Kerry’s Garden

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PDIU – Drip Irrigation on the Cheap

May 18th, 2007 · 3 Comments

Using a bucket with a small hole for irrigation or fertilizer application

I would love to have the entire yard and garden set up on drip irrigation. It would save water, energy and time but unfortunately I can’t afford the initial cost. I have about 200′ of hose that reaches almost anywhere in the yard that I want to go. For the few plants that I can’t easily get to by hose I use the ‘Portable Drip Irrigation Unit’ (PDIU) also known as or bucket with a hole in it. This PDIU stores easily, is very portable and doubles as a harvest container. An especially thrifty gardener can often find PDIUs free via local restaurants. In the case of larger planting multiple PDIUs can be used at once. It comes complete with adjustable flow control (The 1/8″ diameter hole can be partially blocked with a small stick or pieces of string to slow down the flow) and liquid fertilizer can be added to water and fertilize at the same time. Rush out and buy make your own PDIU today!

Tags: Conservation · Projects

3 responses so far ↓

  • 1 Marc @ GardenDesk // May 18, 2007 at 3:18 pm

    That is great! I have been doing that with milk jugs, but I never thought of increasing the scale. Great idea.

  • 2 Sherwood Botsford // Aug 10, 2007 at 9:05 am

    I found that if I make the hole small enough to be a dripper, then a chunk of leaf, fly wing, or just dirt will plug it. So I drill a 3/8″ hole and stuff a chunk of sponge in it. For smaller plants I use the big cans from restaurants.

  • 3 kenny smith // Mar 11, 2010 at 6:17 am

    It is a useful information about drip irrigation. I am a farmer and we have very large fields, before drip
    irrigation system was found it was a nightmare to irrigate all those fields because where i live is a place
    that does not rain so much. Now we use drip irrigation, saving so many water and it is a lot easier to irrigate
    the field with that. I am trying to read everything about drip irrigation and i recommend every farmer to use that
    technique, so i am grateful for everyone who gives information about it. I also found a very good guide about drip
    irrigation and it may be useful too for those who want to learn more information about that;

    http://agricultureguide.org/

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