Posted: 4/21/2009 4:44:04 PM EDT
I think we crossed a line at some point when we started thinking about "irrigation" as compared to "watering the garden".
I finally pulled the trigger on spending the $$$ on components for a dripline system. We've been making do for years with soaker hoses but I've wanted to do dripline so we could plant to the irrigation setup instead of adapting the irrigation to the plants. (Does that make any sense?) In any case, this year we're gonna have a dripline setup. Got the guts of it in hand and will spend most of tomorrow setting up our main planting area. Went with 1/2" emitter tubing with emitters spaced at 9", 12" 18" and 36". The rolls in the picture are 500' each. That should take care of pretty much every plant we want to grow. Got some 1/2" mainline tubing too. The manifold shown below will let me set up four zones in our main garden. Got a few extra filters and regulators as we have several other areas that need to be set up as single zone systems. More pics later as things progress. I've never set up a dripline system before, so input is welcome. 
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As usual, you went balls deep.
I have everything on a Raindrip system. Much smaller scale. I would suggest: Use a timer, dawn, late afternoon and when it gets really hot this summer, add a short mid-day cycle. Adjust accordingly by zone and plant type with your manifold, valves and emitter heads. Always moniter for leaks. I like my system. It's pretty much, "set-it-and-forget-it". |
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As usual, you went balls deep.
I have everything on a Raindrip system. Much smaller scale. I would suggest: Use a timer, dawn, late afternoon and when it gets really hot this summer, add a short mid-day cycle. Adjust accordingly by zone and plant type with your manifold, valves and emitter heads. Always moniter for leaks. I like my system. It's pretty much, "set-it-and-forget-it". "Balls deep" is a pretty good way to put it. 
I kinda short circuited when I got to thinking about putting our system on a timer. I want to do that eventually but it'll probably be next season. Gotta figure out my options in terms of powering the valves for a system on a timer. I just have too much on my plate right now to get that level of function built into this system. 
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I tend to prefer one deeper watering per day, but then my drip experience has been in a greenhouse mostly––pots exclusively, even when they were outside, so it may not be applicable. (I've always used soaker for gardens) I like the deeper root systems I get with deeper waterings, but as I said, take that advice as coming from a greenhouse drip background. And you'll do fine. You're mechanically-minded anyway, and it ain't rocket science ya know? Follow the book for the length of your runs and the sizes of your lines so you get enough water. I like lots of valves so I have lots of options for watering parts and not other parts, but I'm high-maintenance that way. ETA: AND now that you see the makeup of their valve systems, you can build your own ya know? |
| So I did drip irrigation in my square foot garden last year but have expanded it this year. I went the individual emitter route per plant and it worked well but I'm not looking forward to doing it this year due to the increased size and the pain in the ass of placing the emitters. Has anyone actually used the laser cut drip line before? How long of a run can you get at say 60psi but you start getting roll off at the end of the line? |
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ETA: AND now that you see the makeup of their valve systems, you can build your own ya know? I built that manifold....at least from the components. As you said, it ain't rocket science. Didn't get as far today as I wanted (do we ever?) but got the manifld up and got the mainlines run. Gotta tidy up the lines and add the tubing into the rows. Also ran emitter tubing to a row of 40 hazelnuts we planted a few weeks ago. The stuff's easy to work with......even though I pretty much hate doing plumbing. Got four zones for this patch of garden and added a zone for the hazelnuts and an extra hose outlet. The T-post installation is pretty cheesy....but it'll be easy to pull at the end of the season. I'm not going for looks here. 
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Going to use the water coming off your roof (stored in the huge containers we saw in your other recent thread) for this? If not, what are you going to use that water for? If you plan to use collected water, or well water, it is probably a good idea to put a filter in line or over the years your drip heads may clog up. |
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Going to use the water coming off your roof (stored in the huge containers we saw in your other recent thread) for this? If not, what are you going to use that water for? I'm probably gonna play around with a gravity fed dripline for some squash beds that are directly downhill from where the totes are up at the house. The rest of the water we'll use for filling cans for spot watering beds that aren't done with the dripline. Gonna adapt one of them for a hog waterer too. |
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Going to use the water coming off your roof (stored in the huge containers we saw in your other recent thread) for this? If not, what are you going to use that water for? If you plan to use collected water, or well water, it is probably a good idea to put a filter in line or over the years your drip heads may clog up. The black thing on the left of the valve manifold is a filter. 
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I probably should have asked what you were going to do with all that water in the other thread –– just confused me a bit to have several 250-gallon containers but I didn't see a reason for them (maybe I just overlooked it). 
When you posted this thread I figured you were going to use the water from the containers to irrigate your garden area. |
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When you posted this thread I figured you were going to use the water from the containers to irrigate your garden area. That was my original plan, but we're trying to transition from "large family garden" to "small market garden" and ran into some practical hurdles regarding water output vs. collection rates utilizing a gravity fed system. 
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Anxious for more updates on the drip system...... Also ran emitter tubing to a row of 40 hazelnuts we planted a few weeks ago. To me, this is the perfect target for drip. Something that's going to STAY there––or a POT, like a tropical plant, that's going to get sold and then replaced with another pot, in a greenhouse environment. For straight-up gardening, the lines drive me apeshit. But if you're growing a crop that's going to stay in one place over a period of years? Oh yeah. Drip is PERFECT. |
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Things have been moving slowly forward on this project. Been too busy with other things.
Got 4 zones set up in this patch with onions, peppers and cold weather crops planted thus far. I don't find this stuff much more time consuming than dealing with soaker hoses. The emitter tubing (with pre-installed emitters) goes down easy and is easy to connect together with these twist-lock fittings. It is a bit more time consuming than soaker hose, but it's easier to customize length of runs and change orientation of rows than with soaker hose. We'll see if it's worth it in the end. (And, yes, the patch in the foreground needs to be cultivated––it's a weed patch 'til we put tomatoes in there. )
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I don't know how you feel about using liquid fertilizers, but if you're interested, I can send you some pics of how to set up a fertilizer siphon that will tie into your drip irrigation lines. Very effective and great results.
It's pretty cheap and an effective way to make it. |
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My experience this year, for what it's worth....
I purchased all Rainbird brand drip components to run off my well in the garden. The valves are 1" with an integrated Pressure reducer to 40 psi, and a filter/strainer to filter the water prior to entering the lines. Using pipe that emits every 12" o.c., at 0.9 GPM per, I figured on running about 240 linear feet of tube per valve before maxing my situaton out. Also, a smart controller like the Weathermatic Smartline that I bought has a weather station option for future "smart programming" according to zip code, plant & soil type, and % to vary each month along the year. It'll run up to about 32 start times a day, which is 30 more than I need... all that said, it's kicking butt, with no problems so far. Glad to see I'm not the only one tired of soaker hoses.. Good luck with yours! 
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What's the difference between a soaker hose and a dripline system? Soaker hose is porous and oozes water throughout its whole length. If you lay down 50' of soaker hose you'll water 50' of row. Dripline has "emitters" that water the plants. The only place the water leaks is where there's an emitter. Some dripline has pre-installed emitters (like mine) and some has to have the emitters installed. |
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Were you able to buy your dripline components locally or did you have to order them. I'd sure like to be able to find them in a store where I can look at the parts before I buy them as well as have a local source for the parts I break or that I forgot to buy the first time.
We're putting in more raised beds and want to set them up for easy watering around our work schedules. |
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Quoted: I don't know how you feel about using liquid fertilizers, but if you're interested, I can send you some pics of how to set up a fertilizer siphon that will tie into your drip irrigation lines. Very effective and great results. It's pretty cheap and an effective way to make it. This is one of the big values in drip irrigation to me. Buy a hozon and a five gallon bucket and shazam, you've got a feeder system. I watered and fertilized ten thousand square feet of greenhouse this way. I would cut you if you got near my hozon. http://elitegardening.com/gardening_accessories/index.html?gclid=CL_nhOD0yZoCFQJvswodzx2K3Q I dunno if this is the best price or not, but it's worth every penny. |
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I don't know how you feel about using liquid fertilizers, but if you're interested, I can send you some pics of how to set up a fertilizer siphon that will tie into your drip irrigation lines. Very effective and great results. It's pretty cheap and an effective way to make it. This is one of the big values in drip irrigation to me. Buy a hozon and a five gallon bucket and shazam, you've got a feeder system. I watered and fertilized ten thousand square feet of greenhouse this way. I would cut you if you got near my hozon. http://elitegardening.com/gardening_accessories/index.html?gclid=CL_nhOD0yZoCFQJvswodzx2K3Q I dunno if this is the best price or not, but it's worth every penny. That's an interesting gizmo, Kitties. I might pick one of those up and play around with it. |
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Were you able to buy your dripline components locally or did you have to order them. I'd sure like to be able to find them in a store where I can look at the parts before I buy them as well as have a local source for the parts I break or that I forgot to buy the first time. We're putting in more raised beds and want to set them up for easy watering around our work schedules. I couldn't find anything locally and used DripWorks for the supplies. They're a good outfit to work with and seem happy to spend time on the phone giving technical advice. I know what you mean about wanting to see the stuff in person before buying though. I'm pretty happy with the 1/2" emitter tubing and very happy with their Easy Loc connectors. The connectors make hooking up the tubing very quick. |
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Well, it's been a few weeks
How's it workin for ya? Is it worth the money and effort yet? Why'd you choose the 1/2" emitter tubing over the T-Tape Anything I should consider before I spend my money? How many actual row/feet of garden are you covering with your system? Thanks again |
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Well, it's been a few weeks How's it workin for ya? Is it worth the money and effort yet? Why'd you choose the 1/2" emitter tubing over the T-Tape Anything I should consider before I spend my money? How many actual row/feet of garden are you covering with your system? Thanks again Well, it works great. Can't really say yet if it's "worth the money" but I think it will be once we're using more of it. Right now we have about 1200 feet deployed. While the dripline wasn't cheap, it certainly wouldn't be cheap to buy that much soaker hose either. Once the manifold was up and the mainlines run, it wasn't very time consuming to deal with than soakers would've been. I think the 1/2" tubing was cheaper given the variety of emitter spacings that I wanted. The T-tape would've been cheaper if I wanted just a single emitter spacing. (But I don't really have a great reason for choosing one over the other.) Best advice I can give you is to spend a lot of time figuring out exactly what you need so you buy exactly what you need the first time around––no more, no less.
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