Grow with a Pro - November edition
18th Nov 2024
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What’s happening this month
There’s been little activity in the glasshouse this past month mainly because I’ve been away in the far north planting out large forest gardens. Apart from some sporadic watering the plants have been allowed to go wild (a look I quite like). However after 3 days away during a particularly sunny patch I almost lost all my cassia cuttings due to lack of watering.....hence my attention has turned to setting up irrigation. Before I talk about irrigation here’s a few pictures from the glasshouse.
Setting up irrigation
There are different ways to set up irrigation but generally speaking in a glasshouse situation drip irrigation at ground level is best and helps reduce the incidence of fungal disease in an environment where plant density can be high and windflow (breeze) low - both factors which promote fungal disease outbreak. Pre-punched dripline (30cm intervals) is widely available and works well. In my situation I’ve recycled unpunched dripline with individual drippers inserted. The advantage of individual drippers is you can direct water to exactly where you want it and have more control over the amount of water getting to a plants root system (you can turn the drippers up or down). Great if some plants (e.g. established pineapple) need more water than others (e.g. baby lettuces). Given the added cost of individual drippers though it’s debatable how much of a benefit versus cost this gives. If I didn’t have old line with individual drippers in the garage I would have probably bought pre-punched line.
How I run the lines
I run 3 lines per 900mm wide bed in the glasshouse as this seems to capture most if not all plants, with the water from each dripper percolating out 20cm or so in each direction. Simply peg the line down with weedmatt pins and where the 13mm line eventually exits the glasshouse (after winding back and forth around both beds) connect it to a 19mm feeder line. This 19mm line that runs between the 13mm line exiting the glasshouse and an outdoor tap is important as it reduces friction and allows more pressure where you want it most - at the drippers (note my water pressure here in semi-rural Warkworth is very low so this matters to me).
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Join me next month for more info on installing a shade cover and how it can help in summer growing, as well as more summer-related topics of greenhouse growing.