Anyone plantlink/other garden soil water system?

[IVB]

Just planted an all new garden. Not huge, maybe 12 square feet. But this time i'd like to get more than a 20% success rate, which is directly tied to my over/underwatering.
 
I ordered a PlantLink to try it out, reviews seem highly divergent but very few numbers. Anyone try anything like this?

 

[wkearney99]

My best success with watering for gardens came from using drip irrigation and an assortment of dispensing attachments.  
 
The Mr. Drip line of emitters had something for just about any kind of watering need.  Lowes carried a fair selection of their products at one local store (not all).  One of their starter kits got me going, and I added more accessories from the factory website and eBay.  
 
With it you run a 1/2" flexible poly line around the garden and then stab into it for the 1/4" hose to the emitters.  In-line with each emitter you put a small 1/4" shut-off valve.  This way you can tweak each emitter to just the right amount of flow.   Some emitters were down near the roots, others I had on riser stakes to provide a micro-spray.   
 
I coupled the drip lines with an Orbit multi-zone timer.  One zone handled the garden, two for the grass, a fourth for the shrubs.  This way I could use the full flow rate on each area.  Otherwise trying to water them all together resulted in too low of a flow rate to handle doing the grass.
 
I'd think something like that combined with a sensor for the plants known to be moisture sensitive would be a good combination.

 

[IVB]

Thx. So much more to learn here than I even dreamt of. 

 

[mikefamig]

I began using plastic mulch about ten years ago and it makes a huge difference in soil moisture by holding the moisture in the soil during dry periods.
 
I bought a length of soaker hose and some plastic "T" shaped hose fittings and ran it down the aisles in the 20' square garden. I cut a 20' length of hose to run the length of the garden along one edge and then installed "T" fittings to make 20' lengths at 90degree angles so that one runs down each row of plants.
 
The hose is laid down first and then a sheet of black plastic covering it. After the first rain I punch holes where the puddles form letting the rain water get under the cover.
 
Now I give the garden a  good soaking and it literally lasts weeks between waterings. Not only is it less maintenance but it keeps soil moisture more even over time which is good for the plants.
 
Mike.

 

[mikefamig]

Another benefit of using the plastic mulch and watering from the bottom is that it keeps the soil moist and the top of the plant dry. Watering from the top with a sprinkler promotes fungus and bacteria and other bad things to grow.
 
Mike.

 

[bbruck]

Not sure how relevant this is to you, but here's a review I posted in Facebook:
 
I got a new irrigation controller from Spruce that includes moisture sensors that are put in the lawn.
It really is the next generation in irrigation. In April/May, my system has not watered for the last four weeks. Why? Every morning, I see an email saying that either we had rain yesterday, we had an inch of rain over the last week, or that rain is expected today. This is 1000% percent smarter than my old Hunter controller, and even my somewhat newer Irrigation Caddy home automation sprinkler system, because with Spruce, it looks at the current moisture with the sensors, but/and also looks at historical data and weather forecasts. This will save me a ton of money, AND ensure that the shrubs, flowers, and lawn get the right amount of water. Thanks Spruce! Check it out at www.spruceirrigation.com

 

[IVB]

That sounds cool. I put in a bunch of PlantLink, will record video walk through tomorrow. I agree, although plant link is manual as watering is different per plant.

 

[IVB]

FYI, recorded a walkthrough video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S6AxzVuQKEM 
 
EDIT: FIXED BROKEN LINK ABOVE

 

[BobS0327]

FYI, recorded a walkthrough video here: https://youtu.be/S6AxzVuQKEM 

I get a 404 Not Found error message when I try to view your video.

 

 

[wkearney99]

This one?  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S6AxzVuQKEM
 
STFW for "IVB plantlink" works wonders....  heh.
 
Seeing videos of folks, hearing and seeing them after reading only text posts is entertaining.  I can recall decades ago when a distributor came to town and came by to meet me.  When he got to the office his comment in the lobby was "I had no idea you were so tall."  I'm 6'3".  My response was "I had no idea you were Chinese."  Apparently I didn't "sound tall" on the phone, nor did his LA-area upbringing carry along any asian-influenced accent.  It was quite funny at the time.  Now I'm sure somebody would get offended, of course.

 

[IVB]

eeing videos of folks, hearing and seeing them after reading only text posts is entertaining.  I can recall decades ago when a distributor came to town and came by to meet me.  When he got to the office his comment in the lobby was "I had no idea you were so tall."  I'm 6'3".  My response was "I had no idea you were Chinese."  Apparently I didn't "sound tall" on the phone, nor did his LA-area upbringing carry along any asian-influenced accent.  It was quite funny at the time.  Now I'm sure somebody would get offended, of course.

 
When I first moved out to california (in '96), the nurse at the dr office I chose refused to believe I was indian when I gave her my name. She *insisted* on being the one to do the height/weight thing as not only did I not have an accent, I was 6'2". (and at the time, 210 all muscle. um, not so much anymore).  She had never heard an indian person with no accent, and at the time my NY accent was still present.
 
Sadly no hot nurse stories, she was in her 50s with gray hair...

 

[IVB]

btw on the OP, this has really demonstrated how widely divergent plants are in their water requirements. And as proof, they're all flourishing. Except the stupid carrot seeds, I think i planted them too deep.

 

[NeverDie]

I began using plastic mulch about ten years ago and it makes a huge difference in soil moisture by holding the moisture in the soil during dry periods.
 
I bought a length of soaker hose and some plastic "T" shaped hose fittings and ran it down the aisles in the 20' square garden. I cut a 20' length of hose to run the length of the garden along one edge and then installed "T" fittings to make 20' lengths at 90degree angles so that one runs down each row of plants.
 
The hose is laid down first and then a sheet of black plastic covering it. After the first rain I punch holes where the puddles form letting the rain water get under the cover.
 
Now I give the garden a  good soaking and it literally lasts weeks between waterings. Not only is it less maintenance but it keeps soil moisture more even over time which is good for the plants.
 
Mike.

Interesting!  Is "plastic mulch" just another name for ordinary plastic sheeting, or does it have some other properties associated with it?  

 

[NeverDie]

Not sure how relevant this is to you, but here's a review I posted in Facebook:
 
I got a new irrigation controller from Spruce that includes moisture sensors that are put in the lawn.
It really is the next generation in irrigation. In April/May, my system has not watered for the last four weeks. Why? Every morning, I see an email saying that either we had rain yesterday, we had an inch of rain over the last week, or that rain is expected today. This is 1000% percent smarter than my old Hunter controller, and even my somewhat newer Irrigation Caddy home automation sprinkler system, because with Spruce, it looks at the current moisture with the sensors, but/and also looks at historical data and weather forecasts. This will save me a ton of money, AND ensure that the shrubs, flowers, and lawn get the right amount of water. Thanks Spruce! Check it out at www.spruceirrigation.com

Glad it's working out for you.  What kind of soil moisture sensors are they?  i.e. do they work by conductance, capacitance, TDR, or something else?  I've a couple years experience with the conductance type, but they are always going out of calibration: first because of fertilizers entering the soil changes the conductance, and then second as the plant roots consume those nutrients.  I get the impression most people are unaware.   Unfortunately, calibrations are laborious to do, so I need to find a better type of sensor to switch to that won't be affected by anything but just soil moisture alone.

 

[mikefamig]

Interesting!  Is "plastic mulch" just another name for ordinary plastic sheeting, or does it have some other properties associated with it?  

 
It's black plastic sheeting but the stuff I got is not that ordinary. I shopped online and found a farm supply place that had a 1000' roll 6' wide for about a hundred bucks so I bought a lifetime supply of it for my 20' square garden. It may have even been a 2000' roll, I don't remember exactly. It's a nicer material than you get in the local hardware store in that it is thin and light but hard to tear. It stretches and comforms to the earth when it gets hot in the sun too.
 
I think that it may have been from Robert Marvel
 
http://www.robertmarvel.com/ContactUs.html
 
Mike.