Bugs in my potted veggies

boiling water on ground ants is the best way to do it. You can always dig a hole in the center of the mound too before you pour the water. For fire ants, that is what I have done and I killed them all in about 3 large pots full of water

Ok, I'll let you know how it goes. Too bad I no longer have a kettle with a spout. I suppose I could hold a funnel with a pliers...
and I thought about digging if it didn't work, glad you tried that out before me.

I water the yard in a peculiar way, since my front of house polybutylene hose bib cracked off near the face of the house. I'd never seen a non-brass hosebib before, in all these years. Cheapshit developers.. I even have some brass hosebibs in my garage, but I'm afraid of somehow breaking off the polybutylene inside the housewall if I attempt to fix it.

Anyway, I use a half gallon milk bottle and hand water. This can be tiresome, but also a pleasure in a sort of be in the moment way. It is more tiresome since I have to avoid stepping on ant mounds. They bite, and I am at least semi allergic to the bites with raised welts. They're not fire ants, not sure what they are, there being many kinds of ants; from here they look like "sugar ants".

Are you watering your grass this way? Or individual plants?

Individual plants can be watered easy. Just use your 2 liter jugs... if you buy them ?
I have come up with a way to make them deep root water plants.
interested, i will type it out ..

Maybe you might consider resisting such a juicy temptation.

Grass? You kidding? I haven't had lawn grass for several decades. Though as an aside, I can see its usage in some locales, just not the ones I lived in, and restrict my scorn as I do like native grasses. I'm an acquaintance of John Greenlee, one of the guys who made native grasses popular. I'll back off to say that even in LA (semi arid desert) I can see it for a play area, and have specified it for some residential clients. This has a lot to do with me getting out of a regular landarch business of certain years because of all the tract requirements for grass I no longer believed in, in virtual deserts.

Yes, I do use two liter jugs, and with the larger ones I use a few gallon plastic pail, and in the back yard, I have a good metal watering can, which in any case makes a great vase.

Sorry for double post, I kept editing...

Grass? You kidding? I haven't had lawn grass for several decades. Though as an aside, I can see its usage in some locales, just not the ones I lived in, and restrict my scorn as I do like native grasses. I'm an acquaintance of John Greenlee, one of the guys who made native grasses popular. I'll back off to say that even in LA (semi arid desert) I can see it for a play area, and have specified it for some residential clients. This has a lot to do with me getting out of a regular landarch business of certain years because of all the tract requirements for grass I no longer believed appropriate for virtual deserts but demanded by cities and developers. I consider myself part of "the revenge re the lawn".

Yes, I do use two liter jugs, and with the larger ones I use a couple of gallon (?) plastic pail, and in the back yard, I have a good galv steel watering can, which in any case makes a great vase. Easier to use the milk jugs. I have a hose there, but I like the control of the milk jugs.

I'm dealing right now with shallow rooted babies. But.. please post your take on deep watering. I've a past as an irrigation designer but always open to seeing ideas. Recently, butrfly posted about ollas, which are good to know about on a2k.

yeah.
that is sort of what I do.

I buy 2 liter and one gallon jugs... though.. two liters and long neck bottle water bottles work best. If you are covering a large area a gallon jug is your best bet.

But, for deep rooting in a pot take your bottle screw the lid on tight and cut the very end off. ( Not the end with the lid) You want to remove less then 1/4 inch all together because this is the collection spot.
Take a safety pin and just below the lid, prick a hole in the plastic. 2 holes work best, but one hole is just as efficient.

Bury the neck of the bottle along the edge of the pot with the hole facing the bottom of your plant. The deeper you do it, the deeper the roots have to grow to reach water.

With the end that you cut off facing up, all you have to do to water your plants is to pour water into the bottle and it will drop in your plants roots for a long time.
In long droughts, or high heat, this saves your plants from being burned.
It also conserves water as it gives the plants just what it needs, right where it needs it with out having to drench the entire pot in water.
When it rains, it will collect the water too.

For gallon jugs, or super large pots ( Like trees) again with the safety pin, but this time put your holes on the bottom of the jug and cut off the very top where the lid is. One gallon should water for an entire day.
Refill your jugs every other day or every 3 days st the most.
You can ad your fertilizer right to your water as well and use only 1/2 the recommended dosage because it goes directly to the roots.

OK! That's a slow drip I've never heard of... Here in abq, with our dry air, it might need to be a slightly larger set of holes. I do question the holes as just below the lid. Water evaporates here quickly, so I'd adapt that per region.

I'm in an angst state in that I'm reasonably knowledgeable about really great pots (sometime when I get my scanner going, I could show the swell pots at a place at the port in Oakland (I do remember the name), it is to cry, but I also have these great old catalogs, oh, don't get me going, and years of garden photo tearouts), but can't spring for them myself, and if I could, I would quail at retail.

well the reason why it works well is because the water is being dripped under the ground and not on top where it will dry up immediately.
bigger holes will work, yes. You will just have to refill them more often which is no big deal. The good thing about them is that what ever water you give them is now going straight to their roots and not just soaking topsoil..

Re soil and water, there are diagrams of flumes that happen on application of water to soil. But you're talking about a pot. So suddenly I get what you are saying.. and yes, I see this was originally about potted veggies. I got interested in this thread re bugs.


but I'm not able to care re how to water your pots.. past conventional drip systems, or just some water. You are trying to conserve water in your few pots? I'm don't see that plastic bottle drip system is all that helpful, maybe I didn't read that right, tipping up by the 1/4 inch, but have at it.