Thanks everyone for all the responses. Some more details - I have 2 beds 15X3 - about 90 feet from the house. I have 4 white pvc pipes in the beds, the pipe is about 8 inches above the bed. There are 3 holes - every 6 inches. The holes are drilled using #57 Micro Drill Set - it is smaller than 1/16. Each of the pvc pipe has a valve to control the amount of watering - that way i can control the amount of water depending on what i have planted in there. Currently i am running a 100 ft 5/8 inch garden hose (regular hose) - from the water outlet to the beds. There are no holes or leaks in the hose - just in pvc. I think over this weekend - i am going to measure the waterflow - at every stage: 1. water outlet 2. end of the hose 3. end of hose + a valve just to get an idea where it is going south. I like the idea of putting a timer, but then i am going to have timer at the main outlet - so if the main outlet is configured to turn on every other day for 30 mins - then i have to configure the second set of timers at the bed to turn on - one precisely at the same time - and the other at +15 mins... That sounds fairly complicated :) - so i might just run another pipe till there and use the main timer to control and not have 2 more timers at the bed. but i am surprised that there is not enough pressure :) so trying to find an easier way :) really appreciate all the help. I will post my findings around the weekend.

Celestino: I'm in Santee. Nice to see somebody from San Diego. If you're right on the coast, then you may be able to eke out some fresh lettuce before the Santa Anas hit in Sept/Oct. I'll be starting mine indoors in about a month, but even after I transplant, I'll have to shade them a bit until it cools in Nov. If you are near the coast, you should be able to grow lettuce almost year round, except when those Santa Anas come, where shading, mulching, and watering just may be able to keep them from bolting even then. Here's a decent planting calendar for the county. Here is a link that might be useful: Veggy planting calendar for San Diego

8 feet by 40 feet? You can place wide boards across the width which would divide it into several smaller blocks that can be worked from 3 sides. Place them so that the divisions allow you to reach the middle of the section from all 3 sides The boards will disperse your weight so that walking on them will not cause as much compression. Clay isn't a bad thing actually. It holds water and nutrients quite well, but just needs a little help. This could potentially be a really great garden. If you can incorporate a lot of peat moss or coconut coir, it will improve the tilth of the soil immediately and permanently. After that, all you would need to do is keep it well mulched and you'd have some great soil that would need a lot less supplemental water. If I were in this situation I would set up some additional beds (if there's room) to take up the excess 'topsoil' so you can add plenty of peat moss. It will be hard to mix peat moss all the way down to the bottom in that main bed so I would mix in as much as I could in the top section, install some WORM TOWERS then add some composting worms as well as some nightcrawler type worms that will burrow deeply and help build up the lower levels and improve the drainage. Keep the worm tubes fed with organic matter. (Worm tube instructions at link below) I would then plant a mix of deep-rooting cover crops (comfrey, alfalfa, clover, or whatever would work for this season and start growing now in your climate) which will root deeply and add organic material to those lower levels. Cut them down just before they begin to flower, and leave it all there on top as mulch. If necessary, spread it out a bit to let it dry some first, and chop it up a bit if you feel so inclined. Keep the bed mulched at all times. By next spring I think you'd have a great, very fertile bed ready for planting. Just open up holes in the thick mulch and put your seeds or plants in the soil. Leave the openings in the mulch to let the plants grow. Along the back, plan to plant things that you can train up the fence (melons, cukes, beans, tomatoes, etc. If parts of the plant are allowed to grow out the other side, you can harvest from there. Large fruits will need support as they grow which can be done by making little hammocks from pantyhose tied to the fence. Please keep us posted on how things go! Here is a link that might be useful: Build a Worm Tower

I I find it puzzling that your raised beds hold excess moisture above-grade like that. have grown in raised beds filled with dense compacted red clay that has been heavily amended by the addition of organic matter every year for 15 years and never have had them stay too wet for more than a day or so at a time, and that includes a time period in which 12.87" of rain fell in a 24-hour-period. They stayed very wet, of course, especially since another 9" or so fell in the next few weeks, but no plants died. Excess water runs out of my raised beds where the wood boards that are the side walls of the raised beds meet the pathways. I may end up with some pathways that look like canals but at least the excess water is in the paths and not in the beds. There is some reason that the soil is not draining out of those raised beds. I'd do the soil jar test (linked below) using the topsoil-compost blend from the raised bed, and compare the results to the chart given in the magazine article. That would tell you exactly what sort of mix you have and might provide insight into why it is holding the moisture for so long. The word topsoil doesn't really tell us anything. Almost anything can be (and is) sold as topsoil. There are places on our property where the top soil is very dense red clay (like flowerpots could be made from) that hardly drains at all and it will hold moisture for a very long time. Move a few yards away and there is almost pure sand, and move a few more yards away and you can find a sandy-silty blend. While our red clay drains poorly, we have a clayey-sandy blend in the back yard that drains very well, so different clay soils drain differently. So, if I was digging up topsoil and selling it, I might sell some great stuff that drained well, but I might sell some crap that didn't drain at all (not that I would do that to anyone). Since the whole point to a raised bed is to provide the plants with a well-drained place to grow, it is important to figure out why the raised bed fails to drain. I have seen people put raised beds on top of concrete which essentially acted like a concrete-bottomed pool or pond and held moisture forever, but that is less common with native soil beneath the bed. When I build a raised bed, though, I don't just plop down good soil on top of dense red clay. I mix in organic matter down to a depth of 6-8" beneath the future raised bed in order to ensure good drainage in that soil, and then I build the raised bed above the improved soil. We had almost 4" of rain just last week and had mud and muck and puddles, but most everything is pretty dry again already. My beds surely are not holding any excess moisture. Here is a link that might be useful: Soil Jar Test for Texture/Soil Composition This post was edited by okiedawn on Tue, Aug 5, 14 at 19:35