Wicking beds vs. Drip line/Soaker tubes... which is better?
9 years ago
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- 9 years agolast modified: 9 years ago
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Drip Irrigation Spacing Question, Raised Bed
Comments (4)ng, Spacing is not as important as time. You can run ay system long enough to get the proper water needs to the plant. The difficulty starts when you have different plants with different water need amounts on the same zone. You have the right idea about being able to shut off sections to cultivate the plot while growing other plots. Different vegetables have different life cycles. Soaker hoses are difficult because you can't control the amount of water coming from the hose (they also clog over time) as with drip tape or emitters. On the same zone you can have plants with larger drip rates and those with slower drip rates but it is trial and error to set up. It is better to have separate plant zones with similar watering needs together and just work out the time by trial and error method. You do have to initially check the water in the soil to see if plants are getting what they need. Your idea about getting water to the beds is a good one and the way I would do it. Make sure you pour some concrete at all the bends so they can't move (thrust blocks). JMHO Aloha...See MoreDrip System: Rain Bird or Rain Drip?
Comments (7)Do you like the Mister Landscaper products & does anyone else have any longterm experience w/ this sort of layout? I purchased the starter kit (50 ft. of tubing, asstd. stakes & drippers, the patio & potted plant kit, & the timer)-I'm going to try & set it up this weekend. I think a system like this might just as efficient or more, as the soaker hoses I currently have in the perimeter beds around the house. I'll move my soaker hoses to the outer edges, & water that way, instead of the intermittent sprinkler water they get now... My yard is a typical suburban rectangle, 103' x 167', just under 1/2 acre, lots of mature trees, so pretty heavily shaded. I value my few sunny spots & try to cram as much in there as I can, & I think if could get a handle on the watering, I could cram in even more plants!...See MoreSoaker Hose Watering
Comments (12)It will vary depending on the soil content but in my experience with my soil 1 hose for a 4' wide bed would never work. The water, thanks to gravity, disperses down faster than it does out to the sides. So I'd end up with over-watered plants right by the hose and underwatered plants off to the sides. I need at least 2 hoses for 4' and using 3 hoses works even better and gets me more uniformity of moisture. Plus jnj hit the nail on the head - water pressure. Soaker hoses work best with a pressure reducer on the faucet. The lower pressure not only allows for better distribution from side-to-side but also end-to-end. otherwise you end up over-watered close to the beginning of the hose and under-watered at the end of the hose. Dave...See MoreFiguring out drip irrigation layout
Comments (7)Hi, Steve. What drip system were you going to use? The particular item I'd mentioned, Mister Landscaper's Vegetable Garden kit, only comes with drip tubing. I thought that the simplest way to deal with the thirstier crops would be doubling the line. Everything I'm doing would be from a single water source (thus one timer) but it's where I go from there that I'm getting bogged down in details. The company has three water devices: drip tubing, drippers, and microsprays. The drip tubing puts out a fixed 1/2 gph, at 1' intervals. With the drippers, you can choose 1/2, 1, or 2 gph at intervals you choose, Then there are the microsprays, which I think all deliver 10 gph (and a pretty big coverage area, 5-7' minimum). I don't think the microspray is spray is what I need for these raised beds (WHY does my autocorrect insist on turning "microspray" into "micxospray"?). From what I gather, the drippers are sort of aimed at delivering water to a particular plant, and are less useful for watering a ROW of plants. You attach them to one end of a 1/4" (non-drip) line, then attach the other end to the 1/2" main, doing this one at a time. The 1/4" drip line attaches to the 1/2" main and runs along the whole row. The drippers are more flexible in both placement (attach them at whatever intervals you want) and flow (three gph selections), but the drip line covers a row of vegetables much more quickly, if you don't need such control. So if you wanted to water, say, radishes, it's clear that the 1/4 drip line would be best: have the 1/2" line just run n/s along the eastern edges, then tap in to the 1/2" main and just run it down the row. But if you're doing tomatoes... that's where it muddles. Assuming you want more gph, you could run that 1/4" drip line down on one side of the plants, then do a 180 at the end and run it back on the other side. To use drippers, though, you'd have to run the 1/2" line down the whole row (east-west), then run individual 1/4" lines off it to each plant, with 1 gph drippers at each end....See More- 9 years agolast modified: 9 years ago
- 9 years agolast modified: 9 years ago
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- 9 years agolast modified: 9 years ago
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