Well plans have changed again. My dad has turned up from a sneaky 2000k travel to my place for Chrissy so unless he wants to go on a long walk I’m not sure when I will be at the patch again.
11 Likes
Well dad had an after Christmas lunch nap so I headed off on the bike.
We got a little rain 
from 
Santa!
5 new seedlings are at the patch.
The Kronocaine X Big Hero looks like she is revegging well.
But I’m unsure what the Digital Dream girls will do, on the next visit in 3 weeks if they are not vegging again I will take down the flowers so I’d better take some more seedlings just in case.
Another bunch of pictures shortly when I figure out how to batch watermark and resize the images again.
Keep smiling.
24 Likes
About time too …lol
I have been patiently waiting in the wings for your update , everything is looking great mate , any issues with the drippers getting clogged etc ?
side note …I have been scanning the old google earth for my area ,I think I may have found an old dam or soak close ( relatively speaking ) to my patch so I will sus out solar pumps etc , may need to run the line about 200 meters or so . Curious about your head pressure Pedro , I think I can put a staging res half way to reduce the work load of a small pump over such a long distance .Its a slight down hill gradient so that should help out a little I feel …any who
Merry Christmas, happy new year and all that Jazz
hope the next week is full of family and fun times for you and yours
big props to Santa for the much needed rain …def the best present he could offer up
4 Likes
I will do a post on all the pump setup soon with some specs etc but in short the pump I use is 20 bucks on eBay and I’m pretty darn impressed with it. It pumps uphill by sucking up about two metres of head from the creek and pumping uphill 3 or 4 more metres and still needs a pressure reducer at the top and feeds 37 drippers on 50m of 13mm poly pipe.
5 Likes
wow an Ebay pump !! , googling solar pumps now lol …by the sounds of it ,it will be just right for what I need
cheers mate
1 Like
This should save you some googling.
8 Likes
Thx for that and Merry Christmas!
1 Like
This visit I was most interested to get pics of some plants with the different stages of flowering.
Gorilla Glue X Crockets haze by @slain
Dragons Blood Hash Plant by @MomOnTheRun
Sour Bubble X Purple Afghan Kush
Digital Dream, I don’t think this one will reveg and I took a tester for @FredFlinstoner to have a go at when it’s dry, sorry mate to make you test weed so often 
Shiva Dream X Blues by @Sunvalley
Gorilla Glue X Crockets haze
Tutenkhamen X Gorilla Glue by @slain
Mendo Lights by @deep_rob
Gorilla Glue X Super Skunk by @slain
Shiva Blues by @Sunvalley
Girl Scout Cookies from @FredFlinstoner
Happy days
33 Likes
Thanks for the update, I don’t know if because of the rain but they all have a healthy deep green colour. You’ve brought guerilla grow one step beyond with all those techies, your plants seems to love them, great job done … 
3 Likes
This is the most interesting grow of the year. Amazing stuff. 
3 Likes
Looking real fresh Pedro! They look extremely happy in their natural home.
Merry Christmas bro!
2 Likes
Happy upside down Christmas Pedro, I hope you have a great safe and bountiful new year 
3 Likes
Hey Pedro
Yea I really feel for @FredFlinstoner, being your taste test dummy 
Looking great otherwise my friend, keep up the great work. And a very merry Xmas and new year to you a well
Cheers Johnny
4 Likes
Looking good @Pedro_Bann … gonna have some nice bud come season end. Nice work brother
2 Likes
All looking good in the bush. Love the high tech solar pumps you got going on there. May the grow gods be with you. Nice work mate
3 Likes
A post about the automated stand alone watering system because it looks like a few people and plants around the world might benefit from such things.
The system uses a 12v battery to power the pump and a small solar panel to charge the pump during the daylight hours, with a small 12v timer with the same type of setting modes as normally used in our indoor gardens the amount of water per day can be easily controlled.
I used a diaphragm pump because of their ability to pump up hill with pressure to spare to properly run drippers.
A decent bilge pump for a boat or 12v aquarium or pond fountain pump if you can find one might work but only for a system with open hose ends and no drippers and also if there is not more than a couple of metres height to the garden from the water source this is because small pumps with impellers don’t produce much pressure.
For timing I found these little beauties on eBay.
https://rover.ebay.com/rover/0/0/0?mpre=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.ebay.com.au%2Fulk%2Fitm%2F143037829081
This type is programmed just like the 240V digital ones I use in my indoor garden so it was easy to set up.
I have mine on for 20 minutes every morning which delivers 1.25litres (around a third of a gallon) through each 4 litre per hour dripper.
The battery doesn’t need to be huge, I’d recommend somewhere around the 7 amp hour mark. The ones with the spade bit connectors are easy to work with.
https://rover.ebay.com/rover/0/0/0?mpre=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.ebay.com.au%2Fulk%2Fitm%2F133219445922
It only needs to be large enough to run the pump without much charging if you have a few cloudy days in a row,
which brings us to the battery charging solar panel.
A 10watt panel should be fine and also fits in a backpack easily.
If the battery isn’t charging back to full capacity (not everyone lives in a sunny country) it would be easy to just add another panel to add enough amps back into it every day.
One problem I found with my setup is that I used a charging controller that didn’t have low voltage protection for the battery and I stuffed the timer up once which completely discharged the battery and watered the plants for the whole day.
For the controller if I done it again I would use one of these;
https://rover.ebay.com/rover/0/0/0?mpre=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.ebay.com.au%2Fulk%2Fitm%2F323855995655
These solar charge controllers shut of the power when the battery is full and also will shut of the power to the pump or other load when the battery power is down to protect the battery.
The electrical wire I used was just some old speaker wire I had in my shed for years… something like this;
https://rover.ebay.com/rover/0/0/0?mpre=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.ebay.com.au%2Fulk%2Fitm%2F264100279307
Connect to the battery, pump and timer with spade connectors
https://rover.ebay.com/rover/0/0/0?mpre=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.ebay.com.au%2Fulk%2Fitm%2F123298350228
The only 2 tools you will need for the electrical side;
A small Phillips head screwdriver to tighten the connections on the charge controller and a wire stripper and crimp tool.
The plumbing;
In the creek I have a filter inside a plastic bottle that has a cloth type shopping bag tied over it. You’ve seen the end result earlier in the season in a post up there 
somewhere.
That’s connected via a couple metres of 13mm poly pipe to the inlet of the pump.
On the outlet of the pump I have a little peice of rubber hose that connects the pump and the main poly line with a barbed connector I added a clamp to this connection because there was alot of pressure while there were not many drippers on the line.
https://rover.ebay.com/rover/0/0/0?mpre=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.ebay.com.au%2Fulk%2Fitm%2F181952988197
At the top of the creek bank there is a pressure reducer to get the pressure in range for the drippers to function properly;
https://rover.ebay.com/rover/0/0/0?mpre=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.ebay.com.au%2Fulk%2Fitm%2F332545572831
And final part of the system is the drippers
https://rover.ebay.com/rover/0/0/0?mpre=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.ebay.com.au%2Fulk%2Fitm%2F192699342532
They can be connected straight into the poly pipe or onto 4mm hose with barbed connectors but either way this little tool will make installation easy.
Nope the final part would be to not forget an end plug for the poly.
Have a fantastic holiday leading to the new year.
33 Likes
Haha it’s a tough job but more than willing to put my hand up and when he grows such things as Herijuana it becomes an easy task lol, I think at one stage I had over 6 little sample bags to get through but he has his mojo back now and is producing A+ grade flower and am extremely excited about his outdoor grow, this time he is going to make it to harvest for sure.
8 Likes
Fantastic writeup @Pedro_Bann, thanks. 
7 Likes
Wow, that is great. Thanks for so much detail. I need to do some things around my yard in the summer that this would be perfect for. peace
4 Likes
Agree with @ReikoX great write up with a parts list to boot. Awesome stuff @Pedro_Bann
3 Likes