My Super Cheap Effective Gardening Fix

When my ex and I first moved into the house where I now live, we decided that we wanted to garden. But we know ourselves and know that we wouldn't remember to water the plants on our own. (I have the brownest thumb ever,) It also does not rain where I live in the summer, and even in the winter there can go weeks without rain. So plants absolutely need watering here (unless they're wild plants that are specifically evolved for this climate). My then brother in law is a gardener, and he installed a drip irrigation system into our garden. I don't know exactly which one it is, but it's one of the Galcon drip irrigation systems.

There's a timer that connects to a splitter from our outside faucet, and the timer which is Bluetooth compatible can be set to how often you want it to water and how long each time, which is super convenient. Other than when it stops working... which is when I need to remember to change the 9 volt battery. (This seriously is the only time I ever buy 9 volt batteries.)

There is this tree right in front of the timer and next to the wall of my house, a persimmon tree if I'm not mistaken (either that or an apple pear- I have both but I don't remember which lives where), but despite planting it about 3 years ago it has not thrived. It grows leaves and then they always get gross and fall off, even much before it is time to shed leaves for the fall.

I noticed the ground around it was wet enough that moss was starting to grow, which probably was terrible for the tree, and I assumed it was because the air conditioning was dripping water from the drain pipe into that area, so we fixed that, but it didn't fix the situation. 

Then we noticed that there was a leak in the outdoor stairwell immediately to the left of the tree and it took a long time to figure out where the leak was coming from (months, since we were trying to figure out between 3 separate apartments and needed to bring in a few professionals to finally find the leak- it was from my hot water pipe leading down from my solar hot water heater) and assumed that fixing that would solve the issue. 

It didn't.

One night my son was out in the yard at around midnight (my drip irrigation system turns on then as well as 3 other times a day for 10 minutes ) and he saw that water was pouring out into the area around the tree- not dripping, but completely soaking. The drip irrigation pipe was supposed to be closed at the end but whatever was supposed to close it must have broken off, which meant that this tree was getting soaked with water 4 times a day, not just the drips it was supposed to get. I immediately turned off the drip irrigation system, hoping to get around to fixing it.

And I forgot.

Then I noticed that the passion fruit vine that we have as a living fence between us and our neighbors was drying up and looks like it is starting to die, so I made sure to fix it immediately, and not wait until I was anyhow in a gardening supply store.

I decided to check out my local hardware store, hoping they'd have something to fix the end, so it would stop leaking.

They did.

It literally is called "glasses" in our local language, because that's what it looks like.

And it is really expensive. 25 cents.

Super simple to "install." You just slide it onto the drip irrigation pipe, fold the pipe over, then stick the other end into the other side, and voila.

All fixed. 

Super easy.

Super cheap.

And now, maybe my tree will thrive, now that it isn't being soaked with water so often?

But now that I have the stopper on the system, I'm giving the garden a nice long 20 minute soak, before it goes back to the regular scheduled drip irrigation. And hopefully I'll bring my passion fruit vine back to looking as beautiful as it was before.