tvr4
Newly Registered
Posts: 2
Joined: Fri May 28, 2021 10:52 pm

auto irrigation for home garden

I bought an automatic watering system for my garden but am not sure of the best sprayer configuration.
There are three types of irrigation heads and I am not sure what to use for the different areas of my garden.

I have cucumbers, tomato, and corn with a separate garden for strawberries.

I am attaching pics of the sprayers and the kit.

Any help is greatly appreciated
Thanks
Attachments
Orange-2.jpg
Orange-Sprayers.jpg
Watering-Kit.jpg

pepperhead212
Super Green Thumb
Posts: 2852
Joined: Wed Oct 15, 2014 1:52 pm
Location: Woodbury NJ Zone 7a/7b

Welcome to the forum!

For most things just simple drip emitters are best, since they don't wet the leaves, which makes it easier for fungal diseases to develop. I'm sure there are some things to use all those sprayers and misters for, but anything prone to fungal diseases would be better with the drippers. And the less output per gallon the better, as a rule, as there is less runoff - most just soaks in, before running off. With some, you may have larger plants in the same row as smaller ones, so you might put some 1 gal/hr with 1/2 gal/hr,

I have almost everything on drip emitters in my garden, and on 9 separate timers! It takes time to set them up, initially, but saves an incredible amount of time every season. You won't be disappointed. Those quick connect/disconnect items I see in your set are great, too - much faster for switching from one row to another, when you don't have some connected all the time.

tvr4
Newly Registered
Posts: 2
Joined: Fri May 28, 2021 10:52 pm

Would the red nozzle be a dripper?

It looks like the orange nozzles are sprayers.

I am attaching a picture of my garden layout

Thanks for the help
Attachments
20210523_114321.jpg

imafan26
Mod
Posts: 13962
Joined: Tue Jan 01, 2013 8:32 am
Location: Hawaii, zone 12a 587 ft elev.

I use the micro sprayers mostly for ground covers. I agree that tomatoes, cucumber and strawberries are better with a soaker or drip emitters. They are prone to fungal disease and you want to avoid splashing the leaves. Different emitters and soakers can be adapted to your system. It looks like it might have had some drip emitters. I can't tell what the GPH is on the emitters. Strawberries would take a shorter time because they have shallower roots systems. Tomato, cukes and corn have deeper roots and will take longer.

Unless you have micro tomatoes, it is better to put the tomato supports in while they are still small. I plant my cucumbers closer. I have a small garden space too and I put 3 cucumbers on a trellis (stacked two folding tomato cages and supported with long stakes.

I don't like to take the time to prune tomatoes so I use CRW cages. Florida weave will also work, but that is more work than I want to do and I only have 2-3 tomatoes. Cone tomato supports are only good for peppers.

Corn will not pollinate well unless you can plant it in a block or you bag the tassels and hand pollinate. My minimum block would be 4x4 rows. Minimum plant spacing of 8 inches instead of 12. Less than that, the pollen ends up on the leaves not the silk.

Since you are planting in rows anyway a soaker or drip tape will work. Drip tape is not pressure compensating. Soakers can be compensating. You have to get soakers with the spacing you need they come with 6-18 inch spacing. Place your plants next to the emitters as it will not soak all of the ground space. The recycled rubber tire soakers only work for a short time then they will start clogging badly. Not really worth the trouble. All of these can be used with a faucet timer or a manifold/timer system or just connected to a faucet with shut offs to each section and manually controlled. Make sure you have an anti siphon valve if you do that to protect the water supply.

The number of emitters your system will allow will depend on water pressure. Calculate your gallons per minute by timing how long it takes to fill a gallon container and dividing the time into a minute (60 seconds). Calculate gallons per hour by multiplying by 60 (60 minutes in an hour). I calculate max load by using 80% of that number as the max GPH. Your emitters total GPH should not exceed that. Or you can do it the other way, no math involved. When you add one too many emitters the pressure drops below 20 psi and the water will stop flowing. Remove the last emitter and put in a goof plug. Get lots of goof plugs, you will probably need it. If you run the system uphill, to hanging containers it will require more pressure against gravity.

Ants kept nesting in my timer and breaking it, so I ended up with a manual system. I used my phone or a cooking timer to remind me to turn it off.



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