Fertigation! Fertilize while you water.

what a great idea. I’ll have to show this to DH. Thanks for posting this project :-)

-- Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ Gone Tropical Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ

You are quite a clever tinkerer, Harold. It looks very interesting. Now I am off to find out what a “soil wetting agent” is and how it works….

-- "To forget how to dig the earth and to tend the soil is to forget ourselves." M. Gandhi

soap, i am guessing?

-- Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ Gone Tropical Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ

Gone Tropical is right. Soil Wetting Agent is soap. And while I’m not a chemist, I do remember from my days as an industrial sales rep tht our soil wetting agent was “non ionic.” I beleive that means that it has a nuetral charge, (or no charge). What that has to do with the tea in china is beyond me – but it helped me sell the stuff! I little goes a long way – 1 oz to a gal.

-- Pam grows 'em - I cook 'em...... Melbourne, Fl

since we have city water and not our own well, can that be rigged up to the faucet where my hose is connected?

-- Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ Gone Tropical Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ

I”m not sure. There needs to be a lot of suction to pull the liquid. I actually had to increase the suction lines from 3/4 inch to 1 inch or 1 1/4 inch (don’t remember) in order to get this to work.

-- Pam grows 'em - I cook 'em...... Melbourne, Fl

thanks. I run it by hubby to see what he thinks… :-)

-- Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ Gone Tropical Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ

That’s quite the setup Harold.Great idea for your area.

-- Bon,Hastings,Ont.....zone 5a....Always room for one more

Extremely clever – love it.

-- There's a box?

very nice,,so a “soil wetting agent” is some form of “SOAP”? what kinda soap? My lawn needs this, we have really hard ground and lots of clay

-- Dan Hux,,,,Raleigh, NC http://danhux.com

not some form of soap – but soap. Soap is soap. Soap is a surfactant. For use on plants, if I needed a so called “soil wetting agent” (fancy name so they can charge you more), I would use as pure a liquid soap as possible. The natural plant based soap I use for my dishes claims to be a non-ionic surfactant.

By plant based, all this means is that the oil used to make the soap comes from plants instead of animal fat, the lye used to make liquid soap could come from wood ashes which produces potassium hydroxide which makes a liquid soap.

Having said all this I have no idea what a soil wetting agent is. If you want your soils to retain more moisture, add compost!

-- Disobedience is the true foundation of liberty. The obedient must be slaves. - Thoreau

Hello. Newbie here. Sorry about the late post.

Thinking about the pressure question by Gone_Tropical, you may want to try restricting the pipes at your feed point. We use that theory in the fire service when adding foam to a water line, the restriction helps siphon the foam. The Venturi Effect should work to increase the pressure simply by reducing the pipe to increase speed of flow, therefore increasing the pressure once returning to the original size.

So if you have a 1 1/2 inch line, dropping to a 3/4 inch section, then reopening to original 1 1/2 inch and placing the fertilizer line there, it should help. Here is a pic to help explain. While this one shows air flow, it works the same way, but this one shows placement of the vacuum line (fertilizer line).
http://www.targetcoatings.com/forum/userpix/1156_venturidiagram_2.gif

‘Course, the key might be in finding pipe that could taper it down instead of sudden size change.

Another option might be to use a gravity feed to supply the fertilizer. That way it might “drip” into the line instead.

-- Thomas, Coastal Georgia 8b