GB2265290A - Improved plant waterer. - Google Patents

Abstract

The waterer (Figure 1) especially for use with plants growing in a container (pot, grow-bag, tub. window box, propagator) comprises a reservoir 12: for water, or water/food mixture having exit orifice 14, "blocked" with a reservoir-internal adjustable valve 15 through which the water in the reservoir can pass out thereform into growing medium 20 at a low, controlled, rate. The exit orifice(s), may be in a small exit chamber 13 projecting from and communicating with the interior of the reservoir, like a nozzle, the valve 15 being retained within the exit chamber to "block" off the exit orifice 14 therein. Details of valve 15 are shown in Figure 3a - valve is of "barette" type with an inverted cup 31 mounted for rotation by grips 34 to align/misalign apertures 33 in cup 31 with through holes 14 in a boss 32. <IMAGE>

Description

Improved Plant Waterer This invention relates to plant waterers, and concerns in particular a plant watering device suited for use to water plants growing in pots, grow-bags and other like containers.

Plants require the correct amounts of water and nutriment - "food" - for their well-being. The amount of water (and food) needed is naturally dependent not only on the plant variety but also on each individual plant's stage of growth and the conditions under which it is being grown. A knowledge of the correct amounts may be provided by experience or from some textbook, but in any event it is usually essential to be able to measure and control the supply, and the supply rate, of both water and food.

This matter of supply rate is of particular importance, because if the amount be provided in one "deluge", as might be the case when the contents of a full watering can are simply poured onto a plant (and its growing medium), especially one in a pot or grow-bag, much will be lost to spillage, run off and drainage before it can be usefully absorbed either into the growing medium - the soil or compost - supporting the plant or by the plant itself. Moreover, a deluge such as that results in other problems, notably the washing-out of root formations, the loss of growing medium, and the sudden reduction in growing medium temperature (moist plants prefer a warm medium, and may suffer growth-reducing traumatic shock if the temperature is suddenly lowered).

The invention suggests an improved waterer - a watering device - especially for use with plants growing in a container of some sort, such as a pot, grow-bag, tub, window box, propagator and the like, that should reduce or even eliminate this type of problem. More particularly, the invention proposes an improved waterer which is a reservoir (for the water, or perhaps the water/food mixture, to be supplied to the plant) having its exit orifice "blocked" with a reservoir-internal adjustable valve through which the water in the reservoir can only pass out therefrom (into the growing medium in the plant container fed by the reservoir) at a low, and controlled, rate.Most conveniently the exit orifice is in a small exit chamber projecting from and communicating with the interior of the reservoir, like a nozzle, the valve being retained within the exit chamber to "block" off the exit orifice therein.

In one aspect, therefore, the invention provides a plant waterer comprising a reservoir for water to be supplied to the plant with which the waterer is being employed, the reservoir having an exit orifice, through which the water will pass on its way to the plant, and having internally of the reservoir adjustable valve means for the orifice, through which valve means the contents of the reservoir can only flow at a low, controlled, rate.

The invention is a plant waterer including a reservoir for water (or a food mixture) to be supplied to the plant. The reservoir may take any suitable form, shape and size, and be made of any appropriate material.

A convenient form is that of a small cuboidal tank of dimensions roughly 25xlO cm by 10 cm deep (thus, of about 2.5 litre capacity), and if the tank has sloping walls, and so is slightly smaller near its base than at its top, then one such tank will very conveniently stack within another. The reservoir may advantageously be marked with a scale, either internally or externally (or both), to indicate the volume of liquid contents up to any particular point. A suitable material for the reservoir is a synthetic resin (a plastic) such as a transparent or opaque PVC or polyethylene.

The liquid contained in the reservoir and fed at the controlled rate to the plant (or rather, into the plant's growing medium) may be any desired, from plain water to a complex (aqueous) mixture of food and other chemicals (such as fertilisers, plant growth regulants, herbicides and pesticides). No more need be said about that here.

The plant waterer of the invention is for supplying water (or other liquid material) from a reservoir to the plant. In use, however, the waterer will normally supply the liquid into the plant's growing medium, as intimated above, so that the reservoir will sit upon the plant pot or grow-bag, or whatever container the plant is growing in, in contact with and supplying its contents directly to the growing medium in that container. In the preferred embodiment, having a projecting nozzle-like exit chamber, as discussed further hereinafter, the chamber actually projects in use into the growing medium, so that the reservoir contents are, as it were, "injected" thereinto.

The reservoir has an exit orifice through which the water will pass on its way to the plant (or its growing medium). At its most basic this exit orifice is merely a suitably-sized aperture, or hole, in the reservoir, the hole being most conveniently centrally located in the base of the reservoir rather than in one of its walls. However, very preferably the exit orifice takes the form of a small exit chamber projecting from and communicating with the reservoir, like a nozzle, and the exit orifice proper is then one or more small aperture, or hole, in this exit chamber, conveniently located in the chamber's base - that is, the end of the chamber furthest from the reservoir.The exit chamber may be of any suitable "small" size and shape, and is typically tubular and roughly 3 cm long and 3 cm diameter; its entrance (from the reservoir) is the full 3 cm diameter, whereas each exit therefrom is smaller (so assisting in restricting the flow from the reservoir), and is perhaps only 0.5 cm diameter, or even less. The exit orifices in a chamber with two exits might each be no more than .025 cm in diameter.

The reservoir's exit orifice(s) is partially and internally blocked by the adjustable valve means. In the basic form, where the exit orifice is merely a hole in the reservoir base/wall, the valve means is simply mounted up against the hole on the inside. However, in the particularly preferred embodiment, where there is an exit chamber, the valve means is very preferably retained within the exit chamber to "block" off the exit orifice(s) therein.

The exit orifice blocking adjustable valve means is such that it can be set, or adjusted, to allow the contents of the reservoir to flow out therefrom at a low, controlled, rate. The actual rate determined by the valve means (and to a lesser extent by the head of water in the reservoir) may be chosen to suit the particular circumstances in which the waterer is being used, but by way of general guidance should, for supplying sufficient water for one or two plants in a grow-bag, be about 0.5 litre per hour.

The nature of the adjustable valve means may be whatever is suitable to restrict the reservoir contents flow therethrough to an appropriate low rate. It might, then, operate as does a tap - gradually removing a passage-blocking member from its 100t blocking position, to permit fluid to flow on through the passage at a rate commensurate with the degree of removal. Alternative, and as is preferred, it operates rather like a burette, by moving one apertured body (the tap part, usually comprising a spindle with an anaxial hole therethrough) within and relative to another matchingly-apertured body (the main, or container, part, and communicating directly with the inside of the container) to align the two sets of apertures and permit the passage of fluid through the two and thus out of the container.

In one especially preferred embodiment of this "burette" concept (this embodiment is shown in the accompanying Drawings), the valve has its tap portion as an inverted cup semi-sealingly mounted, for rotation about an in-use vertical axis normal to the base of the exit chamber, upon a matching boss upstanding from that base, there being one or more (preferably two) small aperture in the base of the cup that match to, and can, by rotation of the cup, be brought into alignment with, one or more corresponding through-hole (that communicates right through the boss with the outside) in the boss. The tap portion preferably has some form of handle; conveniently it has upstanding therefrom and extending slightly laterally thereof a pair of butterfly grips (a bit like a wing nut) by which it can be rotated back and forth, and the inner surface of the exit chamber is advantageously provided with a projecting lug that interacts with these grips to form a stop in each direction such that at one extreme the apertures are wholly aligned while at the other they are wholly misaligned.

The use of a waterer according to the invention allows water (and food, and other liquids) to supplied to a plant in a slow, controlled manner, so avoiding the many problems discussed above that are encountered in "deluge" watering.

An embodiment of the invention is now described, though by way of illustration only, with reference to the accompanying diagrammatic Drawings in which: Figure 1 shows a see-through perspective view of an (empty) waterer of the invention; Figure 2 shows a sectional view of the waterer of Figure 1 full of water and in position on a grow-bag; and Figures 3A & B show respectively sectional and plan views of the burette-type valve in place in the exit chamber of the waterer of Figure 2.

The waterer (generally 11) shown in Figure 1 comprises a cuboidal tank reservoir (12), with sloping sides so one such tank will stack within another, having projecting outwardly and downwardly from its base a tubular exit chamber (13) with two small exit orifices (14). Inside that chamber 13 - this is best seen in Figures 2 and 3 - is an adjustable burette-type valve (generally 15). When the reservoir's tank 12 is filled with water (16), the valve 15 restricts the flow of that water out of the tank through the exit chamber 13 and out via the exit orifice 14.Using a 3 cm diameter tubular exit chamber 13 with two 0.25 cm diameter exit orifices 14 fitted to a reservoir tank 12 that is 25x10x10 cm (or 2.5 1), the flow rate of water therethrough is such that, without the valve 15 the full tank 12 empties in less than two minutes, while with the valve suitably adjusted it can take over four hours.

As seen in Figure 1, one of the reservoir's side walls is provided with a scale (17) indicating the volume of the tank 12 at any chosen level, while from Figure 2 there can be seen how the waterer is settled into the growing medium (20) of whatever container is holding the plant to be watered, with the exit chamber 13 projecting down into that medium and the water seeping out from the chamber gradually spreading through the medium 20.

Figures 3A & B show details of a preferred form of valve 15. In this "burette" concept the valve 15 has its tap portion (31) as an inverted cup semi-sealingly mounted, for rotation about an in-use vertical axis normal to the base of the exit chamber 13, upon a matching boss (32) upstanding from that base. There are two small apertures (33) in the base of the cup that match to, and can, by rotation of the cup, be brought into alignment with, the two corresponding through-holes 14 in the boss (these communicate right through the boss to the outside of the container).The tap portion has upstanding therefrom and extending slightly laterally thereof a pair of butterfly grips (34) by which it can be rotated back and forth, and the inner surface of the exit chamber is provided with a projecting lug (35) that interacts with these grips to form a stop in each direction such that at one extreme the apertures 13, 33 are wholly aligned, to let through the contents of the container at the maximum possible rate, while at the other they are wholly misaligned, to prevent any of the container's contents passing therethrough. In Figure 3A the two sets of apertures are shown almost, but not quite, fully aligned; turning the cup anticlockwise (as shown) until the lug 35 prevents further movement would align them fully, while turning it clockwise would bring them further out of alignment.

The cup portion 31 has a projecting ring (36: see Figure 3A) upstanding from its internal surface that fits semi-sealingly into the matching grove (37) recessed into the boss's external surface; the two interact both to hold the cup onto the boss and to "seal" it thereonto (to reduce leakage of the container's contents out through the valve when closed).

Registration of the cup 31 onto the boss 32 is assisted by a small pin (38) upstanding from the top of the boss and fitting into a corresponding aperture (39) in the base surface of the cup.

Claims (10)

1. A plant waterer comprising a reservoir for water to be supplied to the plant with which the waterer is being employed, the reservoir having an exit orifice, through which the water will pass on its way to the plant, and having internally of the reservoir adjustable valve means for the orifice, through which valve means the contents of the reservoir can only flow at a low, controlled, rate.

2. A waterer as claimed in Claim 1, wherein the reservoir takes the form of a cuboidal tank with sloping walls, and so is slightly smaller near its base than at its top.

3 A waterer as claimed in either of the preceding Claims, wherein the reservoir's exit orifice takes the form of a small exit chamber projecting from and communicating with the reservoir, like a nozzle, and the exit orifice proper is then one or more small aperture, or hole, in this exit chamber, located in the chamber's base.

4. A waterer as claimed in Claim 3, wherein the exit chamber is tubular, and its entrance (from the reservoir) is the tube's full diameter whereas each exit therefrom is smaller.

5. A waterer as claimed in Claim 4, wherein the tubular chamber has two small exits.

6. A waterer as claimed in-any of the preceding Claims, wherein where the reservoir's exit orifice(s) is in an exit chamber, the valve means is retained within the exit chamber to "block" off the exit orifice(s) therein.

7. A waterer as claimed in any of the preceding Claims, wherein the adjustable valve means operates like a burette, by moving one apertured body (the tap part, comprising a spindle with an anaxial hole therethrough) within and relative to another matchingly-apertured body (the main, or container, part, and communicating directly with the inside of the container) to align the two sets of apertures and permit the passage of fluid through the two and thus out of the container.

8. A waterer as claimed in Claim 7, wherein the valve has its tap portion as an inverted cup semi-sealingly mounted, for rotation about an in-use vertical axis normal to the base of the exit chamber, upon a matching boss upstanding from that base, there being one or more small aperture in the base of the cup that match to, and can, by rotation of the cup, be brought into alignment with, one or more corresponding through-hole (that communicates right through the boss with the outside) in the boss.

9. A waterer as claimed in Claim 8, wherein the tap portion has, as a handle, a pair of butterfly grips (a bit like a wing nut) upstanding therefrom and extending slightly laterally thereof, by which handle it can be rotated back and forth, and the inner surface of the exit chamber is provided with a projecting lug that interacts with these grips to form a stop in each direction such that at one extreme the apertures are wholly aligned while at the other they are wholly misaligned.

10. A plant waterer as claimed in any of the preceding Claims and substantially as described hereinbefore.