From a practical standpoint it doesn't make a noticable difference, from a theoretical stnadpoint, Plants in north-south rows get a little more sun as the moving sun can hit the sides of the plants. It is more important to place tall plants on the north side of the garden regardless of what direction the rows go.

I do not understand what you mean by flood irrigation.

Once every 2-4 weeks, depending on the season, our yard gets completely flooded. Water comes through a 6 inch pipe within a one hour period of time, covering our entire yard. It sits in our yard 6-12" deep until it seeps into the ground, watering the 50 pine and lemon trees that we have. It is amazingly cheap here, maybe $10.00 a month?

Well, THAT's a unique way of watering plants!!!!!

I don't know if that would be a detriment to your garden plants or not -- guessing, I'd say not if it happens only every 2-4 weeks. You could always put in raised beds of 6-8" if you want to grow something that doesn't require that much regular watering.

I've grown all sorts of crops by flood, furrow, drip, and sprinkler irrigation. In furrow and flood, the crops were mostly planted on beds about 6-8 inches high and 30 to 60 inches center to center. So this leaves a furrow about a 12-18 inches wide between the beds. The difference between flood and furrow is that the flood is level and furrow has a grade and water runs from one end to the other.

Flood could be planted flat. Your crops won't float away but the soil can crust badly after being flooded. This mostly causes a problem with seedling emergence.

The main problem that can develop with beds is a salt buildup since the soil is never leached. A good sprinkling once or twice a yr will solve that problem.

I'd run the rows NS for better light distribution.

I plant sweet corn in furrows spaced 30 inches apart. It is easier to get emergence this way in my soil. Small seeded crops are harder to get up planted in furrows because of crusting.

The Fruitnut

Dang! Thats a new one! In addition to what others have suggested, it might be beneficial to put some sort of border around the whole area to slow any directional current from the pipe, and make sure the area is level. I don't think total submergence for a few/several hours would necessarily hurt seedlings, it can't be much worse than a week of cold rainy weather up north here.

You may be the only person around here that can grow rice in their back yard.

Where does the water come from?

My family also uses flood irrigation, but we have a system of trenches that direct the water to the orchard and then to the garden when plants are large enough to be trenched out.

We have 3 shares of water rights, so we turn it on and off whenever we need it. My uncle used to just open it and let it do what it would, but that was incredibly wasteful, so we dug the trenches and now we can water the entire orchard, the grass, most of our soccer field, and 3 gardens in about an hour and a half.

The water comes from an irrigation canal about 100 yards up the hill from my house. It's the same thing the farmers use to water their crops.