Oh My Sod!

Sadly, my wicking experiment is not going as planned. I know now that you need a well aerrated and loamy or sandy soil to wick up water from below. Definetely NOT clay.

Why I didn't think about this beforehand, I'm not exactly sure. Unfortunately, this means that this year I'm going to have to bite the bullet and water from aboveground.

I'm thinking about installing a temporary grey-water drip irrigation system. The downside to this idea is the grey-water won't get filtered as well as it would through the wicking bed. Not at all, in fact. The grey-water will potentially gum up the works. I'm thinking of adding a freshwater flush on a timer to alleiviate that problem.

So this is the extremely basic outline of a drip irrigation system. I plan on using low-flow spray attatchments that will use less water. The thick black lines are walls, the red is what I'm going to put in, the green is what I'm planning to put in a little in the future. The thin black lines are the garden that I already have in place. Please excuse this terrible paint rendition of a drip irrigation system.

The grey-water will flow from the washer into the water tank so there is no risk of backflow into the washing machine. I'm thinking I'll put a ball-cock valve in the tank and connect it to the hose spigot so there is always a set amount of water in the tank. From there, I will attatch a timer to the drip line so it is watered only during set times. I wish there was a groovier way to do the timer part, but nothing comes to mind.

If anyone has any ideas or questions please comment!