More than 15 years ago, I bought a little time-saving device for fertilizing my flower and water garden. At some point, I stopped using it. I don’t know why. Probably laziness.
At any rate, last winter I noticed that, as the number of orchids in my collection grew, the time I spent trying to feed, clothe and discipline them was also growing – and growing and growing. Most weekends, I would spend an entire day toiling over each plant – fertilizing, watering, examining, staking, repotting (occasionally), pruning and repositioning for optimal light/temp/moisture/breeze conditions.
Hard to have a life when 50% — or more — of your time off is spent as a slave to orchids.
Now don’t get me wrong. I adore futzing with my orchids. But I also adore doing other things – or I might, if I had time.
What I needed was some serious time management assessment…And then I remembered that little siphon.
I dug through the gardening shed and, luckily found it, along with its battered sheet of instructions.
The photographs show how it works. In the above photo of the siphon, you can see its brass faucet/hose attachment, its long rubber tube and the wire, in-take tip.
The second photo shows how the brass attachment works: one end of it screws onto the outdoor faucet (this winter I’ll use the faucet in the greenhouse sink) and the other end connects to the garden hose.
The two- gallon jug in the second photo contains water and a concentration of fertilizer. The concentration is 16 times greater than the recommendations of the fertilizer manufacturer.
When the faucet is turned on and water starts coming through the attached garden hose, the siphon is activated, pulling the concentrated fertilizer into the hose water and diluting it to the proper amount recommended by the manufacturer.
It’s very simple. And very fast.
What once took me several hours can now be done in about an hour and a half. [The siphon is made by Grower’s Solution and is available online – and perhaps at your local hardware store.]
Now if I could just find a simple, fast device that takes care of the watering, examining, staking, repotting (occasionally), pruning and repositioning for optimal light/temp/moisture/breeze conditions.
Let me know if you hear of anything.
