

10:22 am
November 19, 2014

Good Morning to all of you! My name is Louise, I live in the sunny, hot city of Dubai. I have been trying with varying success to grow things in a minute bit of paved balcony/yard. I have grown curry leaves, my lemon plant tree grew very well for nearly a year, but a 2week vacation usually puts a spanner into the works. I have soaked the pots prior to leaving, but after about a week, the go off. I have tried leaving a key with someone to come water my babies, but they still get no love. I saw this contraption in Phuket, where the had made a little tap fixed into a 1 liter bottle of water. The tap can be opened to the desired quantity, and the plant is taken care of. Unfortunately this was in a herb and spice garden , they did not have them on sale. I did not see them anywhere else. Perhaps I will get some luck on this forum. I hope!
Hope to meet you slowly and get to be green friends.
Have fun
Louise
1:19 pm
May 1, 2010

Hi Loiuse,
Welcome to this site. Vacations and plants dont go well together when it comes to watering. There are lots of options available.
You can get some hose end timers ( from rainbird, orbit) that can regulate the water flow and also provide multiple timings.
The other option is to attach a modified bottle cap that can pierceinto the soil and a small hole is made in to the bottle to allow air flow.
If the number of days you are gone is just 1 or 2. You can add water retaining gels to your soil and that should do the trick.
let us know what worked.
geekgardener
3:03 pm
November 19, 2014

Thank you for your response. We usually go off for a couple of weeks at the most, but depending on the time of year, my plants get affected. In winter, my lemon plant and curry leaf plant get affected. In summer, if I am away too long all of them get affected.
Have spoken with the plant sellers here, they have water bottles with the caps pierced to water the plants, but, they have told me that this is only good for a couple of days. what I need is the ingenious taps that the gardeners in Thailand have created out of plastic, they fit onto the water bottles, and the tap can be adjusted, to increase/decrease water flow as needed. I have researched in other gardening sites but have not got anywhere. If i do find these taps I will be sure to post the details on this site and even procure enough to gift them to earnest gardeners. Fingers crossed.
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