conditions are right I'll even generate a small surplus of heat to use as space heating. All I need to do is keep it above freezing. In the summer the water in the tank will be supplemented with rain water.

I understand the individual lines going to the plants would be the most water conservative but it seems like alot of dinking around whenever you change something out in the greenhouse. I don't have any solid, specific plans as to what I'm gonna do with the greenhouse other than some vague notion that I'd like to do bedding plants in the spring and maybe organic produce in the winter. The objective is to make this a year round operation and I want to keep things as flexible as possible. I was thinking more like setting up the misters/sprayers in a row, over the rows of plants. Probably would need two tiers, one for the plants on the table and the other for the plants below the tables.

I think it was al who mentioned exactly what I'm talking about here. Can you tell me more about these things al? Where to get them? Where to find more info on them?

-- john (natlivent@pcpros.net), March 21, 2002.