BACKCOUNTRY builds a Guerilla Water reservoir

Hey there! I live in SW Oregon, from July to mid-Sept it is bone dry, hot sun, no rain. I am forced to either place my plants in naturaly moist places(rare), or return once or twice a week to hand water the plants.

Watering by hand is fun, hiking out in the woods, checking out your babies, but when Sept rolls around, its HOT, and the first deer seasons start up. Now my chances of running into a person, or a person running into my weed multiplies, when the Rifle season starts in Oct, they will multiply again. I don't have the option of letting them ride through the driest time of the year, but I have to reduce visits to lower my chances of getting seen. What to do?

Last summer I tested a low pressure irrigation system in my vegtable garden, it uses a eletronic timer to open and close the valve on a schedule. I feel it was a sucess! Now I can essentialy stop going at all until harvest if I like!
I will cover more of this in a future thread, and will also have a grow thread showing it use in 2 of my plots this year.
In the location I have chosen, I have determined I need to have water storage on site, no creek or spring to tap into directly.

In my brainstorming, I tried to figure a way to build the rez on site, hauling a 200 gallon tank a mile in the woods is not a option. The first thing I thought of was to just dig a hole, and line it with sheet plastic. The problem is borrowing animals, and what if the hole colapsed?

So I have landed on the answer, basicly it is a hole dug in the ground, lined with 1/4" Hardware cloth(fencing) for the digging animals.





Next a wall of small logs lines each side of the hole, and pinned together with long spikes ment for heavy framing(the first set of logs is under the wire, and stapled to it). These walls are to reinforce the hole.








Next I lined the hole with a standard 12'x10' blue tarp, this is more for protecting the plastic sheeting that will hold the water than anything else.


Next I put two layers of the plastic sheeting in the hole, this will be the liner of the tank. It is very important not to let debris get into it, it will be in there with the water, and may plug up the system down the road.
Once that is all in, I put 1"x2" lumber on the rim of the hole, and put spikes through it. This will hole the edges of the tarp and the sheeting.


Now I put a sheet of heavy flashing on the 1"x2", and tack it down with nails.


Next part is the in and out pipes for the rez, made of PVC, and addapted to attach to garden hoses. One pipe is short, and will be used to fill the tank, the other is long, and will be used to draw water out of the tank. I stuck them through the pre-cut holes in the flashing, and sealed them in with Plumbers goop.



On the next trip I will fill the rez with garden hoses stung 150' around the hill side from the seasonal creek(being careful to keep sediment from entering the system).
I'll also tidy up the place and camoflage the rez.
A few weeks after that I will be back to prepare the plot, add manure, lime etc. And to clear any excessive cover from the surrounding trees and shrubs, to let the light in.

I intend to get a thread up soon outlining my automatic irrigation system as well.

Damn that's awesome! You figure that'll hold 200 gallons?

Figuring the size of the rez

Figuring the size of the rez

Oh yes! I forgot to add the math involved, thanks man

Ok, I wanted 200 gallons of capacity, more than enough to harvest the pound I expect form this grow.

There are 7.48052 gallons in a cubic foot, so 200 gallons divided by 7.4= 27 Cubic feet.

To find your proper hole size, mutiply the length by the width, and then multiply that bythe depth.

My hole is 3'deepx3'widex3'long=27 cubic feet, 200 gallons of water.

hella of a idea backcountry might have to give this a try out here in the midwest , but we get hit with a bit more rain then you in pacific northwest , people like you is the reason i loved OG

This is the kind of thread that makes me glad ya'all came to IC /

Good work & thanks for the documentation – I like your helper!

Great thread BC, Your how-to's are always helpful!

Is this the season we get you to do the tree top grow?

enjoy

i cant even remember how many times ive set up this same system way out in the woods! it works great and sure is nice to cut the amount of visits to the patch. good job backcountry.

Water bed mattress

Backcountry is a master of irrigation systems... Glad to see you're helpin out on ICM too BC!!!


Looks good, mad props to you.


M

I've been entertaining the idea CS, the milk crate is ready to go......
Thanx guys! More to come.

Poof I'm Gone said:

Water bed mattress

Click to expand...

Yeah, I like that idea, it was a common one on OG. But you still have to figure out a way to protect it from chewing animals, or POOF! All your water is gone!(no pun intended )

Bury it like you did with just the spout sticking out. I guess some animals like to dig though. I like the fact they are already setup to screw a garden hose onto and then you just do a drip system off the water hose.

Nice job there hope it works out for ya.

BACKCOUNTRY said:

I've been entertaining the idea CS, the milk crate is ready to go......
Thanx guys! More to come.

Click to expand...

Wow you have some great ideas! How do you plan on watering the treetop grow, maybe some more info on other things as well? Very interesting stuff.

great idea i love it, maybe ill try a smaller version of my own this season.

Most excellent idea my good friend...I'm lazy..I plant close to water...hey I'm old...LOL..you do us proud my friend...stay safe..

ND

how is it you are drawing water out of the creek? Siphoning or do you have a pump? Never really thought of 200 gallons being only 3x3x3, thats a good amount of water.

nice idea you got there BC.......hope to see it work well this season.....ill be watchin your thread......peace

Interesting!

But I dont understand how you gonna pump water so high to the plants on the tree in the middle of the woods?!

Peace and love,
Agnes

Thanx to all! I am hoping that this works as planned too! I went with this design partly because most of the materials used to build it were found on site, or were light enough to haul a good distance in my backpack.

Poof I'm Gone-Chewing and borowing animals have always been the thing that made me scared to use a bladder(like a water matress). Most of the work involved in this is preventing a rodent from making my life hard by having a bite of plastic.
I am sure a bladder could be protected in the same manner, and would be easier to install. A matter of fact, when I can afford to buy a heavy duty bladder, that will be the way to go. Thanx man!

grandmesajoker-The tree growing thing was something I was working on last winter when I was bored. I saw so many folks talking about growing in trees, so I decided I would put my tinkering to work. I have a good method for watering a highly placed planter, be sure. Watch the outdoor forum, my thread on OG is gone for now but I still have all the pics and proto-types, so I'll get them up on here(different thread) soon too.

Northern Dude-Much respect to you my freind! If ya think about it, I am actually the lazy one here, once these systems are built and dialed in, I won't be doing a whole lot of work(provided they work as I plan). Basicly I fill the rez in winter, and at the same time add my manure etc to the plot, then I come back by in May with plants and batteries for the system. After that it will be like a leisurly(sp?) hike in the woods when I am feeling like it. I intend to reuse each plot for a few years, and then rebuild it if I like it.

pipeline-The seasonal water supply is just a few feet higher in elevation than the rez, the water will flow downhill to the rez when I go fill it. If I do run into a problem where my rez empties unplanned, I do have the option to refill from a year round creek located 100' downhill, either by hand or with a small gas pump if necesary.

Anyways, stay tuned guys, more to come!