In this episode of Morgs Brew, we will be modifying the Ultimate DIY Ram Pump pressure system. The ram pump journey started as a simple video my dad shared with me as a way to easily get water to some old trees. This idea evolved into something much bigger and the journey we have shared has been well worth any grey hairs earned.
In this episode, I detail the valve fails I have gone through in my DIY ram pump. I have tried several versions and multiple sites using an array of valves along the way. To skip through to a specific section, click on the time codes below or enjoy the edited and join in on the journey
Harvesting rainwater in South Africa on my a 10 000L storage platform using molded tanks, leaf diverter, and a first flush system. If you are interested in setting up your own rainwater harvesting systems at home WATCH this video first! It is possible to design a rainwater harvesting system that can harvest rainwater off of almost any structure at relatively high efficiency. In this video, I have used my 10 000L storage platform to explain the process of understanding, collecting, and using rainwater in my context in South Africa. Jojo and Roto tanks are both made in South Africa and are readily available throughout the country.
Every small farm needs efficient watering systems. In this video, we look at the Drip irrigation system that we are using powered by 0.5 bars of gravity. We set this up with every small farm in mind and specifically chose to use non-compensated gravity emitters as a low-tech solution that could be replicated in rural South Africa. For a long time, we have been irrigating the market garden using two 10L watering cans. This made sense when we were still borderline subsistence but since we have taken on the challenge of scaling our production we realized that time spent watering is otherwise wasted time.
I first came across this way of thinking when I found the work of Darren Doherty. He is a world-class designer who has established the Regarians platform where they use a more in-depth understanding of the scale of permanence in setting up a farm. The basic concept is a movement from the most energy required to change to (#1) to less energy (#9). I have used the scale of permanence in setting up our farm as a tool to help inform how specific components may impact the design over time. In this video, I have tried to briefly introduce the Scale of Permanence as a logical way to approach a landscape so that it can be used as a tool to better understand the holistic potential. This way of thinking about a landscape can help guide decisions that need to be made by weighing up its relative permanence in the system and the costs of energy that it would take to alter. It will be a powerful tool in a new farmers' toolkit as it takes time and experience to gain the required abilities to read the landscape efficiently.
In this video, I will go through my DIY ram pump setup which I have been working on since 2016 and all the components in my design. I started off playing around with 25 mm bought fittings and PVC but now operate a complete DIY Ram Pump. It took me about a month to get the first version working and I had very little help in troubleshooting various issues around optimization. I have come a long way since those first attempts and now we operate a complete DIY system that has much better reliability. I have been helped along the way in the fabrication of this Ram Pump by the guys at MacQuip (https://www.macquip.co.za/).
In this week's episode, we took out half of our onions from last season. We will be replanting this area as soon as we have amended it with our new mix and then we will be plumbing our drip line irrigation into this space for the next round of growing. These onions were grown on raised beds in an educational system. It is not easy trying to teach your teacher how to do things and not all things work out the way they are planned. Getting the planting density up is essential if we want to optimize the small growing area we are using.
I put together a short video with footage from my farm during the last rain event. We had some serious rain here over the Easter period. During the final surge, after there had already been 450 mm and there is a lot of runoff, I was running around filming it. I recorded 472 mm in a 48-hour event which has claimed at least 51 lives in KZN. This video is not about the floods but more specifically how the rains impacted the Farm I live on. I took a run through the farm in KZN during the last wave of the storm to investigate. It was late afternoon and just getting dark so I had to add some trickery to the footage to improve visibility. I added the approximate catchment size for reference which was calculated using Google Earth Pro. I have never seen water to this scale on this property and neither has my father (83 this year). We were very fortunate to be safe during this event but there are many people in the provinces who have suffered.
Last year I set out to build a Ram Pump on my farm. I had never seen one working (except my sister's high school science project model) and there were no people in the area who could help me. I trawled YouTube for help and found various iterations of pumps which allowed me to make mine. However, I often found the videos lacked some of the critical information about the pump.
After fighting with brass valve and discovering the wear gives them a life span of only 2-3 months I decided to have a crack at making my own. The swing check has been replaced with a 4" set of fittings with almost 1kg of lead weight inside and a piece of car tire as a seal. The spring check brass valve to the pressure tank was shearing the bottom guide and after replacing it 3 times I have used a similar approach to making one. Inside is the brass valve seal drilled out and a piece of S/S thread bar put in its place. I welded a guide inside the connection only on one side and used a smaller piece of car tire for its seal. The drive head is at 6.5m and it charges to 9.2 bars.