If it wasn’t for drip irrigation, there wouldn’t be a “porch gardener.”

Let me explain.

Gardening is a progressive activity, not in the left-wing sense or anything silly like that, of course. Gardening is essentially for everyone, even in the UK, where it is considered a national “sport” no matter your political affiliation, although the climate change apologists have been trying to ruin it for years.

What I mean is you start slowly, one plant at a time, but then this fever starts to intensify until it takes you over completely.

I should know. It happened to me.

The love of gardens is strong, overwhelming, almost like your love of pets, although not so explicitly encouraged by social media. The problem is that, with time, it starts to interfere with your freedom of movement, and unlike with your pets, you cannot take your garden to a hotel or a facility when you need to leave town for a week.

So, when I planned to go to D.C. to visit my son on the Fourth of July, I didn’t know what to do. It was summer, and summers are hot in South Carolina. My porch garden was recent, a decision I explained as “improving my quality of life” on the rare occasions I had the time to actually sit on the porch for a couple of hours. Next, I unpretentiously moved some pots around and added some heat-resistant plants, all arranged in a mini-garden next to the couch.

I certainly didn’t want the plants to die under the scorching sun, but I didn’t want to give up traveling either, so I came to the solution of implementing a drip irrigation system.

The faucet was far from the garden spot, so I opted for an “autonomous configuration” using a water reservoir with enough volume for five days, that is, a simple 15-gallon plastic bucket I already had.

My first attempt included an electric pump, and it was soon obvious that this wasn’t going to work, as the circuit-breaker started to trip repeatedly.

I called an electrician, and he told me the possible cause was that the fuse “interpreted” the water in the bucket as a “leak,” causing it to trip — whatever. Then I decided to go solar, returned the first system to Amazon, ordered a new one, etc., all this pressured by the trip’s date coming incredibly fast.

The solar-powered system was completely independent and worked beautifully, despite the scheduling limitations, so I was satisfied. I was a little worried that the water in the bucket wouldn’t be enough, but the prospect of spending a few days with my son in D.C. was a decisive factor, so I packed, boarded the plane and relaxed.

On the flight back, I started to prepare myself psychologically to see some “scorched earth,” but, to my utmost surprise, the exact opposite happened…

The plants had not only survived; they were absolutely thriving. The coneflowers had doubled in size and were now a daily “restaurant for butterflies”; the recently purchased hydrangeas, which proved themselves to be absolute water-drainers, had several new flowers. Everything else was equally healthy and successful. I would never have imagined this would happen, and I ended up with the idea of starting this Substack.

This was roughly a month ago.

Remember I told you at the beginning of this post that gardening was a progressive addiction?

Indeed.

The porch garden was kind of a hobby for me. My real job was the 2,000 square-feet yard facing the street, not to mention the wildflower “meadow” on the left side of the house… so I immediately moved on to put my money where my mouth was…

I went straight to Amazon and started researching, but I didn’t have the guts to go directly to the bigger, more sophisticated system that offered 230 feet of drip irrigation system for large gardens, so I started small.

Well, as a matter of fact, too small.

I forgot to say that before the trip to D.C. I had also established a different system for a flower bed I keep next to the mailbox, with a timer, a regular 100-ft hose and a plastic sprinkler. But upon coming back to such a successful drip irrigation experience I decided to ditch the sprinkler completely, not to mention that it made a wide wet mess every time it turned on… So I began by replacing that sprinkler with a drip system.

That was the easy part!

The rest of the garden was a different story, and I’ll make it short because I get tired just from recounting it. The modest system didn’t work. Even considering that I bought two sets, when everything was said and done, the water was not reaching everywhere it needed to go. I ended up not with one, but with two large systems, inverting the engineering of the flow and other customized settings.

I’m not done yet, currently waiting for the second large set to be delivered so that I can complete the installation. And I’m not even mentioning that I decided to replace the autonomous porch system with a timer-controlled one directly from the faucet.

It’s never-ending, folks.

To be continued!

Recommended products

Autonomous system:

JYIANG Store, Solar Automatic Drip Irrigation Kit System, JIYANG Solar Powered Auto Easy DIY Watering Device Supported Pots Plants, 6 Timing Modes with Anti-Siphoning Device (Supported 10 Pots, 6 Timing Modes)

Water main/timer system:

SMIDOLE, 230-ft Drip Irrigation System Kit, Quick Connect Garden Watering System, Complete Automatic Drip Irrigation Kit with 1/2” & 1/4” Tubing, Adjustable Emitters for Garden, Raised Beds & Greenhouse. Note: Some sources recommend a 25PSI water pressure reducer if the water pressure is high. I have one system with and another without the reducer, also available from Amazon.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0B8DLV7QV

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0GLMSKK7J

Double timer:

Grillum, Sprinkler Timer with Brass Swivel, Hose Timers for Watering | Digital Irrigation Timer with Rain Delay & Manual Mode, Automatic Watering System for Outdoor Garden Lawn Yard, 2 Outlets.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0GPWDCT9M

Today, for the first time in 2022, I sat on my “observation bench” in the wildflower garden.

A wildflower garden works like this:

• Buy the seeds, and keep them in the refrigerator if it’s too early

• Clear the land

• Till the soil

• And, finally, sow your seeds in February

Then in May, in the spring, voilà! The plants begin to sprout.

My garden, which I like to call a “meadow” — my husband Alan doesn’t like it, he says it’s pretentious — is quite large for a home garden. It must be around 900 square feet.

Over the years (2022 is my second) the plants pile up — the returning ones (perennials) combined with the new ones (annuals) — in a spectacle of nature as exciting as it is unexpected.

At the point we are at now, you can no longer interfere. We can only resign ourselves to the result, relax and enjoy, take notes, and learn a few more tips for the upcoming year!

Throughout the season (spring, summer, and autumn) new plants are born and the colors change.

It was so pretty today that I felt like sharing it with you.

The video is amateurish, of course. It’s a bit cloudy today, and the sun came out somehow at the end of the footage.

Pay attention to the birds singing!

A quick update: My affirmation that “you can no longer interfere” was absolutely false. We are now on the 6th year and still struggling, sowing, updating, trying to control unwanted guests and uncontrolled growth left and right. It is in fact a noble, exciting and endless journey into the mysteries of nature!

The video is also old, not part of my recently created “breed” of The Porch Gardener’s videos (despite the logo that was added much later), therefore a raw, unsophisticated footage.

Enjoy!

It all started with a field of poppies that never came to be.

It was February 2020, during the dreadful “15-day” COVID lockdown. I had no work. I had no hope.

I also had an empty 30’ x 30’ area on the side of my house. The land was bare, as it hadn’t yet recovered from construction, so I decided to create a “field of poppies.”

My experience with gardening was limited. As an architect, I more or less knew how to plan and organize the space, but I knew nothing about plant species or how to prepare the soil, so I went to work.

I started by “tiling” the soil l — quotations marks here because I didn’t have any proper tools and used a shovel instead, but I had a lot of determination, so the crazy endeavor took me around two days.

Then I sowed the seeds I had bought online on American Meadows, frankly the only thing that is left from those early days.

The result was a total bust.

Did California poppies do well in South Carolina, zone 8?

I had no idea.

I have to confess I didn’t know a thing about plant hardiness zones back then, more on that later.

Were poppies perennials or annuals?

I had no idea.

Being from Brazil, the land of eternal springtime, I knew nothing about evergreen vs. deciduous plants, absolutely nothing.

Fast-forward six years and I have a beautiful wildflower meadow that warms my heart throughout the season, and I will talk extensively about that in the coming months and, I hope, years.

The porch garden is a whole other story. I only started it a few months ago, but it really took off a mere two weeks ago when I installed an autonomous drip irrigation system before going out of town for a five-day vacation. When I came back, expecting to see all the flowers fading, I was surprised by the growth and vibrance I encountered, the bees, the butterflies and even hummingbirds. I had hit the jackpot!

The rest is history. A week later, The Porch Gardener was born and here we are.

If I could do it, so can you.

Hi there, welcome to my humble abode!

American Meadows