Watering Bulbs

[OldManGrower]

I may be leaving home for a week. My plants will be about six weeks into the flowering stage at that time. Does anyone have any experience using "watering bulbs" for a situation such as this? A watering bulb is a glass globe with a long hollow glass tube that drips water from the bulb into the soil at a rate determined by how absorbent the soil is at that time.

[JDU]

I remember a thread about these bulbs goin on back when I 1st found this forum. I believe the general consensus & ppl's experience was that they aren't for canibus. Too little water too often.

[dphipps1020]

If I remember correctly, they mentioned something about stabbing the roots constantly too.

[JDU]

Right? The only time you wanna poke a bunch of holes is to dry out a severely over watered plant faster.

[OldManGrower]

You have to make a 3/8" hole into the growth medium to insert the tube. This is a short term solution for a gap in my watering schedule and is not to replace my hand watering. Each bulb holds about twelve ounces of water. They drip water as long as the growth medium will absorb it. I can give the plants a very thorough watering prior to inserting the bulbs. This should delay any release from the bulbs until the original water is used up. I can also use more than one bulb for each plant. My plants are short at the moment but I doubt they will exceed 30". I know it's not ideal, but it is what it is.

[dphipps1020]

The question is how many of those are you going to need? About 3-4 days in and you'll probably need a full pot's worth of water. When my 5 gallon pots are dry they take about 2/3 to one gallon. That would be like 10 of those bulbs each plant to get that one water while you're gone. Just my thoughts. I mean it could work. You may have better luck with getting a tote, water pump and some tubing. Just fill up the reservoir and set it on a timer to water a little bit for 30 minutes every day. Eventually this is the setup I want to build for my 8x8' tent so I don't have to take my plants out unnecessarily. And the tote doesn't even need to be in the tent. Hopefully anything I said helps you come up with a solution.

[golfnrl]

That's what I did dphipps1020...got me by for a two week period.

[OldManGrower]

Thank you for your insight dphipps1020. I am using 3 gallon pots and I could put as many as four bulbs per plant if necessary. I think it would work, especially if I soak them well prior to leaving town. It's only seven days. Also I was wrong. My bulbs are about 18 ounces each or over half a gallon. I believe I will give it a trial run this week. I'll post the results afterwards.

[dphipps1020]

That shouldn't be too bad then. Yeah let us know how it works out.