Flood Irrigation and "Lasagna Method" Raised Beds
GirlyGrr
10 years ago
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Comments (14)
seysonn
10 years agoGurnoegardens
10 years agoRelated Discussions
Raise the flooded garden or move to poor soil?
Comments (33)Storm passed us completely by, though there were some beautiful thunderheads to the east. Not even a drop. Yay! I'm on the other side of the same coin, NJ. I can't conceive of it *not* raining in the summer. I frequently read in gardening books and even on GW here about not getting the leaves of certain plants wet. I've scratched my head for years. Doesn't rain get them wet all the time? We just got back from a road trip to Victoria, BC a few days ago. It doesn't really rain in the summer there either. It was extremely strange to see brown grass (where it wasn't irrigated) and occasional falling leaves and I was told this was normal in the summer. That just doesn't happen here except in drought years. We saw farms all over BC baling beautiful hay. They could cut and bale at the optimum nutrition level because they totally controlled the irrigation. Time to cut? Just stop watering. Take as much time as necessary to dry in the swath; heck, take a couple extra days to flip the swath and dry it through. It's amazing. We just can't do that here most years. Usually, when it looks like there's going to be a rash of a few days with no rain, farmers are dropping everything - even 9 to 5 jobs in town - to 'make hay while the sun shines'. Even then, it's unusual to get hay off with no rain at all on it. Most of the prairies here support "dry-land" farms with no irrigation setup at all. In an average year here, I only usually need to water the garden at the beginning, when seeds are close to the surface and yet to germinate. After they've established, I rarely need to pull out the sprinkler. There's at least an inch of rain per week or so and when there's not, the roots dig deep enough that they're good for a few more days until it rains again. This is only my second year doing dry bush beans, but I'm finding it difficult to mature them on the plant because of the short season and because the rain still comes in the fall, though less. Same for the pole beans, though, they're up in the air and do dry off a little faster. No rain in the winter - just snow, cold and more cold. We can go into the -30s Celcius for a couple of weeks at a time and -40 and below is not unheard of. I don't get to do cover crops. Typically, last frost is within the first week of June (or late May in a good year) and first frost is usually early to mid September (but can come as early as August in a bad year). We can extend harvest into early October by covering on nights where there's frost forecast. Crops mature, but don't really grow much by then. I've tried mulches a few times, but have discarded the idea. I know it's a great thing for many gardeners, but I find it cools the soil too much and there's not really a need to conserve moisture. Should we go back to drought years, I'd see about trying it again. Right now, though, I need heat heat heat to reach my soil. :)...See MoreIdeal raised bed depth over soggy soil?
Comments (6)So your are trying to balance the issue of overly soggy native soil that can't be drained apparently against the need to provide any supplemental water for the location and the water needs of 2 very different crops? That is quite a complex situation and I'm not sure it is even possible. If the only issue was the depth of a raised bed over soggy soil - the goal being to allow for proper drainage and moisture for the crop growing there then I'd agree that 12" would be great. People solve that problem that way often. But we can't have our cake and eat it too. :) (a) Build a 6" deep bed and grow shallow rooted crops. there and let the soggy soil provide the water. Things like onions, cauliflower, cabbages, lettuce, etc. (b) or build an 18" deep bed, grow whatever you want in it but water it normally and disregard the ground water. (c) trench in vented drain pipe to drain the area and build an 8-10" bed, grow whatever you want in it and provide it with needed water. (d) treat it as a bog garden area. No raised bed just raised ridges alternating with furrows and plant edible bog gardening plants there, things like celery, cranberries, rhubarb, onions, etc. Make the raised ridges high enough and you can grow corn there and let the boggy ground provide the water. Dave...See MoreSolve raised bed watering problem
Comments (6)marg, yup. Very nice garden. The hose bib is the spigot source. Fill up a 5-gal bucket with the hose and time the fill. Calculate your gallons per minute flow rate. To get pressure, you attach a pressure gauge that you buy at any hardware store for about $15. Screw it on your spigot and read the pressure. The flow rate is good to know how may gallons you are putting into the raised garden and run a timer to get the required gallons. Correct about flood irrigation. You berm up the entire raised garden areas and apply water as if it was a bathtub. You need to apply about 1" of water depth in the trough each week. Hot weather apply more. This method also give your plants deeper roots to weather infrequent dry times better. Are the pathways between planters concrete or decomposed granite. You might think about running your one spigot to a spigot riser in each bed. Then you can put a battery timer on each spigot for auto flood irrigation. Only works if the pathway are a permanent rigid surface. JMHO Aloha...See MoreBest watering system for raised bed
Comments (14)We have tried a number of watering systems. First - we tried 1/4" perforated tubing where there is a drip hole every 8" or so. We laid them down the sides and middle of each bed. We thought they did they worked the first year. Afterwards, we had dry spots. When I picked out the 1/4" tubing, we found the holes plugged with salts. Because I could not SEE the water, we decided to change the watering system to something on the top. Second - we plumbed 3/4" pvc for each bed. Risers every 24" or so. To flood the beds. We could see the water, but didn't get coverage as we wanted. Also, the flooding seemed too much water in such a short time, we had lots of water leakage. BUT, we can see when the water comes out of the risers and know that the plants are getting water. NOW - we are still using the above configuration but creating growing areas around each riser. Making a sort of bowl that fills with water slowly and gives the plants in each square plenty of water. This winter and spring this system has worked well. I can see the water. I can turn each bed on/off. I have control. Peace....See MoreDonna
10 years agoGirlyGrr
10 years agoGirlyGrr
10 years agoGurnoegardens
10 years agoGirlyGrr
10 years agogardensteph
10 years agotishtoshnm Zone 6/NM
10 years agoglib
10 years agoGirlyGrr
10 years agoHU-249828582
3 years agowar garden
3 years ago
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