Little did I know at the time as to how acid my soil was, which is why it is now my "Limer."
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| The beginnings did not work |
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| This system worked for about a week. Note the bulge in the tank. |
From the photos you will see my earlier versions, the plastic bottle and the 44 gallon drum. Both of them could not take the build up of pressure and exploded. No, not a big bang, just a POP.
After the big drum did not last (it did last long enough for me to keep trying.) I decided to invest in something I knew would take a lot more pressure. Hence the gas bottle.
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| The outlet and junction to connect hoses to various points of the garden. |
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| The filling point. A little small. |
Now, as I said, I wanted something I could fertilize with, using organic manure but it did not work out very well due to the fact that the bits getting to the end of the pipe and the watering nozzle were too big to come out of the nozzle and blocked up very quickly.
I had found out by now how sour my soil was, so then changed my mind and decided to try putting lime through the line this way.
This worked fine but even then the finer nozzles started to block. I am using it that way to this day because it is no problem just to unscrew the nozzle, rinse it and than carry on watering. It is worst when you first start watering because the settled sediment from the last watering goes down the line. As soon as that is through the system works fine.
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| The bypass junction. |
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| Close up of the delivery junction to various parts of the garden. |
Now I have connected the pipes so that you can either bypass the system or use it. To this day I have not bypassed it. And, seeing as the only time I do not hand spray is when I pump the bath water through it means that I probably never will. (I pump all of the bath water onto the veggies and have adopted using glycerine soap to keep the system as "organic" as possible)
The "bypass" pipe also has another purpose, the idea being to only let a certain amount of water go into the cylinder, thereby cutting back the lime going into the system and garden.
The filling point is on the side where the outlet tap is. You will notice that I have the taps on different levels. The outlet higher than the inlet. This is so whatever is in the cylinder gets a chance to mix a little before reaching the outlet.
I fill the container with lime, either using a funnel (using dolomitic lime) mixed in water or poured down the funnel. It is easier in liquid form.
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| The system as I use it today. |
What are the pitfalls
1 You cannot be sure how much lime is going to the garden.
2 It will not feed granular fertilizer unless it is in fine powder or liquid form. Or the bypass valve or outlet tap is shut off slightly.
3 I made the inlet where you put the mix in a little small. This I will change in my next one.
4 I cannot feed manure with it due to the pipes clogging. I do have an idea as to how to combat the problem using a BIG container with a removable sieve that takes out the bigger bits but am not sure how to implement it.
PLEEEEEZE STAY AWAY FROM GENETICALLY MODIFIED FOODS.......................
