Hi all,

I am 2 weeks into flower and all seems to be going well. Im away for 4 days soon and have no one to feed my garden. I need some type of cheap but effective way to keep 13 plants in 6ltr pots happily fed whilst im away.


Im growing BIG BUD / CHEESE / WHITE RHINO in soil using bio grow and bloom.

Any help desperatly needed.

Many thanks in advance.

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some sort of dripper system will tie them over,

or just let them sit in a pool of water, not ideal for roots, but it will work fine temporary and at least they wont starve.

small upside down bottles dunked in medium little hole in cap...

I've got a big seed tray and a wire rack that sits in the tray - my pots sit on the wire rack with a gap underneath, the rack is wrapped in cappillary matting which also goes into the bottom of the tray....Give a very generous water and the overflow will sit in the tray underneath the pots and slowly be absorbed up into the pots by cappillary action over the space of a few days. I have left my plants for 7/8 days at a time this way.

Cheers for the ideas guys. I will experiment this weekend.

Thanks once again.

4 days is ok m8 ,, just water heavily on day ya go , my plants go 4 days inbetween waterings most weeks ,, if ya worried buy yaself a bag of hydroton clay pebbles and put these on top of ya soil before ya water, water heavy and off ya go, should be good for 4 or 5 days easy m8

I was thinking about setting up a micro irrigation dripp with a pump in a bucket with a timmer. Will i be ok ussing 4mm pipping with inline drippers? or will i need to use a larger supply pipe with 4mm pipes attached to link to the drippers?

I already have a pump so its just a case of getting the pipping and drippers which is quite cheap!!!

Anyone used these before?

Click to view attachment hozelock 4mm inline adjustable dripper

ive used in line drippers on my first few grows although 6mm thickness, id possibly try an upside down bottle with small hole in it,
ive seen it done on a few gorilla grows

good luck whatever you do

Finally got it sorted thanks to all your advise and some carefull consideration.

I got a cheap dripper kit for £8.oo of ebay and connected it all up to a 4ltr drinks bottle (gravity feed style). Tthis will feed all 13 plants an equal amount of the 4ltrs in-1/2 an hour roughly. The next problem i came across is that this set up is only really good for 1 days watering and i need at least 2 days of the 4 that im away. What I intend to do is set up a 8 ltr bucket with pump which will be on a timer. I will set the timer so the pump delivers enough feed (say 3 ltrs a day) from the bucket to the gravity bottle every day which should keep all 13 ladies happy.

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4ltr gravity feed bottle (bucket and pump will sit on same shelf boxed in to keep cool)

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Drippers in action

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The ladies

Cheers for al the advise

Why do you need to water twice in 4 days??
Usually i water once every 3-4days

I am watering with 3ltr every day. thats betwwen 13 7.5 ltr pots.

You shouldn't need to water everyday with 7.5 litre pots. Has the compost dried out before you water?

3 ltrs shared out between 17 plants a day , thats not right m8,, i use 7.5 ltr pots and they drink at least 2 ltrs per pot every 3 or 4 days ,, read my first reply in this thread, just water heavy day you go,, at least 2 ltrs through the pot per plant , 17 x 2 ltrs that is ,, they will be fine for 4 days

yep compost dry!

if i give 2ltrs per pot i just get loads of water comming out of the bottom of the pots.

yep you would cas your compost is bone dry and cant absorb the water , what you need to do to sort this out is water them slowly so the water doesnt just run off the top and down the sides , easier way for you would be to fill a bath about a 3 inches and put all the pots in the bath till theyve soaked the water up , then take them out and water from above till you get runoff (water coming out the holes at the bottom of ya pots)

a 7 ltr pot fully rooted will cain 2 ltrs of water easy with runoff which will be soaked back up within an 20 mins

i see your pot, i mean point. Im running upstairs to get cracking with that now.

cheers mate.

no problem m8 , as a rule in compost you wanna be following a wet /dry cycle , you water till the the whole pot is soaked then you leave for a few days till the compost drys, it tends to start shrinking from the sides of the pot if left for too long . I like to let it dry enough that the pot when lifted is as light as a feather and if im unsure i pop the plant outta the pot forra second to have a look.

oh yeah the dry bit is important as if not left to dry out a bit your roots wont get enough oxygen, at the best it means shit bud n shit yeild, at the worst it means root rot and dead plants

nice one mate, looking better already i have slowly waterd the plants and left to soak in trays to suck up any run of from the bottom. all to do now is see how much longer they last without water. hopefully a good few days. Ill let you when they dry out next.

Hi, not sure if I can say the name but there is a catalogue shop with a big catalogue and a small store who sell an item which screws onto a 2litre bottle , with a pump and tubes to feed 4pots, bout 10 quid i think??
Uses 2 batteries
In the gardening section!! on page 68 of the book I have!
Its called a BOTTLE WATERER...
hope this helps!

nice one , if youve given them enough they shoulda drank about 2 litrs each , and will soak the runoff up too they wont need watering again till wdenesday or thursday , check on them each day of course , if youve wetted them enough the pots will be heavy,, by wed/thurs they will be light again , after a while you can tell if they need watering just by the weight of the pot alone

cheers mate , just what im after as im off on my hols again shortly for 7 days so they will need watering once while im gone , last time i has someone in to water them which went well as it goes considering some of the horror stories you read about where people leave there grow in another persons charge

Yep your spot on elstonite, should have listend to you in the first place instaed of wasting money on drip kit. |(although it was cool to set up and see in action) plus i dont like the idea of all the water in a room with so much electronics.!

Anway, checked them today and at first sight i could tell they had plenty of water, the pots are heavy and they have soaked up all the run off. Im sure they are looking healthier and have grown alot more over night than usuall.

Usually by now i they would have looked dry. I concentrated so mouch so on all other aspects of the grow enviroment i totally over looked watering techniques. Glad i have it sorted thanks to all your help. I am quite comfortable about going away now so i can relax and have a good time id Amsterdam for 4 days. Me and my mates are riding there on our motorbikes, cant wait.

Thanks.

You might want to check out 'Tropf Blumat' valves.........particularly for longer periods away

just got back from my bike ride to Amsterdam....what a trip 4 days of heavy smoking takes it outta of ya.

anyway, my babies were fine and have grown about 4 inches and bushed out very nicely. The pots are just looking to dry but still have a bit of weight to them. ill wait till tomorrow and then give them another feed.

Cheers everyone.

PANIC NOW OVER!!!

glad your plants are okay bro.

must have been an interesting ride back after 4 days of blazing it upin dam. did you find any particularly nice smoke there bro?? did you try the pink kush from grey area??

blazing saddles all the way.

good luck with the rest of your grow.

I didnt go grey area this time round. Thats weird you mention it. i found that cafe about 3 years ago and allways make a point of going. we used to get some nice silver haze from there. its just the other side of dam square kind of on its own if i remember correctly. We have a company flat just opposite the GOA cafe.

the ride back was super. seemed like it only took an hour instead of 4. there was 5 of us and it got a bit racey.