Chris, Check with an irrigation store or plant nursery or even a plumbing supply store. They will be much more knowledgeable about what would work. Pumping water 30 feet takes 20 psi pressure. Add the pressure to support the system for drip(25 psi), you are looking at a pump that delivers 50 psi( I am adding a factor of safety for you). I find one that produces that water lift and with the flow rate you desire. Look at the pump curves for the various pumps or believe the Salesman's literature and add 20%. JMHO. Aloha

Hi lehua13, Sorry for the long time it took to answer but only Today I checked the forum. Here is my list: - 550 Gal polypropylene tank $180 on a scrap place - windshield washer pumps $7 each at Napa store. - 12V DC programmable Timer $62 online - Two 24V DC 165W Solar panels $535 each. At full Sun I get 22Amps after converted to 12V DC. - 8 Batteries 6V DC deep cycle from Sam's Club $78 each. They are wired first in series and then in parallel to get the 12V DC. Also, the controllers transform 24V to 12V before feeding the batteries. - Complete system with tubing and spray nozzles $18 at Home Depot - Miscellaneous plastic tubes, T splitters and etc maybe around $30 Please note that the solar panels and batteries also take care of the external lights, garage lights, backup power for 2 computers + 1 Dell server. So the cost of the solar panels and the batteries are the big ticket but also they do lots of things for us. I run 2 wires 12VDC direct to 3 UPS 1250W. Since their own batteries kicked the bucket I connected direct to our battery bank. It have just to say that it works wonders on our case as we are not restrict to the individual power of the small original batteries of the UPS backups. Whenever I can I add a couple more batteries to the bank as it is a good insurance during hurricane season. I am guaranteed to get at least two/year as my wife gives me a birthday gift! To do only the irrigation you only need a small solar panel and a couple batteries as the pumps, that we have, use very little Amps. Since my last post I have removed one pump from the system and we are doing the dripping irrigation by gravity using a programmable solar irrigation controller with rain sensor (BRXCTRSiRS). Got it from the same place I bought the timer last year. It works perfect and I saves Amps from my battery bank for other tasks as well as water (if it is raining it automatically overrides the programming). Here we are Amp driven because we can save on electricity from the grid and doing so we are paying for all this investment! - Our new project is a hydroponic Strawberry system but it is too hot and humid outside now so we are doing it very slowly and waiting for the winter! Good luck and, again, sorry for the delay in answering.

I hope you figured something out -- that sounds pretty ambitious! A few years ago, I put in a garden for an upstairs neighbor, who had visions of a tropical retreat on her second floor, south facing front porch. We did pretty well; using big 30 gallon totes for planters, and lots of home-made self watering pots. We had the same problem; no water access. (She thought about running a hose from the bathroom or kitchen, but they were in the back of the aprtment, and somehow, stringing 50 feet of garden house thru the house didn't seem like a good idea!) Altho the gutter was right there, the landlord wouldn't let us access it. So we put a watering can height spigot in a sturdy trash can, and ran the end of a garden hose into the can near the top. We tied the remainder of the house to the drainspout all the way down to the ground, which was near the end of the garden hose. Once every 10 days, 2 weeks or so so we'd connect the hoses, and turn the water on full blast, to push it up to the second floor and fill the garbage can. Then we'd draw off watercas full of water as needed. It was not the most elegant system, but it certainly worked, and she had the most incredibly lush garden for a few years, on a block where the ground level yards were parched and brown by late July. Good luck with your set up -- who knew there was so much engineering in gardening?

Hi Everyone, I apologize if this is not clear and pretty long, but it's my first time on the site, and I do medicine, not engineering) I am part of a community garden club at my medical school aimed at providing healthy (& usually store-expensive) vegetable options to underserved persons in our community. We recently expanded in the last year from 3 4x8 raised garden beds to 6 4x8 and this year added 4 5x10 raised beds. Last year, we built a gravity-fed, "zero-pressure" drip system for the 6 4x8 beds, which was mostly successful, other than not having enough of a reservoir (1, 77-gal barrel on a 3' platform with an automatic timer fed by a gutter of 150 sqft roof), but with the expansion, we are not sure how to sustain the autonomy of the system. We recently obtained a 330gal rectangular tank for the main reservoir, but have yet to elevate it (space is limited, and we only have the one gutter to tap). In addition to the space and water-source problem, we anticipate having pressure issues (needed to supplement irrigation with manual watering many times in dryer months) again, and are not sure how to fix them, as the roof from which we get the water is only 7', and we cannot reasonably raise the tanks much higher and still have them fill. Yet another issue with the idea of using a pump to supplement the pressure is that we have no access to any power outlets. My original idea was to attach a 55gal barrel side-by-side with the 77gal (increased capacity at the raised height), then run an overflow pipe from the top of the 77gal into the 330gal tank to capture as much as possible during this rainier time of the year (we are in northeast PA, and last July we did not have enough water to maintain the system), but the issue then arises with how to send the water back up to the raised barrels to supply the beds. I toyed-around with the idea of purchasing a 2m lift solar fountain pump that would continuously pump the water from the large 330gal reservoir into the barrels, and just let the overflow drain back into the reservoir via overflow pipe, since solar power won't be wasting any energy and it would ensure the barrels stayed filled to maintain more pressure. This makes logical sense to me, and is practically simple, but I do not know enough about low pressure irrigation systems to know if this would work out in actuality. A little basic/general background on the plot: The 6 4x8 raised beds are closest to the barrel (furthest 2 are about 25-30' away) The 4 new 5x10 beds are about 10' to the right of the barrel and another 10' in front (see attached picture of the excel layout we made) I know we need 392sqft x 0.623gal/sqft/wk (including natural rain) to supply them adequately This is long-winded and probably not too clear, but I have attached a picture of our layout that will hopefully help it make a little sense. My actual question is: how can I rig up a system that will supply all of the beds that is fully or almost completely automated, particularly with the pump, as pressure became an increasingly annoying issue last growing season. Please ask any questions you may have, and try to keep in mind that children will be playing and gardening here, so no open wires or dangerous things. Also, we are future doctors, not engineers, so while we are pretty good at improvising and making things work, we will never be engineers or electricians, so we are trying to devise the simplest system possible that maintains its functionality. Thank you, and any advice/plans are greatly appreciated! Charles