A simple drip irrigation system

Almost all of us have been in the situation before – you need to get out the house for a few days; be it for a holiday, work or anything else and you’re in need of a house sitter. If you have good friends it’s usually quite easy to find someone willing (or well paid enough) to feed your animals, water your plants and ensure that your home stays safe.

Unfortunately, it can be difficult to find a friend willing enough to spend a few days housesitting and it can be risky to allow strangers to housesit, especially when you have to rely on them to not only look after your animals but also water the plants. Even if a friend or stranger happens to remember to water your babies there is also the added risk of over – or under-watering.

A proven way of avoiding the house sitter and your own lazy ass of remembering to water the plants is the Tropf-Blumat, also known as the Blumat Carrot. This nifty irrigation system keeps your plants neither over-watered nor under-watered by providing the exact amount of water needed to maintain the ideal saturation level in the soil.

The trick lies in the microporous structure of the Blumat carrot which has microscopic pores that we all got red faces from just trying to blow air through and that’s when its dry! You might be confused as to what this all means but when you read how this thing works as described below it might just start to make sense.  

Each carrot is filled with water and submerged for 15 minutes to allow the porous ceramic part to become fully soaked with water. It’s really important to ensure that the top is closed while it is still underwater so that there’s no air whatsoever in the carrot! The saturated carrot can then be placed in the soil and because the microporous structure of the ceramic sensor is soaked in water, no air can possibly escape and that’s why the high-pressure in the carrot keeps the valve closed. A closed valve means that the water cannot drip by the trunk of your plants.

Over time, the soil dries from your plants slurping up that sweet hydration and this causes the water from your soaked Blumat carrot to dissipate into the soil. Both these mechanisms happen through osmosis – damn, I knew high-school science would come in handy! Like you remembered, the water will only dissipate from the carrot to the soil if the soil is drier than the carrot and will stop as soon as the soil and carrot’s water contents are balanced.

As the water leaves the carrot, the micro pores become free of water allowing a tiny amount of air in the soil to enter into the airtight middle of the carrot. As air enters and water leaves, the pressure decreases, albeit only small, but still enough to open the valve and allowing that sweet hydration to drop at the base of the trunk once again. The water will continue to drip until the soil and therefore carrot becomes soaked with water again. As more water travels from the wet soil to dry carrot, making it more difficult for the air to escape through the micro pores, the pressure will build-up until the valve is closed once again.

So once you have set-up this practical, fun irrigation system you can relax and let your carrot drip away, hydrating your plants. All under the guise of osmosis and micro pores.