This is one of my early blog posts which I wrote in the summer. It was a very hot summer. We have been away from my garden for 6 weeks and I have been using the automatic garden watering system. It was a bit of a heaven-send send I must say. As it was mid-May and I had only just started putting young plants onto the raised bed. I had alpine strawberries which I grew in my front room from seed.

It seems quite a while ago looking back at things. I just realised how bad the pictures are. They were just taken from my iPhone and I just plonk it onto the blog post without any photo editing.. Anyway back to the subject…

Automatic Watering System

So far I have used 3 different types of automatic watering system.

eBay purchase
First one below I got from eBay with the irrigation system that came with it all that for less than £20. sounds good but the battery life (it use 2 AAA size batteries) was rather shocking as it lasted around 2 weeks then it stopped working completely!! The system goes on shut down when the battery life is low. Otherwise, value for money as it came with a complete micro irrigation tubing.

Hozelock AC1

I got this Hozelock AC1 after looking at a review of Hozelock automatic watering system. I have not to use the newer version the battery life is not very good. It’s down to the size of batteries. Whereas the older version uses C size batteries in which many users found that the battery life lasts longer. I remember looking at mad at Amazon reviews and search on google as I was in a desperate situation as we were going away soon and I have had no reliable watering system to use?!! For an avid gardener, this is a disaster. I can’t bring all of my plants on holiday with me surely not?!!

This Hozelock AC1 battery life was pretty good. Lasted more than 6 weeks. So a good to use the product. I use a new superpower energizer battery in it during every growing season.

Update July 2024, after a few years of using the Hozelock suddenly one day the valve decided not to close as a result my garden was flooded. This happene while I was away as well so even more flood to clear.

There are many more latest new brands in the market that is available on the shelves. However, I have yet to try it out personally so I can’t recommend any of them. Many of these newer versions do come with cloud/weather sensors built into them. This is where it detects where if the day is going to rain or not whether it should turn on the watering system. What a clever idea.

The no-name brand I got from ebay[/caption]

All these water irrigation timers need to be connected to the mains water tap as it needs the water pressure high enough to push the water thru the pipes. There are not much water timers around that runs directly from the water butt. It would be wonderful if you are going away and not having to worry leaving a water tap running unattended. I told my neighbour about the automatic irrigation is on so that they can turn off the tap if there is any excessive flooding in the garden.

I have also a claber practico watering system on board for just in case but never ended up using it. However, it is dead easy to use.