kabuti

Burying perforated pipe will result in clogs, too, just from the outside. Rootlets, worms (?), soil, and who knows what. It might work if you'd cover the perforated pipe with some kind of porous fabric to keep anything from stopping up the holes. You'd also need a pressure regulator to make sure that the area farthest from your water source got as much water as areas closer to it.

I am planning to buy a whole new watering system in January from the folks at the link below. You might look at the website for ideas, at least.

My garden isn't nearly as large as yours (about 256 SF of raised beds), so I can get a good T-Tape system with everything needed for about $70.00, not cheap, but I've budgeted and saved for it.

People water their gardens in many different ways, and the layout of the area is probably the most important factor you need to take into account.

Here is a link that might be useful: Dripworks USA

I tried drilling tiny holes in PVC pipe last year to make my own cheaply. It did not work too well. I had a tiny drill bit, but once I had holes drilled everywhere I wanted them, it moved way too much water way too fast. I didn't have the patience to keep messing with it, but it still seems like a decent idea, as PVC is cheap and plentiful. You don't need to glue anything, so it can be rearranged and modified as needed. Also, some people say it's not too good to have around the vegetables, due to the chemicals in it. Maybe this will inspire your thought process.

There is a cloth(?) made for use with perforated pipe to keep it from clogging. We use it for drainage in our cranberry bogs. I think you will use much more water than you imagine with perforated pipe. The holes are pretty large, at least in what I am familiar with.

THanks, I looked into the T-Tape a while back & liked the idea, we would need to buy a good sized roll, PLUS all those dang fiddly-bit fittings (also T-Tape only lasts so long)O.K for small area or a farm but this is a 'Get-By' Garden. No, the idea here is to grow excellent food with as little cost/labor etc. & that is NOT easy! in a desert to boot. We have a pump & could just flood the whole thing every week or 2. Probably be cheapest/least work.

kabuti

How do you "flood" a garden the size of yours? I assume you've mulched everything, so is the flooding above or below the mulch? Also, what would you use to flood it with? Set a garden hose on a timer and keep moving it around?

FWIW, I just returned from vacation in Wyoming and Utah and I saw white pipe with holes in it in areas that appear to have been irrigated. These pipe were about four inches in diameter or larger. I do not know what source of water they were using.

The point being, persons seem to be doing it for serious and it would appear to be the size of the pipe, holes and water source are factors.

Well, I was considering what we call 'flood' irrigation as there is a big irrigation canal right next to my garden & we have a 3 inch pump so I could water the garden in about 5 or ten minutes once or twice a fortnight after I get it all levelled up right. We also have a well & have it set up to hook into the garden water lines. Front yard & garden now on metered city chlorine with a little water added which will be just a backup in the future.

You could try burying PVC with holes drilled in it, but you will want to have extremely small holes. Over time, the plant roots will still grow into the pipe and tend to clog the holes, though the roots will get water inside the pipe. A water permeable covering would be necessary to keep the roots out. With a 3 foot wide bed, you would likely need to run 2 lines down each bed, 1 foot in from each side. Otherwise the water may not get to the outside of the bed very easily.

The pipes Albert saw in Utah & Wyo. are called gated pipe and are made of PVC, also. They typically range in size from 6" diameter up to about 12" and have retangular holes about 1 1/4" high and 2 1/2" long every 20-30 inches which have sliding gates in them to allow you to open or close the gates. They are easy to use and regulate and conserve water since it doesn't soak into the ground while getting to the field, but they also need fairly trash free water or the gates will get plugged and stop flowing. The water sources are usually surface water from rivers or reservoirs delivered in canals. To use gated pipe in your garden, if you have a large enough supply of water, you would lay the pipe across the top of the garden, then run the water down water marks or furrows where it would soak in (flood irrigation with furrows). Depending on how loose and absorbant your soil is, it can take anywhere from several hours up to 24 hours to get the ground soaked up. You also have to be able to deal with waste water coming out the bottom as it is very hard to regulate the flow to get it to the bottom of the garden without flowing out.

You could lay out 1" PVC lines and put connections and valves in periodically, then connect these to sprinklers. If you don't want to use sprinklers (I don't after the plants are up--they sprinkle everything, including the ground that isn't planted and that doesn't need watering, plus they encourage disease by wetting the leaves and keeping the humidity up), you might consider laying drip tape on the surface, with the emitters down, and connect that to your water source, maybe even covering the tape and soil with black plastic or some other mulch so you can take it up in the fall and to help reduce evaporation from the soil.

When using drip tape or similar devices with very small holes, you need to use very clean water--ditch water should be settled and filtered to get all but the finest particles out, and periodically you should inject acid into the water, such as dilute sulphuric or phosporic acid for a short time to remove the lime that builds up. You can inject all your fertilizers into the water to fertilize that way if you want. Whatever you do, the more easy, water saving, time saving= higher cost. You'll have to decide where to make the trade-off. With flood irrigation you will use more water to irrigate, but water less often, not more often than once a week, maybe every 2 weeks if the weather is damp or cool. With drip lines, you can water as thoroughly and infrequently, but your garden will do better if you irrigate quite frequently, even every day, supplying just a small amount of water to keep the ground moist but not wet all the time. With the frequent waterings, the plants never get too wet or too dry as they do with flood irrigation.

I used soaker hoses for several years on a flower bed and they worked great, although by the end of the first season they no longer seeped water, the minerals had completely closed them up. The next year I drilled very small holes, using maybe a 3/32 inch drill, about every foot, and that worked for the year. Just had to regulate the water supply so it didn't come out of the hose under much pressure. Each year I had to re-drill the holes, though, as they would be closed up again.

The tape and most drip systems need very, very clean water or it will silt up, as well as if the water is alkaline - you'll get the white crystals blocking stuff. Albert, what you saw, and what beeone is describing is what is called 'gated pipe' and its used for pasture / hay irrigation, a fellow just goes to each pipe and slides a sleeve up and down, opening or closing slots in the main, 4" pipe.

We do something around here that might be worth a thought, along the lines of what beeone is suggesting - make your own gated pipe irrigation system out of 3/4" or 1" pvc, and then using sleeves made out of the next dia size up, cut into 3" lengths.

There are a couple of tricks - this is a low pressure system. That has all kinds of advantages, you don't need to glue anything, just push the parts together, so you can change and reconfigure as need be. 2nd trick is build a ladder, a continuous loop, so that water is coming from both sides of the opening - this keeps the flow and pressure more even. Then, you want decent sized holes, at least 3/8 inch, but maybe up to 1/2 inch if you only want to water one bed for a quick, short time. Holes that size won't clog up nearly so much. The water kind of bubbles out - not some jet. Keep it on the surface so you can move it around, closer or further away from the plants as need be.

I used to design fish hatcheries, where a steady, low pressure at each tap is essential, no matter what somebody is doing at the other end of the hatchery. Just applying the same principals to irrigation systems.

If you wanted to save time, then you might set something up so you pump into a header tank, and there are lots of 1" pipes coming out from the bottom of that. You can set up an adequate filter using polyester pillow stuffing, or swamp cooler mats, or something that will keep debris out. We used to incubate fish eggs by passing the water through foam mattress pads.

10 years ago, I did a 3 acre garden for less than $1,000 worth of pipe, running my big 'H' ladder shape in 4", then going into 3/4" directly. I did the labor myself. I have a few gate valves, more than one place has 'temporary repairs' with duct tape, and a wine cork, btw, will temporarily block up a 3/4" opening just fine should someone hit the pipe with a hoe. I think the price of PVC has doubled since then.

Anyway, its a thought. Easy to modify to your own specs.