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Making a Sub-Irrigated Planter From A Plastic Barrel

A walk-through of how I converted a plastic barrel into a self watering (sub-irrigated) planter

Recently I purchased some trees (NZ, pohutukawa) which I need to plant in a large pot in order for them to be movable in the future, and kept a manageable size. This particular tree likes a free draining soil with access to a subterranean water source. I realised that it was going to be difficult to keep this tree happy in pot during a dry hot summer, so I set about finding a solution.
A sub-irrigated planter is a growing vessel in which the plant has access to a reservoir of water separated from the roots by an air gap. The soil is moistened from the separated reservoir by way of wicks which transport water into the soil. The wick can be anything from soil to manufactured hydrophillic materials such as rope which bridge the air gap.






An example of a Sub-irrigated planter showing the basic principles involved in their function. In my case the internal layout of elements is a little different from this, but will work the same.
Diagram Credit to Wikipedia; creative commons licence.




1) I procured a used food transport barrel for £10.00. The barrels volume is 150 liters, its made of  thick polypropylene and comes with a screw lid. The barrel had been used to pack Chinese ginger in so had a most pleasant smell when opened.

2) I trimmed the barrel height down by neatly removing the top threaded section, and placed this thread side up inside the barrel. The lid which is strong and stiff, was re-purposed as the separator between the reservoir and soil.  The lid can be screwed onto the threaded section inside the barrel which will help hold it in place.
I worked out the depth of reservoir I wanted (20L), then installed an overflow at this height using a 15mm brass tank connector. The water can only ever rise to this level inside before running out. I allowed a 20mm air gap between the the surface of the reservoir at maximum fill and the soil above and placed the removed barrel top section at a height that gave this separation when the lid was screwed on. I made sure it was level.

3) After experimenting with the best method of fixing the separator to the barrel inside at the right height I welded them together with polypropylene off-cuts from another barrel I had earlier destroyed. If you have any doubts or don't have a spare barrel to practice on then don't do it this way. See my earlier melt failure.

4) The separator requires two features; a method of wicking the water through it, and aeration holes so that soil can breathe into the air gap. I cut a central circular hole for a section of 110mm soil pipe to pass through, this will hold the wicking chamber, and drilled many holes in the separator for soil aeration. A further hole was cut towards the outer edge to pass a 32mm waste pipe through. This will be for the filling pipe.

5) The separator (lid) then screwed onto the welded mount (formerly the top of the barrel) inside the barrel. It is important to be able to unscrew and take this off later.
A piece of 110mm soil pipe was cut so that when inserted through the hole it rested on the barrel bottom and was proud about 15mm from the top of the separator. The bottom of the pipe section was crenelated to make sure water will easily enter the pipe when seated on the barrel bottom. Weed matting fabric was fixed across the crenelated end using cable ties. The pipe was then passed back through the separator from the underneath, and the separator then screwed back onto the mount inside the barrel.

6) A porous membrane needs to sit atop the separator to stop soil falling into the reservoir. For this a circle of weed mat was cut and perforated so that the two pipes (fill tube and wicking chamber) could pass through it and then be secured to the pipes by cable ties. The 32mm fill tube was inserted so it could be secured.
To achieve a seal at the membrane/seperator perimeter I made a hoop of 15mm poly-pipe sized to be tight against the inside of the barrel. A pipe insert was used to hold the two pipe ends together and the hoop installed pressing the membrane firm against the barrel interior. Excess weed mat was trimmed.

7) The picture below shows the completed fill tube pipe. It was fixed to the barrel with a bracket and stainless steel fixings. This is a fill and measure tube. The angled branch is used for filling, while the upright tube end has a removable top as well as a vertical section cut away to act as a view port. The cut away section length corresponds to the depth of the reservoir. A float with a lightweight rod attached can be inserted down the tube, and the rod marked to indicate the depth of water in the view port. The screw cap allows vertical access to the tube. A dipstick could also be used to ascertain reservoir height. All components are off-the-shelf plumbing parts.

8) A planted barrel with wet soil is likely to be heavy to transport so holes were cut either side to accept rope handles.

9) The method by which water is wicked from the reservoir up into the soil via the wicking chamber is obviously most critical. While many wicking materials can be used including cotton, rope, etc, the best material is one that has a combination of high capillary transport and no rotting. Microfibre cleaning cloths fit this criteria well.
I cut strips of the cloth which were doubled over and pressed into the chamber to fan out across the separator allowing maximum contact with the soil. The cloth ends were fixed in place with stainless steel screws and washers. Vermiculite was used in conjunction with the mirofibre for its hydrophillic properties and large surface area / volume ratio. I packed the wicking chamber with vermiculite so that the two materials combined would act as a column wick delivering the maximum lift and volume of water to the soil base.

10) The picture below shows two completed planters. They were placed on a level surface and filled with soil appropriate to the intended vegetation. The reservoir was filled to the overflow point. Below you can see the final result with the Pohutukawa tree growing in its new home.

Notes:


I wrote this guide to making a sub-irrigated planter because because I wanted to give something back. Many people were good enough to share their advice and expertise on this subject, without which my own project would never have been possible. Thank you all.

All pictures and text on this website remain the property of Andreas Mitchell and may not be used or modified without permission. The ideas may be freely used.

Please comment!

I am not a communist but....

Courtesy of Metafilter.com for bringing it to attention, here is a Vanity Fair article which chimes very strongly with my own thoughts on American wealth. Called "Of the 1%, for the 1%, by the 1%" (you can see where this is going) it very succinctly explores the time bomb which is the social inequality of America. It is a time bomb because what the 1% who take nearly 1/4 of the nations wealth in America have forgotten (despite ample lessons from history) is that their wealth and the stability of the society which helped create it depends on the other 99% of the population. What happens when the 99% get sick of such significant inequality?

My personal sense is that a population is happy to sublimate a host of negative aspects about their country while they feel rich in comparison to their neighbours. It is a self reinforcing tenant that you must right if you are wealthier than others. When this situation changes and you no longer feel wealthy compared to other countries (China, India, etc) you must begin to question why you are no longer king of the world, it is at this point that the 1% gets called to account.

Thank you Vanity Fair for funding comprehensive quality journalism which is well written and insightful. Thank you for making it freely available online. I also think that Harpers (see previous post) and Slate are also doing great work.

The power to get it wrong

This is an interesting little discourse (in Harpers magazine) examining the idea that people in positions of power are more likely to have errors in their world view, and therefore in the decisions that they make than a given powerless person making the same choices.
Whereas power has recourse to its own resources, the weak must draw on reason. Therefore those that govern have opinions which are just a little less sane and impartial than the powerless.


It could help explain all sorts of catastrophes of governance.  At this moment a majority of the British population are at a loss to explain why Brittan is involved in Libya. One can be sure that the people in charge of the nation know things that we do not and that these are part of the calculus of war. However, I cannot help but feel that that this is at least in part a good example of the powerful collectively talking themselves into a position influenced by the views of each other which has become abstracted from reality due to the closed nature of their intercourse and calculus inputs.


The counter argument could be made that those in power have access to a greater range resources on which to base decisions, and are usually more highly educated than those not in power. So I suspect this articles observation is a mere corner of the oft proved cliché that "power corrupts". Despite the advantages that power brings to decision making, overall the rarefied and abstracted nature of power erodes these advantages such that the quality of perception and the decisions flowing from it are not as good as they might otherwise be.

Toilets

So why is it that the coolest stuff always comes out of Japan. Here are a couple of pictures of toilets which I found really jaw dropping for quite different reasons.































 
http://www.zdnet.com/photos/japans-smart-gorgeous-toilets-photos/6195576?seq=10&tag=content;get-photo-roto

Why did the Japanese think of this first. So obvious. Wash your hands after using the toilet and use part of the resulting grey water to flush the toilet with. Genius!



http://www.zdnet.com/photos/japans-smart-gorgeous-toilets-photos/6195576?seq=5&tag=content;get-photo-roto

This toilet is over 100 years old and is from historical toilet making town Seto nr. Nagoya. It is just fantastically beautiful and graceful on its own making the WC the best room in a house. I want one very much.

The First Time

Hello readers and welcome to my blog. Before you begin lets get a couple of ground rules clear. As my words are channelled though me by a greater power and do not come from me, anything that seems like rambling is in fact not gibberish but simply too highbrow for you to comprehend. We must all accept our limitations and move on. As well, my grasp on reality is tenuous and therefore fact and fiction may be hopelessly mingled in narrative to the point where it makes no more sense than Silvio Berlusconi. Please accept my humblest apologies for this but after all, life is really just a continuous bunga bunga party :)

Good Luck