Irrigation System

Right now we are getting some much needed rainfall. Our plants have been going through 90+ degree temperatures with high humidity for more than a month. The only way we have been able to keep things running as well as we have is because of our irrigation system.

I hadn’t considered getting an irrigation system at all this year, but my husband did. He is really good at foreseeing issues and learning from past mistakes. In the past, we have gotten to this point in the year, and by now the watering goes way downhill. When we’re already hot from harvesting, weeding, and planting, watering is on the bottom of the list of things we’d rather be doing! So we invested in an irrigation system that would take that work away, and it has saved the garden this year.

Setting Up:

We set our system up in May of this year while we were getting a ton of rain. The company we used is DripDepot We bought a ton of tubing, dripline, and drippers online. You can see below for a high level view of the steps required to work towards your own system!

1.Planning - Take a look at your space and decide the layout of your main tubing. This will go along the beds to reach all of your plants. Take the polyethylene tubing along the whole garden, and then split off from the line to reach individual beds. Then determine how you might water most effectively. Right now we have our drip lines hooked up to our elevated beds watering our beans, herbs, peppers, and watermelon, and our drippers are hooked up in the in-ground beds watering our tomatoes, cucumbers, and berry plants.

left: dripline right: drippers

2. Purchasing: We went to dripdepot.com and looked at their inventory to see what we would need and how much. We calculated the length of our beds and added a few feet for the main polyethylene tubing. We overestimated and ended up with a lot of extra,but having more of this is a good thing if we ever expand!

We then estimated the amount of dripline and drip tubing and along with all this we needed: connectors, plugs, emitters, and couplings. We bought a standard size of each for all these items. Also on our list were the hand tools-- the 2 in 1 Punch & Cutter for cutting tubing and punching holes, and the DIG Insertion tool for connecting couplings. These tools really come in handy by minimizing hand stress, and you truly only need these two to do everything.

3.Receiving Material and Checking Against Plan: When we got our shipment, we laid it all out in our garden to make sure we had enough of everything and that we didnt need other items we hadn’t thought about. We ended up buying parts for our main tubing to go around some stairs and extra barb couplings and goof plugs for the dripline and drippers.

4.Installation: For our system we connected to our house with a 3-foot garden hose. This connects to our control system through the back flow preventer and pressure regulator, down to the ½” polyethylene tubing that outlines our beds. The dripline and drippers go out from there.

a. To add dripline to your bed, take the tubing that would best work for the situation—6” emitters or 12” emitters. Take that tube and pull as much as you will need for the space. Cut the tubing and take one end and push in a Goof Plug for the end and a barb tubing coupling on the other. Use the blue DIG insertion tool to help with the coupling for better insertion. Then punch a hole in the polyethylene tubing that runs across your bed. Push in the barb tubing coupling that is attached to your dripline.

b. For installing a dripper, grab your regular tubing and cut it to the length needed to reach your plant. Use the blue DIG insertion tool to install a barb tubing coupling on one end, and push in an adjustable dripper on a stake to the other. Push the coupling into the main tubing and the stake into the ground by your plant. Test it out and turn the knob to the desired amount to adjust the flow of your water.

c. Set up your control system to have your drip run whenever you want it. We have ours set up to run every other day for 30 minutes, and it keeps things nice. Our controller also has separate zones so if we need to water in one spot but not the others. During our heat spells, we have the system run every day for 30 minutes to keep everything alive.

above: our water control system

5. Operation: When you have everything all set up, turn on your water. This will stay on at all times. That way your system can run as scheduled. To begin, set your controls to start watering for a few minutes to check that all the drippers and dripline are going, and adjust as needed.

Issues:

The only issues we had with our system has been due to rabbits chewing our lines Also we occasionally snap the line off the emitter when we accidentally stepped on them. Both were really easy fixes, and the system is really easy to modify if you need to add a line or two, or if you need to move it.

All in all, we definitely recommend using an irrigation system of some sort. It truly has saved water, time as well as our plants more than once this year! I hope this helps you out with your watering this year and in years to come!

~Everbearing Farm