Holiday Watering System for Tomatoes

For those who are lucky enough to have a holiday of course, here is a way of making a holiday watering system for tomatoes.

Being away from home, and away from your precious plants can be a worrying time. Did I forget to turn off the heating and lock the front door? or more importantly… I hope the battery lasts in the automatic watering timer!

I spent the week leading up to last year’s holiday sorting out the automatic watering system which took a lot longer to put together than expected. Fortunately, it did work as planned and all of my plants were fine.

If you are away from home for a week or so, I can recommend the Hozelock AC1 timer because it worked well for me. The only problem is setting up the tubes, drippers and connections to it that’s tricky.

I’ve tried the expensive and cheap watering kits (the tubing, drippers and connectors) and I haven’t found much difference between the two – just make sure that the connections are secure. Dipping the ends of the tubes in hot water (from the kettle) makes it easier to connect the drippers if connections are tight.

Other options include a self watering system using capillary matting.
Place plants on a large tray covered in capillary matting and use a long piece of the matting – as a wick – place one end under the matting on the tray, the other end in a bucket of water.

As the matting on the tray dries out, water from the bucket replaces it and the pots sitting on the matting are kept watered.

A similar option is using a reservoir of water beneath a pot and the water is drawn upwards as in the Quadgrow Planter system.

Or, ask a friendly neighbour to water your plants … perhaps on the promise of tomatoes later in the season may be a possibility, or just sit the large pots in trays of water and hope to get home before the plants dry-out, that one’s probably the last resort!