I use both. We have a large property. The bamboos are rather thirsty plants and do better with soaker hoses. My garden beds are densely planted - drippers are not a viable solution - if something were to go wrong, it would be a nuisance hunting for the source of the problem. So soakers go in there too. I use drippers for containers and also for spot irrigation of plants that are isolated from the main beds. Some of my soakers have been in the ground for 10 years, and are still working fine. They are not supposed to last that long, but with annual flushing and the odd repair jobs, I have not had to buy any new soakers in the last 3 years. Do not use the tiny 1/4 inch soakers - they do not work well, clots up easily, and can't be repaired. As for the drippers, I use a type of dripper head with completely adjustable flow, from zero to up to 13 gallons per hour. Lee Valley Tools sells them as B. & D. Shrubbler Spikes, and bought in bulk packages, they are the most economical I can find - at abut 75c a piece. They are supposedly the most used drippers in commercial applications. At 30 psi of pressure, and maximum flow rate of 13 gph, it throws out a circular spray covering 360°, to a radius of as much as 2 feet. Turned down low, it acts as a slow dripper. It is this flexibility that is the next most appealing feature. I do not have to select different drippers with different flow rates for different sizes of containers - something which turn out to be a real pain with fixed flow drippers I had used previously. I use them for containers as big as the 20 gallon box to the small 1 gallon nursery containers. The adjustable flow rate also makes it simple to deal with variations in flow and drops in pressure down the main supply line. The third appeal is that it will never (and i do say never)block permanently since the spray head is controlled by a screw cap that can be removed completely for cleaning. coverage. The fourth reason I love them is that they are tough and durable. Except for about 1/2 dozen where the inlet pot has been snapped off by an over zealous gardener (me!), the 200 or so scattered in my garden are all working well inspite of neglect and occassional abuse (by my lawn mower!). The othe advantage is that it does not seem to suffer frost damage - as long as the system is well drained and the caps are then screwed on tight. They come on a 6 inch spike - which is another reason I love them - they are difficult to lose. I manage to get by with a 6 station timer. The beauty is that once set, I don't have to do anything except a weekly inspection. I also use a siphon device to feed soluble fertilisers down the line. Keep in mind that if you want to do this, make sure that you have a reliable back flow preventer valve in the circuit.

Pam. I am not technically oriented so at first all of John Jeavons many pages of lists, charts and diagrams made my head swim and my eyes glaze over. I really let that stuff intimidate me for the longest time. In the meantime, I tried Square Foot Gardening and, while it works reasonably well, some of the spacing---especially for plants like tomatoes and squash that become huge monsters in hot climates--just just didn't give me the results I wanted. So, I went back to "How To Grow More Vegetables...." and tried to incorporate more of that spacing. What I do now is a hybrid of the two, and I do it because it works. Some years I use the spacing from John Jeavons' book almost exclusively, and other years I use some square foot spacing, especially when I am in a hurry because square grid spacing is easier at a time like that. I try to make my grow lists beginning in August while everything is fresh on my mind. I know that by December, I might not remember if it was Yellow Submarine we liked or Medovaya Kaplya or both or neither, so it is best to make next year's planting decisions while everything is more fresh in my mind. This year I have the greenhouse, so I won't necessarily have to drag container plants into the garage as I have in the past. Maybe I can just keep them in the greenhouse with a small heater. Time will tell. We routinely have tomatoes until Thanksgiving or Christmas depending on the weather, and I'm talking about from in-ground plants. Picked at the breaker stage, they ripen slowly and we can eat them from a long time. I extend the season even more with the container plants. Some years I plant the long-keeper types like Longkeeper, Reverend Morrow's Longkeeper, Red October, etc. and they will last a couple of months after being picked if you pick them just before the breaker stage or at the breaker stage. I put them on shelves in our tornado shelter. Golden Jubilee is not, technically, a long-keeper, but it works well when used as one. Busy1, You're there! I know you've been too busy to be online much. I suppose it still is too hot and too dry there to plan on a fall garden? The Keetch-Byram Drought Index numbers for your part of the state are getting scary high. Carol, Likely in these temperatures the row cover is reducing enough light to prevent wilting, but in the spring, if I leave the heavyweight frost blanket on plants on a hot day after a cold night, they do not look happy when I finally uncover them. I use floating row covers a lot in the cool season, but it is hard to make them behave in the wind. I also have cat issues. If I put a row cover over hoops, the cat think it is cat furniture, climb onto it and rip it or tear it. If I put it on plants without hoops so it is free-floating, they think it is a cat blanket and lay on top of it and the plants. To keep the cats out of the garden, I'd have to remove the cedar entry arbor because even when I close the gate, they climb over the arbor to go inside. I don't know how to solve the kitty cat issues with row cover, because they are stubborn. If I yell at them to get off the fabric, they do. However, the minute I turn my attention elsewhere, they're back on it again. Since I'm not out in the garden every minute of the day, the cats do as they please when I'm not there. Thus, for cat reasons, floating row cover works great for me on cold nights when the kitties are in the house but not so great during the day. I have similar issues with shade cloth, but the worst issue with it is that snakes like to lie on top of the shade cloth and sun themselves. I suppose they consider it a bonus that they can scare me to death when I see them there on the shade cloth, often inches from my face. The best solution would be to take out the arbor and replace it with fencing with a standard gate that would keep the cats out, but I love the arbor and the 'Pink Lemonade' honeysuckle that grows on it, so I'd rather not take it out. Anyway, the garden needs the cats or it likely would become overrun with field mice and voles. I just wish I could convince the cats that floating row cover is not meant for their comfort. Dawn

I use soaker hoses, but also have a drop irrigation system (that I am not using). For something like tomatos or other plants set at 12" spacing drip irrigation can work well, simply place an emitter every 12" or so. Where the drip becomes inferior to soaker hoses is with dense plantings. Here the fact that soakers deliver water along their entire length provides even coverage without worrying about installing tons of emitters or having them clog and fail or pop out. With Mel's mix you will have to sow seeds very close to the soakers (or emitters) as the water doesn't spread very far for the top inch. At 6-8" spacing of the hoses the mix is well and evenly moistened below 1" however. Long story short in my opinion the soakers are better suited to the close spacing found in SFG and they are less complicated/time consuming to set up. Drip is a better choice for wide plant spacings.

I can't speak about soaker hoses but I have a drip irrigation system running off a timer and it's been fantastic so far. No clogged holes yet. Some of the drippers have sprung leaks after a year of use so I need to replace them soon, but it's not difficult to do. From what I hear, soaker hoses tend to clog over time.