Sounds really cool. I have a drip system running on our hose which is on city water. I know there are special drippers you need to buy for lower water pressure. I'm not sure how much pressure your pump will make, just thought I'd mention it. We love our drip system, our deck gets really really hot in the summer.

You should get a timer as well. I tried a gravity fed system and failed miserably. To get enough water to flow through the drip system, you have far more water than the plants can handle being turned on all the time.

Hi Nanzey,

The system sounds great. There are dripper emitters that vary in amounts and even adjustable ones to match the amount of water to each plant. You can check how much water you are supplying to all the plants by measuring the water level drop in the 5-gal bucket and calculate the volume then convert it to gallons. You can measure the flow of the pump by volume divide by time the timer was on. Your emitter flow is measured in (Gal per hour). Your total emitter flow needs to be less than the total flow from your pump minus 10%. Aloha.

Got that formula nanzy? (Jeez, math, takes the fun right out of it.) But I'd say you're gonna need a bigger bucket!

Sadly - life got in the way and I never did get this all set up! I guess I'll be waiting for spring to get around to it - although it was in the 80's and 90's this week - if this continues - maybe i'll get it done over the holidays!

There is a website that sells drip stuff, rain something, I think. Maybe you can ask them about the pump. You might want to be sure you have the right size pump before you do anything else! Let us know how it goes. I have an old well pump and tank I've thought about using with rain barrels, so I'll be real interested.