HelpfulGardener.com

Hello all!
This is my first post on this forum, and I look forward to writing/responding more in the future.

I live on the top floor of a Madrid building (6 floors) and I'm lucky enough to have a small 10m2 terrace (north facing) to work on a garden. There's only one problem... no water spigot on the terrace for watering. So every day I grab a big bucket of water from the kitchen on the other side of the apartment and a watering can and usually 1 trip is enough to attend all my plants.

But this summer, after a 4 week vacation, I found out that most improvised watering systems (soda bottles with holes in caps and the such) just don't work as well as a spigot+timer+tube system running to each pot.

So here's the puzzle - without paying a fortune to have a plumber break through walls and floors to connect to the closest water main (on the other side of the apartment), how can I set up a reliable watering system for when I'm away for long periods of time? We're open to creative/DIY projects.

(I know, a friendly neighbor or relative is the cheapest option, but we've tried that for 2 years now and over 1/2 our plants end up dead by the time we come back.)

Thank you so much for your ideas!

Paul

There are what are called wick irrigation systems on the market, but that would require you to buy all new containers for your plants and then repot everything. I have never tried them, because they always seem to cost more than I care to spend.

Since you seem to be concerned only about periods of time when you're away, I suppose you could hook a garden hose up to your kitchen faucet, which might require an adapter to match the threads. Then just run the hose through your apartment, out onto your balcony, and connect it to a drip irrigation system operated by a timer. I've heard that drip irrigation parts are quite inexpensive, but I've never bought any myself. I do know that drip irrigation systems do work with container gardens, though.