| Project by RusticElements | posted 92 days ago | 453 views | 0 times favorited | 7 comments |  |
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I have serious suspicions about the topsoil that I purchased for my garden, since everything is dying except for where I put some grass mulch. So I built a fertilizer tank for watering the garden with. I already had a siphon system set up to siphon water from a fish pond in the upper part of the yard (we have a fair slope to our yard) so I just put the tank beside the pond, put a short siphon hose from the pond to the tank and attached the watering hose to the bottom of the tank.
The tank is simply an old water pressure tank that I cut the top off of and removed the rubber liner. I filled an old pillow case about 1/2 full of compost and suspended it in the tank. As you can see from the second picture, the water (now a dark brown) is very well fertilized. I wouldn’t want to drink the brown water coming from the end of the hose ;).
I just set this up a couple days ago so we’ll see how much it helps the plants.
-- Michael R. Harvey
Your Online Garden - Your Support Is Greatly Appreciated - Your Gardening Showcase - 3 Ways To Help, Financially - Your Gardening Community
7 comments so far
jroot
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991 posts in 126 days
hardiness zone 5a
posted 92 days ago
A really interesting idea. The fish water makes for good fertilizer. The steeped compost makes for good fertilizer. You have two in one. You may need to dilute it, but the plants should love it. Well done.
-- jroot
MsDebbieP
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3776 posts in 496 days
hardiness zone 5b
posted 91 days ago
well isn’t that interesting!!
I’ve used water from our fishpond to water my flowers. I think they’re happy :)
Never thought of hanging compost in a tank of water though.
-- - Debbie, SW Ontario Canada (USDA Hardiness Zone: 5a)
RusticElements
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13 posts in 92 days
hardiness zone 6a
posted 91 days ago
With most fish ponds the water it’s self would make good fertilizer. Unfortunately, at least as far as fertilizing goes, I have an artesian well that feeds my pond. So it has a constant fresh water supply. When I first drilled the well/built the pond it was running at ~4 gallons/minuet. Now I think it has slowed to ~1 gallon/minuet, but still enough to keep the pond water clear. I guess I should post a couple pics of the ponds one of these days.
-- Michael R. Harvey
Bon
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1705 posts in 276 days
hardiness zone 5a
posted 91 days ago
Very interesting ideas.You will have to keep us informed as to how it turns out.
-- Bon,Hastings,Ont.....zone 5a....Always room for one more
melanger
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13 posts in 345 days
posted 85 days ago
Hey Rustic, this is sensational! has it had good results?
Ive got compost in a bucket of water doing similar a thing, only a lot more primitive. I think im going to have to do something like this, and maybe catching some unused rain water from the roof to help it along.
RusticElements
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13 posts in 92 days
hardiness zone 6a
posted 83 days ago
Great results!
-- Michael R. Harvey
roman
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625 posts in 315 days
posted 66 days ago
i read many good results about this method of organic watering/fertilizer
-- Central northish Ontario