I have used aqua cones in my veggie garden. I've just used them one year and had trouble with the holes plugging up. The directions say put sand in the cones and I tried some with sand and some without sand and my holes still plug up! I may drill a little bigger hole this year in the cone. I'm also thinking of a mesh screen between the bottle and cone to keep debris and bugs out of the cone....This is alot of work for these darn cones! I hope you have better luck with yours!
I'm just guessing here, but I'd think you'd need three per bush or just one but fill it serveral times.
I don't know how you'd figure the inch of rain.

WindsurfGirl

Could you just use the two liter bottles by themselves? I mean you could cut the bottom off of the bottles and bury them upside down in the soil about halfway. Then when you watered the yard or if it rained you would be able to collect water that way and deliver it to your plants. My mom used to do this with milk jugs when we were kids. :)
Hugs, Nina

My watering system consists of upside down 2 liter bottles with the bottoms cut off buried half to 3/4 of the way. it works fabulously, especially for tomatoes, you always know how much water the plant got, and as an added bonus, I found that toads loved to hang out in them during the day. I have tons of toads! A coffee can or veg can with both ends cut out works well too, and I saw where someone said they use the quart container the plant came in buried next to it. I also collect old hoses people discard at the curb, cap one end and poke holes in them for soakers. For my trees I use pvc pipe with holes drilled in it, just stick the hose in and water away, right where they need it.

weedwhacker, I like toads they are cute. My first question was wouldnÂt that attract mosquitoes but then I figured the toads would eat them? IS that the benefit you are talking about. Also can you post a picture?

-Annette

The question was posed above as to how to find out how many two liter bottles it would take to give the equivalent of one inch of rain. Looking at the conversion formula for liters to cubic inches, it works out that a two liter bottle will cover one square foot with 84 hundredths of an inch of rain.

This also works out to 1.2 two liter bottles to equal an inch of rain over 1 square foot.

FYI: One US liquid gallon equals 1.60 inches of water over one square foot, or 0.62 jugs equals one inch of water over that same square foot.

I hope this helps!