CDLong
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Location: Newark, Delaware

Watering my garden?

I have read thru posts about soaker hoses vs drip systems. I have 2 beds at the end of the house, seperated by the satellite dish. 25' x 3'. the anti-siphon spigot is by the dish. I also have a 6' x 100' bed around the curve, ( I live in the corner house on a cul-de-sac). I would call this a raised bed as it's formed by landscape timbers. I have & haven't had sucess with soaker hosed in the past so I use a hose end sprinkler that I place and let run for 15 minutes, then move down the line until everything is watered. This takes a lot of time that I really don't have. I am interested in a drip system, but have questions. I think I could lay 3/4" PVC underground from the spigot to the right end of my cul-de-sac bed, then place 3/4" PVC on top of the landscape timbers, from there to the left end of the bed. I assume there are tees that I can place in the 3/4" line for drip connections. I assume that every year I'd have to purchase new drip hoses & fittings because the crops would be rotated? I have single hills for watermellon, canalope, okra, radishes & squash and rows for beans, peas, corn & radishes. I'm not sure if I should use a single head for the hills and the "tape" for the rows? OR, if I'm way off base with this, I'm sure ya'll will educate me.
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Last edited by CDLong on Wed Apr 19, 2017 4:11 am, edited 1 time in total.

gumbo2176
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This is how I water my main garden area that is about 25 ft. x 45 ft. in area. I used two 2x4's and dug holes about 18" deep to set them in and allowed about 5 ft. to remain above ground. On top of the 2x4 I secured a flat piece of plywood with a couple screws and put a couple of those fan type sprinklers on the plywood and tied them in place. I'll run my hose out to the garden with a splitter on it and supply water to both sprinklers and let them run to water the garden.

This way I don't need to do more than run the hoses and turn the water on. No need to move sprinklers or stand around taking the time to water most of it. I do use the hose with a nozzle to get to the trellises and raised bed area, but that only takes a few minutes of my time.

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applestar
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What was your problem with the soaker hose? My methods are very casual, but it looks like you should be able to make use of the grade/incline and put one run along the inside of the upper timber and a second run smack along the center -- midway and let gravity spread the water downslope. This way you won't be watering the sidewalk.

I have yet to learn to use other irrigation gizmos and would either use a tape or soaker hose -- loop a single long one ? That might be too long of a run -- connect two or more with a short recycled piece of hose. I like using snap connectors and hose repair connectors. Use L or Y hose connectors. You might have better distribution if you start with a manifold in the middle of all that long stretch rather than the end?


...umm... if you are planting food crops, are you not concerned about dogs on walks doing their stuff or kids playing? People tossing in cigarette butts and who knows what? May be I misread. I think I would have left what you turned into bed as lawn, and located the bed just above that or even closer to the house. A picket fence to separate and maybe a flower bed border on the sidewalk side...

A cul-de-sac with extra-front yard corner and all that street-side curb and long stretch of lawn away from any of the houses means parking space for the neighbors' driving age kids and and their visitors when they have parties, discharging passengers who are not always so considerate.

gumbo2176
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I'm not sure what my cities stance is on this, but some communities don't allow the growing of food crops on the front lawns, and especially that close to the sidewalk. It is even more stringent if there is an HOA involved that pretty much dictate everything you can and can't do to your own property.

I do have a few flower beds in the front of my house that are bordered and I know I sometimes have issues with dogs and cats thinking it is their private latrine----not so much with cigarette butts or other trash discarded by passersby. And that is a miracle since there is a very popular watering hole(bar) right down the street from my house that stays open till the wee hours of the morning many nights.

imafan26
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If you are going to make your bed along a slope to the sidewalk. I would make the rows follow the contour instead of short rows to the side walk. It preserves more soil and you will have less erosion and water runoff without soaking in problems.
If your water pressure is adequate soakers work. The only drip soakers available now beside hydo tape which is only good for one season are pressure compensated. So you can make your run as long as you have minimum pressure. You have to calculate your gallons per minute by timing how many gallons of water from the faucet you can fill in a minute. I would take three measurements to make sure. Remember if someone opens a faucet anywhere in the house, the time will change and your gallons per hour will drop. I would calculate the gph of each dripper which is usually 0.5 gallons per hour. Divide that into the gallons per hour you calculated (gallons per minute x 60). That gives you the max drippers that can be supported on a single line. I would max out at 80 percent of the max to account for someone opening the faucet once in a while. Most lines work as long as the total length does not exceed 200 ft or go up hill. Run your soakers to follow the contour of the grass and make your rows go the other way. If you furrow, put the soakers in the bottom of the furrow to encourage the roots to go down and you will have less runoff. If you need longer lengths then you would need a multizone timer. Be aware that soakers cannot be run for 5 or 10 minutes a day. They deliver 0.5 gallons per emitter on average and are spaced about 12-18 inches apart. You will have to initially hand soak the ground to make sure everything is evenly moist and the minimum time to run a system is about 4 hours. You can run it during off peak hours, like in the early morning or at night. It is a soaker so it won't splash leaves normally. Drip systems are low pressure systems. The pressure needs to be reduced to 20-35lbs psi, so it does not use as much water as you think. Depending on the soil and how fast it dries (mulch), you don't always have to water every day. You still have to have about an inch a week of water or rain for most things. I have made a cheap soaker that runs shorter but not on a slope. You can take a 50 ft soaker hose. Turn it upside down and run it in the furrow of the bed. Because you are on a slope you cannot turn it on all the way. Attach the end of the soaker to a short hose that leads to the faucet. Turn the faucet on halfway. Check the end of the soaker hose to make sure water is coming out the last holes. The water should be trickling down into the soil. You will have to check to see how long it takes for the soaker hose to moisten the soil 4 inches deep and figure out how wide the water spreads out from the side of the hose. You may have to put in a second hose or leave it on longer to get the full width. That will be how long you have to leave the hose on to use it as a soaker. If you get runoff before you get a soak you need to turn the faucet down more so the water has more chance to go into the soil.

CDLong
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The issue with soaker hoses was lack of water in the last 2 lengths of hose. Yes, I had a 100 ft run. I didn't have time to break down and water in sections. The rows are planted across due to thunderstorms. Several years we planted them long ways and they were washed away by storms before the plants could root. I ended up digging down at the timbers and placing 2 layers of weed blocker to keep the dirt in the bed. County govt & HOA have no issues with my garden. There are several other families that have followed our lead. We are in an older neighborhood and have very little parking on the street. Most folks' kids are grown and gone so we can actually get into and park in our driveways. Folks keep their dogs and cats out of it, (might have something to do with video cameras we installed after having watermellons & cantalope stolen several years back). Trash in the bed isn't an issue. Water flow is 482 gph.

imafan26
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Location: Hawaii, zone 12a 587 ft elev.

A shorter run should work then. How long did you keep the water on? If you use pressure compensating hoses and you do not exceed the flow, there should be water along the entire line. If you use non-presssure compensating hoses like the rubber tire hoses or sprinkler hoses, then the run should be divided. Rubber soakers clog over time so I don't like to use them.

I had an in ground system installed 20 years ago and I have a 6 zone timer. Two zones are for grass and 4 zones are for drip. I did have one faucet timer but the ants kept getting in the timer and destroying it so, I manually turn that zone on now.

The automatic timer is a more efficient way to water and since the in ground system bypasses the house valve the pressure is higher. There is maintenance though. The water timer only lasts about 8-10 years and my valves are leaking now and I cannot get diaphragms so I have to replace the leaking valves on the manifold. The drip system is older than the sprinkler system and I have had to replace clogged emitters and they should be tested monthly. I have mostly microsprinklers.

CDLong
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I ran the water usually an hour, or until I could see the ground was saturated. We have gotten a lot of rain the last few days and plants are coming up. Several rows of peas, beans and corn seeds were exposed so yesterday while it was sunny, I attended to them. I have been thinking about running 3/4" PVC from the house underground to the top center of the bed, then across the top landscape timbers with a tee and a valve every 5 ft. then soaker hoses to the plants. I consider this because of rotating the plants yearly.

imafan26
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Location: Hawaii, zone 12a 587 ft elev.

That would work.
I actually don't like to work with pvc and glue because it is a rigid system. It is more trouble to fix than drip.

I just run the drip mainline to my beds or a garden hose from the faucet to the bed. From there I put in inline valves to divide the garden in sections so I can water each one separately or turn off the water to a section when I am working on it. It is how my community garden is set up. Timers are not allowed, so I have to water the garden by hand. So I either turn everything on and sit in my car for an hour or I turn off one section and water the other two while I am weeding the closed section. I can either hand water or water that section after while I work on another part of the garden. Sometimes when the garden has a leak, there isn't enough water pressure to run all the sections so I have to run one or two sections at a time. My beds are roughly 10x10 and 12x10 plus the perimeter. I have a spot sprinkler similar to the one you have to do the perimeter strips and one sprinkler for each bed. One standard 360 head is enough to cover one of my beds since it has a 12-15 ft throw. I can't use a machine gun sprinkler because it would throw it into my neighbor's yard. Microsprinklers throw 3-6 ft depending on the water pressure.

CDLong
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Location: Newark, Delaware

You have a very good point about the PVC pipe. I could have a mishap with the tractor or mower. Guess I'll do some more thinking about how to water.



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