Not currently, but managed a collection of all kinds of things on drip for a couple years. The only disastrous drawback is when the drip "falls" out of the pot and they don't get water for a long period. Make sure your drippers and tube are attached in away that they must stay in the pot. I am also a fan of "laser tube" drip tubing.

I bought one last fall and used it a bit in my greenhouse. I am not yet a convert to it, there is a lot of hassle and issues involved: getting the proper flow to each plant, dealing with the fact that different weather warrants different watering levels, moving pots means reconfiguring the setup, etc. In the greenhouse I just found it easier to water by hand than mess with it. Re: vacations, what I did last year was to move my pots into the shade and give them a drenching, and they were fine for two weeks. Note I don't use those superfast draining soils, and this is one of the reasons.

I am probably going to give it another try this summer when I move the pots outside.

Scott

Nobody has ever accused me of moving fast :^) ... I am still thinking about adding drip irrigation to my container orchard. While I was able to survive the summer of '06 without it, I had a number of containers that were hurt bad over a vacation in '07. My containers and trees are too large to move around anymore ... fall and spring moves in and out of the garage are a big event now ... not something I can do to support a week away. I think I will need to do it this coming season. Anybody successfully implement this with their containers?

-Steve

Steve, Had you considered a lower tech approach - wicks and water reservoirs (buckets)? They used to produce wicking for outdoors - it was encased in a plastic tube, but I haven't seen it around lately.
Using this type of setup would seem to solve a number of problems - especially determining how much water to give each fig.

I have had mixed success with this over the past few years. I tried it last year for a 10 day vacaton and failed miserably. I paired a 5 gal joint compound bucket full of water for each pair of fig trees. I used old tee-shirts cut into strips as the wicks. When I got back I found the wicks to be very wet but the dirt dry as a bone. I expect I did not do it correctly.

-Steve

Steve, I thought this was a new thread and then I came along my reply from two years ago above! Since posting that I did try my drip system again and now I keep it running all the time. It took some work to figure out how to "tune" it and it is not completely accurate in that some plants get too little and some too much, but I can leave them alone for a month and not worry about it. So I would now say I am positive on them but be prepared to spend some time tuning. I am even thinking of running a drip system in my vegetable garden this year, to make sure they are always well watered.

Scott

I have been considering the Spot Spitter system. As long as your runs are not too long, the amount of water coming from each head is about the same from front to back. Also, since it is more of a micro-sprinkler, you don't end up with some of the drawbacks to the drips. There are Spot Spitters with different flow rates/patterns to match up with various container sizes. Robert's website has a calculator to determine the flow requirements for each run.

Any system you adopt should be tested and tweaked before relying on it (even if you have family or friends watering for you).

~james

Here is a link that might be useful: Robert's Spot Spitters

I would say that purchasing a drip system is the right way to go, but Scott is dead on about having to fine tune it for each container. I found a place that sells a drip container garden kit and when I called them up to inquire about everything I was amazed at the help I got. After answering a few of my questions the cust service rep transferred me to the design department. I sent them a generic layout of my pots and sure enough they drew out everything I would need and where to place it (Free of Charge). After agreeing to purchase the order I was surprised at how quickly everything came together. Below is the site and the place is called dripworks. Would highly recommend them for a source of drip supplies.

Here is a link that might be useful: Dripworks

dripworks are a good bunch of folks....
They are who helped me fine-tune my setup of low pressure gravity feed system using (4) 55 Gal (cross linked) rain collection barrels all eventually feeding ToroAG Blue Stripe drip tape.