April 26th, 2009
Danny and Peter from
DripTech installed a gravity-powered irrigation system at Hamm last week. All told it cost about $225 including the barrel and materials, but it'll greatly improve our water efficiency once we have crops over on that side. They actually do most of their work in developing countries with small farmers, but I thought it was a great, simple solution to our water needs as well.
I'm planning on spray painting the barrel green to make it less conspicious, but I'll leve at least one strip clear so we can easily measure the water level. There's a spigott near the barrell that allows us to manually turn the system on and off. Right now we fill it using the hose, but ideally we'll have a rainwater cachment system someday to keep our water usage down.
