I’ve had umpteen years of experience with this city water and plants, indoors and out, results always the same.
Our chlorinated water seems to stop plant growth for several days.
Long story short, I’ll need to water my lawn soon and really need to make a chlorine filter that can be screwed between 2 hoses.
I won’t be using a large amount of water, just enough to keep the top inch of 1500 sqft damp between rain showers for a few weeks… I’ll worry about summer later.
My thoughts so far… PVC pipe (no clue as to length or diameter needed) filled with charcoal (there may be a ‘best’ type, but I don’t know that either), with something like pantyhose to keep the charcoal in place while letting the water through.
I’m thinking the charcoal would need to be in several ‘loose’ sections to allow free flow of water, with the greatest water/charcoal contact.
No clue how to make that happen, but I’m plenty motivated to try anything.
Y’all gimme a plan, I’ll try it and report back.
No, the gardening forum was no help at all.
People with well water can’t imagine and few with heavily chlorinated city water even notice it.
My lawn is on an organic program, BTW, in case nobody guessed.
Maybe we could compare cost, but I’m pretty sure a few bits of scrounged PVc with some store-bought adaptors, on-hand panty hose material and anything but pet store bought charcoal will cost less than 30.00 plus shipping.
Um, I have looked in stores, 30.00 is a bargain, but I’m pretty sure it’s still highway robbery.
Well, if you have the pantyhose and charcoal thing figured out, you should probably start at the spigot. You should be able to fashion something out of PVC that screws into the spigot. I would have a hard time explaining, but a plumbing supply store should help you fashion something for about 10 bucks.
Or you could go to the other end of the hose, again using PVC or even copper that would screw into the end of the hose, and using some sort of pvc or pipe end cap, which you would drill holes in, you could stuff a length of charcoal behing the pantyhose, which sits behinf the end cap that has holes drilled in it.
Don’t be pennywise and pound foolish there, giftedest. I would be surprised if you could purchase all the parts for less than $15, and even then you are not guranteed that it will work the way you want. So for the difference of $15, you don’t risk losing the investment in your jerry-rig if/when it doesn’t work. Not to mention your time and energy assembling and debugging your own design, including several trips to the hardware store when the inevitable redesign is necessary. For the sake of your plants, $30 sounds like a bargain.
My son, who is a bit of an aquarium expert, tells me there is no need to pay anything to eliminate chlorine. He recommends storing the water in an open container before using it on the garden. Sunshine will eliminate the chlorine. He also says that using a bucket and watering can will keep you fit and healthy but he is young and in robust health.
I’ve got one that I got at Wal-Mart for less than $30 total. That includes the canister which has shutoff and a clear plastic canister in which the charcoal filter goes. The filters are replaceable and can also be bought at Wal-Mart for less than $10 each. You could probably rig something up but IMHO that’s cheap enough.
Sorry about the wording on this. I was trying to type and talk with the wife at the same time. don’t ask is correct about the sunshine removing the chlorine. But it takes a few days and that’s not always handy.
I suggest that you buy a one shiny brass female hose connector and one shiny brass male hose connector. Then cut a foot off one of your best garden hoses. Put the appropriate connectors on the cut end so that you now have two hoses, one long and one short. Take a waterproof marker and write “chlorine eliminator” on the short section. Screw them together. I guarantee this will work just as well for improving the growth of your plants as as anything that anyone else has suggested and it will be cheaper.
Ironic sarcasm! What?
Sodium hypochlorite neutralizes chlorine effectively. This is photographer’s hypo. Use in a hose attachment lawn feeder gadget in solution form. There isn’t much chlorine content in the water so doesn’t take much hypo in solution.
