Yes, there are differences between manufacturers' tapes and some of those differences are huge. The main difference is the type of emitter. They are generally welded into the tape or they are molded into the type such as dirtmecnanic mentioned. We sell both types and have good success with both. Most bad experiences with drip tape are caused by not enough filtration. The majority of manufacturers recommend atleast a 150mesh filter. 8mil tape, our most popular, will generally last about 1 year. This will depend on how much sunlight hits the tape and if you cover it, bury it or leave it ontop of the ground. For peppers and tomatoes, 8mil 12" spacing .45 gpm/100' would be fine. Being in a home garden your water supply shouldn't be a huge problem. You shouldn't have to worry to much about back-suction as long as you install auto-flush end caps at the end of each row. The autoflush caps will actually open at low pressure and help flush out any debris that does get in the line. Most auto-flush caps will close somewhere around 6-8psi. The tape should be ran somewhere between 8-12psi this is done by pressure regulators.

Jeff, Do you get 9.99 gpm from each hose with both running at the same time or did you measure each separately (important)? How was the flow measured? You have 12 furrows each 32 lf which equals 394 lf of tape. The tape generates a flow rate of 0.6 gph(0.01 gpm) per foot @20 psi. That means every row puts out .32 gpm per row x 12 rows = 3.84 gpm. You could run your whole plot on one zone or in essence you would only need a battery operated timer instead of a wired controller. The only thing next is to figure out how long you leave your system on to get water to your plant's root systems. You appear to have sandy soil so this may be a problem for 12" hole spacing. This is where trial and error comes in. Before planting any plants experiment with duration time for irrigation and explore how well the water travel through the soil. The more sandy the less sideways travel(Drip efficiency goes down) so the water has to be left on longer and need to come out faster to get farther(mature roots for tomatoes are two feet radius from the plant stem). Buy the tape then set up your system and see what happens. You are only out 35 bucks if you find out you need closer spacing and higher flow. With your soil, maybe flood irrigation is about the best you can do and drip may be more expensive and not be able to give your plants the water it needs when their more mature. Online stuff is cheaper but hard to return if it is defective. At least buy American Made Products if you have a choice. Do you need advice on system fittings and set up at this point? By this time next year, you will be helping other here getting started in drip or tell them forget it. JMHO, Aloha

Check your local codes... probably will need a backflow preventer. Toro just came out with a timer that allows you to program a chip on your pc, then you plug the chip into the timer. HD carriers them now.

Two ideas, one put some hooks in the garage or on a wall out of view and wind the tape between the hooks. A large shallow ceramic pot could contain the tape and look nice to boot. These ideas are just my $0.02 worth so pay up. Aloha