I started my drip irrigation system today! Need advice

14 years ago

...and so far, I'm really liking it!

I started 100 feet of 1/2" line with no pre-installed emitters. I snaked it thru the center of the garden around the hosta and installed 1 gallon emitters on the first 20 (so far) in the line.

From there, I took 1/4" line with pre-installed emitters (12" apart) and branched off to the main line toward the plants that were not yet being watered.

So far, it's going well... I'm mixing products from different lines... Orbit, Rainbird and Raindrip... as each product has a little different appeal.

Anyway, I'm in a quandary:

This is my "NICU" garden (Ken, that's Neonatal Intensive Care Unit--for sick babies and preemies). Anyway, I need to water this garden and do not want to cross the path with irrigation lines. So, instead, I was hoping to have some sort of waterer on the main part of the garden that would spray onto the NICU. But I haven't found anything that would work.... the sprayers I've come across have either been too fine a mist or don't throw far enough. They'd need to throw about 6 feet or so... in a quarter or half circle. The pic below would be for 3 sprayers, but I'm open to doing fewer.

Any thoughts?

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Comments (12)

hostarhodo
14 years ago
Here is my wild idea if there is no other way across the path or spraying overhead.

Lay the irrigation line across the path, to find the area that will cross the path, then get a pipe or hose 1 size larger than the line, making sure it is a bit longer than the widith of the path. Slip it over the line till it covers the part on the path. Now you can dig down to make a small trench for the line with the pipe covering it. You could let the ends go over your black edging or you could notch out a part in the edging for the pipe to go through, which would make it lay flat. Fill in trench
and put a walking stone over the area which would keep it down and safe.

Even better would be to make a hole in the black edging and string the line through the edging on one side slide the pipe or hose over the line and into the hole then put the rest of the line through a hole in the other black edging across the path. The water would come out of both ends instead of into the pathway. All this in a small trench as well.

It could just work. If not, someone out there is LOL at my ideas. Oh Well.

Betty
thisismelissa
Original Author
14 years ago
Thank you Betty, for your well thought out suggestions, but there's a method to my madness.
See, I'm working on going "edgeless" and "mulchless".

I've already removed edging in all but this section of the garden and I intend to do a little something different in the NICU in the coming years. And with the pain in the butt that it was to set those stones anyway, the last thing I want to do is disturb them, their settings or the soil around them.

Also, the NICU is a transition space. Residents of this garden are not intended to stay long. They grow up strong for a season or two and move out. So, I don't really even want to have irrigation lines in there.

On an up note, I went to Home Depot and I think I have a solution. They're called Shrub Heads. They'd stick up out of the ground (not retract like in a lawn sprinkling system). These SHOULD do the trick.

Crossing fingers!
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lehua, Thanks for your reply - much appreciated. I suppose I should have checked more into the forum archives prior to posting - would have prompted me to first check into my hydraulic specs. Our water does come from a municipal source, which obtains it's supply from local fresh water natural lakes/ponds and reservoirs. It is treated with chlorine and fluoride (1.0 mg/l) and has a moderate hardness of 68 to 84 mg/l. I just did a test by filling a 5 gal bucket from the freeze-proof garden bibb, timed it with my phones' stopwatch - and it took exactly 60 seconds to fill to the brim, which equates to 300 gal/hr. The main vegetable planting area consists of (6) 36"+ wide x 18 ft long beds, each naturally bermed about 6" above the 18" wide pathways - which are freshly covered in straw mulch each season. Each row slopes along its length, approx 6" in 18 ft., or 2.8%. We also have a couple of 42" x 12 ft wood-plank raised beds for strawberries, herbs and smaller rotating crops. An 8' x 5' onion patch, 10' x 4' raspberry patch and a 40' x 3' mixed use bed along the east garden fence - all with about a 1.5% slope. The soil composition is 12" to 18" of very rich humus, with a mix of loam + grey clay in the subsoil layers. I have been layering at least 3" of my own organic compost over each bed twice/season, which I first break down with my shredder/chipper. Water plumes have always spread very well when hose/pail watering in the past. Organic additives, such as bone meal, wood ash, and dried blood are added regularly, with limestone tilled in the Fall, if soil ph tests require it. Concentrated fish emulsion is mixed with water and applied by hand to each plant during the growing season. Due to some early blight occurring on our tomatoe and pepper plants, which was spread I believe from water ground splash, I'm thinking drip irrigation may minimize this from happening. I have not yet purchased the inline filter, 3/4" mains and 1/2" laterals, but have received the 3/4" ball valves and electronic water timer/valve I had ordered. The author of a Utah Co-op Extension article on the prototype PVC system (see link), recommends drilling 1/16" holes, in 2-3 hole clusters, spaced to align with individual plants. My plan was to dedicate each lateral to plants with similar needs, with all lateral and major pipe joints being separable to accommodate seasonal rotation and off-season storage. Since I have no experience with this yet, I was waiting for the time when my indoor grown seedlings are about ready for transplanting, before determining hole spacing. Drilling should be easy enough to do when that time comes by setting up a jig. Sorry for being long-winded - many thanks for your encouragement, and system endorsement . . . I feel less like a pioneer now. Best, Steve Here is a link that might be useful: PDF - Designing a Baasic PVC Home Garden Drip Irrigation System
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hi Brand, What type of source water are you using? Well water pumped to your barrels, roof run-off into your barrels or house water piped into your barrels. Are the barrels covered or open to dust and dirt in the air? As you have guessed by the questions that water can get contaminated and require a filter to remove the particles that get into the water. This is a maintenance chore to clean the filters regularly or they will obstruct the flow and rob you of needed pressure, especially in a gravity fed system. Try your filter and see if you really need it. If you don't get rid of it. Glad to read you don't have pressure compensated emitters. Their torture track pressure regulation causes even small particle to clog the emitter in a short time. the best for low pressure systems is a pipe with tiny holes in it to let the particles escape and not build up in the pipe or just stay on top of cleaning the filter. After a season of growing, cut a piece of tubing and look inside the pipeline to see what is happening at the emitters. Good luck and aloha
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idiothe
14 years ago
Thanks so much for getting your drip setup going... I'm sure that's the reason we are finally getting some decent rainfall!
thisismelissa
Original Author
14 years ago
Glad I could be of some help Jim!
I was kinda thinking the same thing when I heard it pour at about 6am!
ken_adrian Adrian MI cold Z5
14 years ago
all this running on the pressure coming out of one spigot????

at some point.. if not on multiple zones.. you MIGHT run out of pressure to PROPERLY run all your gizmos ...

this might be complicated by your multiple product lines... as predictability of the system is part of the design ...

what that all means .... observe all the emitters and their performance ... just because water is dripping out.. does NOT mean the amount coming out of the first one.. is the same as the amount coming out the last one ... if the first one is working to specs of 1 gal per hour.. the last might be only 1/4 gal ....

make sense???

ken
thisismelissa
Original Author
14 years ago
Makes complete sense, Ken, Thanks!

I think in light of this, I will get all my emitters done before I try and install the shrub heads.
I might have to run those guys on their own zone.

Thanks!
ken_adrian Adrian MI cold Z5
14 years ago
EXACTLY >>>>!!!!

ken
freshair2townsquare
14 years ago
melissa:

i get edgeless, & my mastery of the english language allows me to define "mulchless", but i don't get it - down here, moisture retention of soil temperature regulation are high priorities - what is the benefit of or attraction to mulchless?

~ freshair
thisismelissa
Original Author
14 years ago
freshair:

The attraction of going mulchless is it is no longer necessary to buy 135 bags of mulch and then have to put it out.

I've seen many mulchless gardens that with proper irrigation and with the hostas being mature enough to completely shade the soil, the soil temp doesn't vary much there's little need for weeding measures.
ken_adrian Adrian MI cold Z5
14 years ago
lack of mulch also give birds free reign on slug hunting..

no where for the little bat terds to hide ...

or lay their gooooey eggs

ken
freshair2townsquare
14 years ago
"little bat terds" - i hope i never get on your bad side, ken - no tellin' what you'll end up calling me

i can see this if your plants all meet/touch - of course, i'm not at the 135-bags-of-mulch point - with my suburban lot, i wouldn't be at the 135 bags point if i gardened the whole yard

~ freshair
thisismelissa
Original Author
14 years ago
freshair:
Yeah, in Dallas, your lots are a whole lot smaller than ours in the Twin Cities. My lot is 100' wide x 150' deep. Of course, it's not ALL garden... yet! LOL

I started my drip irrigation system today! Need advice

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I started my drip irrigation system today! Need advice

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