DB day 5

Dutch Bucket Tomatoes 5

First thing I did Saturday morning, was paint my white buckets. I did this to cut down on any algae growth as the 

white buckets were very transparent and allowed too much sunlight through. I happened to have some olive green spray paint so thats what I used.

I next ran the irrigation lines. I placed these at the back of the set up to keep them as cool and in the shade as possible.Because the lines are black, I'm pretty sure they will heat up any water flowing through them.

I hooked up the irrigation line to the pump. I installed a shut off valve just in case I need to shut the 

flow off quickly.

Installed the drip lines.

Gave the set up a "wet" run to check for leaks

Everything looked good. All the water went where

I wanted it to.

I wrapped the elbow openings that go inside the buckets with some old nylons, just to keep junk from flowing back to the reservoir tub.

Then it was time to put the rocks in.

I was going to wash all the rocks before putting them in the buckets. That lasted for one bag of pebbles.

Instead I just dumped in the rocks and ran water over them until the water running out of the drain pipe ran clear.

A little too late, I figured I should run the dirty water into the yard instead of the tub. 

Tomorrow I need to put up some support for the 

tomato vines. I ordered the Masterblend brand water soluble fertilizer from Morgan County Seeds in Missouri. As soon as it arrives I'll go tomato plant hunting and away we go!