[leemac]

I have a small irrigation setup that works somewhat well for my needs. I have a small pond/waterfall pump inside a rain barrel that pushes a decent flow to my emitters that water my lettuce and cucumber plants. The pump inside the barrel is connected to an outdoor Z-Wave switch that is ultimately controlled by my SmartThings hub.

The main downside is it's currently manual and water is limited in the barrel. The rain barrel can only hold so much water and at times, I find my ZWave switch will turn off, then back on, which eventually drains the barrel if I'm away. I usually turn it on/off on hot nights when I'm home so I can monitor it.

Next summer I'll take a different approach with some of the ideas from this article. Perhaps use the rain barrel only if it's full (using sonar sensors that ping off the water level), but use the main house line as the primary.

That hacker/tinkerer in me wants to ultimately build a system that waters based on weather patterns/demands. I'll save that for next year.