Hey everyone, I have 14 plants, all in 12/12, setup in my closet, a month or so from completion. The problem is, I'm moving out of my parent's house, but Im leaving them behind. It's not a hydro setup, and I don't want to have to come home everyday to water and maintain. I was thinking about placing them in a tub and placing an air pump into each tub. I don't know if its cool to place a container with a dirt medium directly into water. If this setup is problematic, then can anyone make suggestions as to what else I could do? Thanks
If you say they are in soil not hydro I don't see what the problem is. You shouldn't be watering them every day if they are in soil anyway once a week to once evry two weeks should be sufficient for watering. If you can come home every couple of weeks and water them they will be fine. The soil should have sufficient storgae capacity to keep them fine for a while. you know when its drought conditions and it doesn't rain for weeks on end, plants go dormant not die. If your plants start to feel the need for water they will cut off the supply to leaves first and switch available water to the buds/seeds to keep the reproduction phase going. If you are still worried, try some self-watering planters that hold a reservoir of water in their base or you can go to a nursery and ask for a vacation waterer, its just a porous plastic thiny that screws onto a 2-liter soda bottle. Fill the bottle with water, turn it upside down and stick it in the soil and it will slowly meter out the solution. Try item # 32-116, Aqua Cones at www.gardners.com you can get a set of six for $12.50. Another option would be to get some drip irrigation heads at a nursery or at Home depot/lowes and hook them up to a five gallon bucket. Gravity flow the solution to the heads which would be stuck in the soil around the plants. My biggets concern about leaving them for that extended period of time would be (in order) security, electrical mishaps, lights or fans going out, timers going out. Have you worried about those items yet?
I water nearly everyday because its a small hot closet and the soil dries out VERY fast. Electrical problems, such as timers and lights have never been a problem. I'm so worried out security, nobody outside the house knows, and those that do are hip so to say. Thanks for the suggestions though, Ill try those.
I pressume your parents dont know about this.surely if u ask nicely they will water your science experiment with tomatoes. what about gell crystals,will they do the trick for this length of time?.