Self-Irrigating Gutter Update

strawberry gutter self watering container

We’ll get back to our thoughts on responses to the Three Headed Hydra of Doom tomorrow, but for today we’re going to take a quick break for a practical post: Self-Irrigating Strawberries!

This spring I built a self-irrigating gutter (SIG) using two gutters based on a video by Larry Hall. You can see my original post about this project here. Essentially, it is a gutter filled with potting mix, sitting on top of another gutter filled with water. Every eight inches there is a 3 inch perforated pot filled with potting mix that hangs down into the water filled gutter. For mulch I used re-purposed billboard vinyl scavenged from a dumpster by my neighbor Ray.

The SIG works, but there have been a few problems. My strawberries, I believe, have a fungal disease called red stele (Phytophthora fragariae) which came either from the soil that came with the starts or from the planting mix I used. If I want to grow strawberries again I’m going to have to thoroughly disinfect the gutters.

rain barrel with timer

The SIG is hooked up to a 55 gallon rain barrel. Unfortunately the lower gutter leaked around 50 gallons of stored rainwater down into the garage below (our house is on a hill and the garage is at street level). To prevent this problem in the future I put a manual irrigation timer on the barrel so that if there is a leak, I won’t lose all the water at once.

If I were to do this project again, I’d also use a refinement that Larry Hall just posted in the video above. This improvement on the design replaces the lower gutter with a 4-inch drain pipe. The drain pipe is easier to keep water-tight. And instead of using a gutter filled with soil I might use a series of pots (an idea that’s also in the video)–gutters are too shallow for most plants.

Despite the problems, I would call the project a success. In fact, I may expand my gutter system out onto the rest of the garage roo.

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4 Comments

  1. An added plus to the video was the link to the Texas Preppers greenhouse (bottom right). I love the ease of construction and rigidity of his design.

  2. Pretty neat, the cool thing about doing it in a pipe is maybe you can make interesting shapes by bending the PVC. I guess it has to be level though right for the water?

    I’m thinking Strawberry Hentai Gazebo……doomers gotta have a place to philosophize and whatnot.

    • Get Claudio working on this pronto. And get out the respirator, I’m seeing some fiberglass work in our future.

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