Customer Reviews

WALL O WATER 3 PACK

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Following my last year success, this will be by second Wall-O-Water campaign. This is how it worked last year:

I set up half a dozen Wall-O-Waters in early April (live in PA at about 1500 ft. elevation). There were several sub-freezing nights but all of the tomatoes under the shield stayed alive and happy. The tomatoes I planted (the control group) did not make it. 5 of the 6 Wall-O-Waters used last year can be reused and, following last year's good results, we bought 6 more.


HOW THIS WORKS

Since not everyone is familiar with the 'wall of water' method - I wasn't until someone told me about it last year - here's what's going on:

- Sun warms up the water during the day or the water warms up anyway because days tend to be warmer than nights.
- At night, the Wall-O-Water acts like a radiator because the water releases the heat it accumulated during the day. This is especially helpful when the temperature drops below freezing because the Wall-O-Water makes the difference between a dead tomato plant and a thriving one.
- In addition, the wall protects the plants from excessive sunlight during the day so there's no need to cover them.


WHAT YOU GET

Each of the 3 Wall-O-Waters is made of a circular, semi-transparent, green plastic (I did not get it in 'blue' as the picture shows) sleeve with the walls made out of about 20 'cylinders', 18" tall. When deployed, they surround a circular area of about 18" in diameter at the base with the top a little narrower - a teepee shape. They are generally well built, made of thick, durable looking plastic but one of them did break (wall breach) last year.


SET UP

It takes about 5-10 minutes to set up each individual Wall-O-Water. The makers recommend that you set the walls a few days before planting so that they warm up the soil a little. When you set up the wall you place the Wall-O-Water around a 5-gallon bucket and begin filling the tubes with water - the second tube should be on the opposite side from the first to prevent collapse, then you fill a couple in between and keep going until they are all filled. When you're done and remote the bucket, the Wall-O-Water assumes the teepee shape you see in the picture and it will stay that way unless you knock it off.

The instructions on the box ask that you first fill the tubes only two thirds and top them off after the plant grew larger. Well... I filled them up all the way and I'm glad I did - the 'teepees' were very stable and the plants are happy inside.

The tomatoes grew happy and early which is exactly what we expected. By mid-May we collapsed the walls and stored them for the next season. They are ready to be reused now.



RATING

I am very happy with this product. We tended to almost always plant our tomatoes too early only to watch them die after a frosty night. This is not going to happen this year so I feel that the Wall-O-Water deserves its five stars which stand for "I love it", because I do.

This product has saved my tomato's from cold weather and high winds. I am very pleased.

In western mass i had ripe tomatoes by the 20th of june, outdoors. Normally won't see tomatoes until late july. Love these things.

Good idea especially for areas with a short growing season; however, heavy wind presents a problem. There is now way to stake these down and the water didn't provide enough weight. I had mine blow over, twice, crushing my tomatoes and peppers. I'm not likely to use them again, until I can figure out a way to stake them to the ground without causing leaking.

Wall of Water gets plants off to a head start. Here in Denver it allows me to plant tomatoes in earlier May rather than waiting til Memorial Day.

I have used something similar to these before, called Tomato Teepee and they worked fabulously. I expect these will do the same. I'm able to plant tomatoes 3 or 4 weeks ahead of the recommended date for my zone, and I get tomatoes earlier than all of my neighbors.
The only problem I have is filling the tubes. The Tomato Teepee had interconnected tubes, so if you fill one, the water would spread to the others. This made it super easy to fill. The Walls of Water, however, you need to fill each individual tube. Which, not only is a pain, but when you fill one, that causes the unit to fall over (thereby squishing your plant), so you fill one opposite and it still falls over. You have to have about 8 filled before it even begins to stay upright. Quite frustrating.
Someone may mention that when the tomato teepee developed a leak in one tube, all of the water would eventually leak out. That's true, but packing tape would take care of it and refilling was quick and easy. I'm not looking forward to refilling these.

I have used these in the past and just bought three packs. I installed two of them and within a day, they had collapsed on my plants. The reason - poor manufacturing - the seams were not closed enough to hold water in the individual chambers. This is just plain poor QC - it ruined my plants. Too bad because this is a product that has worked well for me for many years...

For people having trouble with filling, all you have to do is get a tall, wide bucket (like the ones painters use) and put it over your plant. Slip the wall around it and start filling up the tubes across from each other instead of going around in a circle. It will take a bit of work but slip the bucket out and pull the bottom ends of the tubes outwards until it's steady enough to stand on it's own. You should end up with your desired cone shape.

I love these things for setting out tomato plants early under frost protection.
I have nine of them. They worked great in early spring when temperatures range from 28 degrees in the early morning to the low 80's in the afternoon.

This year my tomato plants had blossoms when I took these covers off.

It was a little tricky to fill the first two with water but I figured out how to hold them pretty quickly.

I just bought a new set fo wall o water.

The first one was great and held the water.

This new set I purchased has had difficulty holding water. One of the three held water in all of its tubes. The other two have 3 or 4 tubes that keep getting empty the day after filling.

I am sorry to see that the are empting... maybe its there way of have the wall of water... water your plants