Water source solutions when no creek/lake is available?

Anybody have any ideas on how to provide adequate water supply to your plants when you don't have immediate access to any water? Lugging water back and forth in jugs is just not an option for me.

Get the big garbage cans from home deopt and put them at the growsite when its raining when summer comes around put a lid on and ducktape the seal

Rainwater harvesting, or similar methods of location specific accumulation. A lot depends on the terrain of the region on what you can engineer.

Most of these systems can be well hidden since you want to reduce evaporation and all that. Tapping a local watershed area into catch basins that feed buried cistern tanks from some for of natural run-off catch basin or artificial pond would be the most practical.


Problem is getting materials to a location and all that jazz. Creating ponds that look like part of the terrain is also a little harder than it sounds if you're not just lining a natural occurrence.


Cistern creation is probably the hardest work aspect. Lots of digging (again assuming nothing natural to line/tap into) and oddly enough maintenance to ensure they are not getting their feeds plugged, sealing some off, etc. Can be done with simple cans or really complex liner approaches to create underground "bags" of water. Key thing with all of them is to avoid collapse as they dry/are used up.


Food for thought. This is usually something you'd want in place well before summer in most locations.

how many plants how far is the walk

drive said:

how many plants how far is the walk

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6 plants (I'm a medical grower that's my limit) The walk is about 200-400 yards (2-4 football field lengths)

lots of buckets, or plastic sheeting to capture rain. or get a waterboy

in the ground and lug that water in im doing it for 30 plants..

if lugging water 200-400 yrds for your plants isnt an option, your not very commited

You should of found your grow spot and get some 60 gallon water contaniers and set up a cammo tarp system thats what i did. But my water contaniers have been out for about 2 months if you didnt put any out earlier i have to say its to late now summer is like a month away

use the 5 P method. proper planning prevents piss poor preformance. If the plants are in the ground they can send down deeper roots to get their own moisture. you might try mulching the top of the pots to limit evaporation from the soil. or try a potting soil that retains water. hope this helped

there are a few methods but I do not know the terrain well enough from your description. That said water can be pump via solar pump, a small slow trickle using drip irrigation methods is one and perhaps the most expensive but i would imagine under five hundred. Bent bed methods were the technique of southwest native americans; you bed is higher on one side sloped down towards the plant (southwards as well so the soil warms earlier in the year maximizing crop potential), this helps collect morning dew and light rains maximizing the the collection towards the plant. I know this sound a bit crazy but if you dug in rain barrels near point where the water collects in rain storms you could effectively maintain a cistern system for future grows. and yes mulch heavily. Oh also this; the south american nations of old (Incas etc.) lived in poor soil barely an inch thick and yet raised crops for massive populations. they did this through excellent soil management including the addin of charcoal from the fires of the night before to the soil. Crucial in getting organic matter to cling to charcoal because charcoal clings to silica and in this trifecta true soil can be built in areas of their encampments soil has been found to be at places twenty feet thick in the amazon. In your case however it will add to water absorbency and therefore a reservoir of water in the soil. additionally there is one final method aside from muleing that stuff to where you need it. Pond liner 4 mill, cut a nice circle of it say three feet across. dig your bad ass hole three feet to four feet deep lay it in cup shaped back fill your soil. Voila' your water will be there when the roots get there and the roots will get there quickly. your drought tolerance will be ten fold. peace.