CAN YOU RUN A WHOLE GARDEN ON SOLAR POWER? | Today in the Garden | Episode Twenty Seven

[00:00:08][music] [music] Right, let's give this a whirl, shall we? Now, whilst everyone else is being worrying about watering in the heatwave, I've been a little bit smug because I've got quite a fair few water butts and rain collectors and even my dipping tank sorted and ready to go. So, this heat doesn't really matter. It's going to rain in a week's time. I'll be fine.

[00:00:48]But, there's a little bit of a backup plan that I have here. So, I've got this watering my hanging baskets. Water is going to fall out the bottom. it's what's going to happen. But I've got a little funnel here and I've got a watering can so no water is wasted whatsoever. And this has completely inspired me to make the whole north garden self-sufficient. After all, it's watering itself. Why not make it solar powered and have lights going, the fountains going, and everything else purely on solar energy and renewable energy to see if it's actually possible?

[00:01:15]It's a big garden, so if I can do it in this, you'll at least be able to do it in a small garden. Now, remember, I've got those big solar panels that I had from the showboarder. I think they're 150 quid for the whole set and then 80 quid for the battery. So, if I could do this and make the whole garden self-sufficient, I'd save money in the long run than electric bill for the whole year.

[00:01:35]This is going to be genius.

[00:01:37][music] Now, this here is my dipping tank. If you remember in the last few episodes, I got this from my good friend Andy at the Dipping Tank Company. We made this all and I put this waterfall in, which is fantastic. But I've got a little bit of a secret to share with you because this pump is currently running off a mains pump, which is not going to work really well for my self- sustaining garden if it's using mains power. At the moment, in fact, it's currently running off of a 25 m extension lead just so I can get this looking nice, which is not great longterm. So, I'm going to try and swap this out from the BGE pump from the show garden and see if I could run this whole thing as powerful as this on solar power. Okay. Right. Let's start by unplugging this first. There we go.

[00:02:35]Right. God watches are waterproof these days. Right. That is the mains pump. And I've got over here my 12V billagege pump. Now I can already see buildage pump nozzle was a little bit bigger. So I might have to get a bit creative on how I'm going to connect these to the pipe.

[00:02:55]I'm sure we'll think of something.

[00:02:56]Right. I think I've got myself a clever idea. There's the original Bilch pump.

[00:03:00]And as you can imagine, the hose is too big and you can't attach anything to it cuz it's flexible. But the pump had this little nozzle. So I think I'm going to push that into the flexi hose. And then this was the original pipe for the BGE pump. As you can see, goes over there quite comfortably. It also goes over this nozzle, which is harder and rigid.

[00:03:18]More comfortable, too. So comfortably, it's also fallen in. And then I've got these little hose clips. There you go.

[00:03:24]I'll put that in. Put that in there.

[00:03:26]Clamp it in place. Cut it to about 5 or 6 cm. Put that in. Clamp it. And that'll work as a really clever adapter, maybe.

[00:03:41]Okay, then [sighs] that goes on there.

[00:03:45]Bit of a hose clip there.

[00:03:48]Start tighten that up.

[00:03:51]Perfect.

[00:03:54]Right. And then down there.

[00:03:58]That bit on there. And one more for good luck.

[00:04:06]I can't believe that. That has actually worked. Now, the question is though, is this powerful enough now to power my waterfall running on a battery and a solar panel as opposed to mains?

[00:04:18]I'm excited to find out.

[00:04:26]Right, moment of truth. Pipes here somewhere. Oh, that's wet. And I'm just going to push that in.

[00:04:33]It connects. Right now, I've just put the battery here. I've not put the solar setup up yet, but I thought I'd test it with the battery first to make sure it actually works. So, here we go.

[00:04:46]Sounds promising.

[00:04:51]It works. This is now a completely solar powered water feature. Well, it's running up a battery, but it'll have a solar panel connected. And now I never have to worry about paying electric for it.

[00:05:04]I'm a genius.

[00:05:07]That's absolutely crazy. You can run an upmarket quite heavyduty waterfall completely solar powered and that's not even taking much of the energy from the battery. If you're a bit of a energy nerd, let me explain to you. The battery is 840 W. The solar panels produce 240 W and the pump is 36.

[00:05:27]So, this could run all day every day so long as there's enough sunlight to keep the battery charged.

[00:05:33]It's genius. Genius.

[00:05:39][sighs] Out of the way.

[00:05:43]Yeah, that'll do it.

[00:05:49]One of the things I'm quite keen to do here in my 100% solar garden is first of all, actually create a base where the batter is going to go and the electrical things like a fuse board are going to go and keep it all protected. So, what I've got myself is a big old Tupperware tub from IKEA and a lid that folds over. So, it should be a little bit weatherproof.

[00:06:09]But for safekeeping, I'm going to pop it right there in the corner of the greenhouse.

[00:06:16]Look at that. This little corner here should be absolutely perfect. And what I can do is I've got the lid here again, which should keep it nice and waterproof. Perfect. And because it's white, it will reflect the sun's rays, so it won't get too hot either. And it means that this leisure battery will be nice and happy and safe in there, which means that I haven't got to worry about anything getting damaged.

[00:06:41]But now I need to get the wires from the solar panel all the way around to here.

[00:06:45]So here we go.

[00:06:48]Okay. Right, that's all connected together. I'm going to feed this all the way through the little vent there back into the greenhouse.

[00:07:04]Okay, just got to feed these round the shelf thing. You know, I probably shouldn't have connected these. I wonder if these are live. Oh, yeah. They're very alive. Okay. Um, okay. Now, I figured before I get carried away, I'm going to need to make some kind of an access hole so all the wires can go in and out. I put them underneath the lip here. so that as a result it won't get any water in it. And I'm actually using my second tools just to cut just a square hole. It's going through it quite well. Um you could drill a hole. But uh this is a gardening show. So naturally I'm going to use my second fold some of those corners in so it's a bit of a softer edge. And there you go.

[00:07:55]That's my little access point. water run away from it. Right? If you thought about buying a solar panel kit before and you know nothing about it, I'm going to give you a really quick crash course.

[00:08:06]Just so you know what's going on. I think once you understand that, it makes life a million times easier. So, let me explain. You get your solar panels over there. We've seen those. And we've got the wire that comes all the way through to here. Now, a lot of people think that wire goes directly into the battery.

[00:08:21]That answer is wrong. It goes into something like this. Now, this is known as a charge controller. Really easy.

[00:08:28]There's a positive and a negative.

[00:08:30]That's where that goes into. So, positive is the red, negative is the black. That's for your solar panel.

[00:08:34]Then, you'll see just underneath there, you've got a positive and a negative, and a picture of a battery. So, quite rightly so, you put the wires from that to the battery in there. This system runs at 12 V, which is what you have in your cars, your motor homes, your caravans, you name it. And a leisure battery like that also runs on 12 VTs.

[00:08:52]But a solar panel, it can be quite irregular. Sometimes 12, sometimes 14, sometimes even 15, which can be a bit dangerous for the electrics. So the charge controller takes the all of that current there and make sure it only goes down to 12. So the whole of the system is completely consistent because of that that through that through that.

[00:09:22]Right now you can probably just see on the screen here that the solar panel is already producing a current. It's actually producing 14.4 volts which is not the 12 that we want going to our battery which is why this is perfect. So now I'm going to connect up the battery.

[00:09:36]And that's it. That's actually charging the battery as I'm working.

[00:09:42]Also, if you want to make a wire a little bit stronger, just little twist.

[00:09:46]Look at that. Much better.

[00:09:52]Okay. So, positive terminal on the positive and the negative terminal on the negative. And that's it. The battery is now being completely charged by the solar panels. There's no mains power needed for this. It's its own little power station. And the cool thing is now I've got this. I can then power the whole garden with this and a solar panel alone. But I still need one more thing.

[00:10:20]The final gizmo on my list is actually this, which is a fuse box, which you can probably expect to see in houses and cars and all sorts of things. And all this means is that the battery terminal positive and negative will go there. And I can then now wire everything in. So for example, the water fountain will go here and then the lights will go here.

[00:10:40]But they've got their own separate fuses. So if something breaks amongst any part of the garden, it will blow the fuse and not our whole battery setup. I think it's only cost you about 12 quid as well. So it's not bad, just to keep your garden protected. Now most of these batteries usually come with a terminal connected to it. You can just see there, it's got a little screw hole that side and that side, which means I can add additional wires in and connect it forward. And that's how we're going to connect the whole fuse box. We're not going to do anything direct to the battery cuz again, we want to make sure we protect the battery. And all I'm going to do is just loosen the screw, pop it in there. Just pop the wire in.

[00:11:16]It should go on quite nicely. And screw it on. You can tighten this with a screwdriver, but for now, at least it's in place. I've got my second wire. And again that is now firmly in place. It now means I can take my positive and my negative which are now connected to the battery and put it on my fuse board. So the negative will go on the top there and the positive on the bottom. When I'm doing anything with any more wiring, all of the positives for any of your wiring is going to go in there. That's the initial bit. And then they go through any of these bits here and the negatives go at the top there. It really is that simple. And it just goes to show with a little bit of figuring out, it's not going to be difficult to make this whole thing solar powered. Pretty cool, eh?

[00:12:02]Right now that's all connected in place to the battery, the fuse box, and the charge controller. I can place this all in my bucket. There we go. And that should keep it completely protected from all the elements. And then I'll just put I'll then just put my lid on top. And look at that. You'd never even know. I can now connect all of my items. So, I can put my fountain back on here, the lights that are going to be on the garden, and the rest in that box. It's genius, isn't it?

[00:12:36]You know, it's probably worth mentioning actually that this isn't just something that you can do in your garden. This whole solar setup can be done on camper vans, motor homes, if you want to live off grid, and all sorts of bits. So, take this advice and use it how you want. Doesn't always have to be gardening, but in this case, it's gardening. I'm a genius.

[00:12:57]Things seem to be going along really smoothly in the garden. Unfortunately, that wasn't happening elsewhere.

[00:13:05]I was hoping for more smoke. Whilst on route to film on location, the Mini had a bit of an accident with its engine, and unfortunately, the timing chain snapped. And uh if you're a BMW owner, you know that is not an easy fix. Come on, girl. Come on. Just another Come on.

[00:13:25]Can she live on?

[00:13:26]>> It seems the poor girl's luck has run out and on this occasion she would not live on. Luckily for me, one of my best friends was driving nearby and was able to pick me up. But in true lads fashion, he wasn't very sympathetic. In fact, he just started taking the mick.

[00:13:39]>> Excuse me. I like gardening with Could I could I get your autograph, please?

[00:13:45]>> Off.

[00:13:45]>> Oh, that's not very nice, is it?

[00:13:47][laughter] After 144,000 loyal miles, she finally popped her clogs, which was a bit of a shame. So, it was only fair that I said a few words. Well, bad news everybody. The mini countryman that we have come to love and cherish over the course of 6 months has unfortunately died.

[00:14:11]I suppose we should probably say a last few words.

[00:14:15]Oh, Minnie, you were a car and then you stopped being a car.

[00:14:24]Let's go buy a pickup truck or something.

[00:14:38][music] And later came [singing] the rain.

[00:14:44]>> [music] >> Dozing by [singing] the window pain [music] never felt [singing] so free.

[00:14:59]I dreamed [music] that you [singing] were next to me.

[00:15:05][music] A broken doll.

[00:15:11][music] You talk to [singing] me so now.

[00:15:20]Oops.

[00:15:21]>> I've [music] just crashed into something.

[00:15:29][music] [clears throat and cough] I'm not crying. You're crying. Anyway, back to gardening. Right. I've had a bit of a brain wave to do with my outdoor lighting because there's not really much choice in terms of 12vt lighting. So I thought why can't I just put 12vt through a normal lamp. Now bear with me.

[00:15:56]At the moment this currently runs off your normal mains off a you know 220 watt or 240 whatever it is power. I thought if I just chop that off like that I've got a low voltage bulb anyway because they're LEDs. But you can buy these ones uh for caravans and campers and they have the exact same fitting as that bulb there. They're the same bulb.

[00:16:20]Surely with no anything else. It's just the wiring. This would work just like a normal lamp. Is that right? Oh well.

[00:16:28]Only one way to find out. Let's start by stripping this wire.

[00:16:35]There we go.

[00:16:37]Yeah.

[00:16:42]Right, just for now, I've got some of my 12vt wire and this here from the standard bulb. I'm just going to connect them up. Now, if you don't know the coloring of standard, I always thought that live was blue and neutral would be brown cuz that makes way more sense, right? But actually, no, it's not true.

[00:16:59]Live is brown and neutral is blue. Don't ask why. It's stupid. I think it's stupid. So, the red goes with the brown.

[00:17:08]And the black goes with the blue. Right, let's go hook this up to the fuse box and see if this actually work. Okay, secret electric box.

[00:17:21]Right. Okay.

[00:17:25]Positive in there.

[00:17:29]Negative in there.

[00:17:33]Give it a fuse.

[00:17:36]and let's find out if that works. Okay, I'm actually quite excited about this to see if it works. Here we go. You can see it's got my 12vt wire here. Mains light.

[00:17:48]Can you use a normal light?

[00:17:52][laughter] It actually works.

[00:17:55]So, you can just use any light fitting as long as you get a 12vt bulb. So, I can get any outdoor garden light and fit it with a 12vt bulb. But as you can see, it works.

[00:18:10]And that's just given me a bit of an idea.

[00:18:17]I'm definitely going to get in trouble for this, but it's going to look cool.

[00:18:22]Maybe like I'm so dead.

[00:18:29]If you remember when we installed this Rhino greenhouse, it has these little bolts that go through and little nuts and it was a nightmare. But I've just realized that this little bracket that the light goes on is the exact thickness to go on that and I can just bolt it in place.

[00:18:44]It's kind of meant to be.

[00:18:47]On it goes. Easy as that.

[00:18:52]That's pretty swish, right? And then I've got to put that one in there somewhere. And then wire these together.

[00:18:58]And then that should [music] [music] I can't believe that works. Oh, hi there. Welcome to my fully solar powered mains equivalent lighting for my greenhouse. [music] How cool does that look?

[00:19:24]>> [music] >> Now, normally shots for this I have to add a backlight and everything else, especially in the evening. But this is running just as bright as if this was mains powered. And that's the really cool thing about these low energy LEDs is actually you can chuck a 12vt equivalent in and this is running off a car battery.

[00:19:50]It's amazing. And now I have this whole greenhouse lit up and I can use it all night long if I really wanted to. Huh.

[00:19:58]And when I don't need my lights anymore, well, that's that. There's something quite cool about this. It's It feels like quite an achievement. And [music] yet, it's so simple. You could do this at home. And the overall cost for this whole solar powered system has probably cost you about 250 quid. But when you compare that to the energy usage for one year or 2 year, it's negligible. It it [music] pays for itself.

[00:20:25]So, can you have a whole garden powered by, you know, solar power? Yeah. Here's two lamps. We're going to add way more lamps and lamp posts into the garden, and it's all going to be connected on this.

[00:20:38]It's fantastic. [music] I'm proud of myself for this one.

[00:20:46]>> [music] >> Hi there. Just a quick reminder that between the 14th and the 16th of August 2026, I'll have my exclusive show garden at the Rutland Flower Show. And tickets are on sale to be able to actually dine on the show garden with me. We're 80% sold out, so if you want to grab them, you better do it now. Take care. [music] >> [music]