vegtable garden irrigation

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We have a 2500 square foot vegtable garden and would like to spend less effort watering it as well as use less water. Last summer was the worst drought in 120 years so water had to be conserved. We also like to get away for a week or 2 in the summer and rely on other people to water the garden so we are thinking of making some type of irrigation system that would save them effort if not time as well to water. We were thinking of using hard perforated plastic tubing that could lie done the center of the beds (we garden intensively). These tubes would connect up to a main tube that a hose could attach to. Anyway, has anyone else build something like this (inexpensively)? Any guidance you could give us would be greatly appreciated.

-- susan banks (susan.banks@sait.ab.ca), January 23, 2002

Answers

I got the kit at Lowe's. Have tried all the cheap ways, and it wasn't worth the hassle.

-- Rose in the Texas Coastal Bend (open_rose@hotmail.com), January 23, 2002.

Drip Irrigation is the only eay to go. You put drippers where you want and connect the whole thing up to a timer and then go on vacation. Right amount of water goes where you want it when you want it.

-- A. Johnson (qltfnish@omniglobal.net), January 24, 2002.

I used heavy mulch and sprinklers last few years, but got a bunch of drip hose on clearance @ Wally World when they were cleaning out the garden center. I'm gonna lay that down the center of my rows, then mulch over the top of it all, and attach to a timer.

Also look into Drip Works and their products.

-- Eric in TN (eric_m_stone@yahoo.com), January 25, 2002.


We have three gardens that are on drip irrigation. We purchased our pipe from an irrigation company in town that is used by mostly orchardist with acres and acres. The pipe has predrilled holes in 1/2" pipe set at 12" apart. We have a 2" PVC pipe with valves on each 60 foot line so that we can plant at different intravals and not have every line of the system on. The pipe ran $125 for 500 feet. The connections were less than $2.00 per line and we have 24 just in one garden. We do not have it set up on a timer yet, but that is what my husband is planning to do this summer. Now, for those plants that need extra such as cucumbers etc. we have used a 5 gal. bucket drilled with holes in the bottom section and buried next to the plant, filled as need by hand with manure tea. For my kitchen garden which is out the back door and is 16 X 30 we have that system on drip but soaker hoses that we purchased from ACE hardware for I believe $10.00 for 50 feet. It is perfect for lettuce, scallions, etc. And each line is on a valve so that I can stagger plantings of lettuce etc. We mulch with winter straw out of the barn and weeds are minimal. When we go on vacation the grandfather comes out and feeds the animals and would just turn the main valves on and check the 5 gal. buckets to see if they needed water. When we got home this last summer there was really not that much to "catch-up" on. We have tried the drip line with all the little gadgets and they were a pain, expensive and made rotating crops difficult. In the garden that I first described we have a metal fence post at the top of each row and in the winter we just drain the lines, my husband blows the 2 inch pipe out with his air compressor and then rolls the pipe up and ties it for the winter to the metal pipe. Spring its ready to roll out and plant. Hope this can help.

-- (Mamafila@AOL.com), January 25, 2002.

I like the idea of burying pails, I think we will try this for all the plants we only plant a few of (pumpkins, squash etc). We are going to try drip irrigation for the other crops and hopefully won't need too many hoses with planting intensively. Thanks for the help!

-- susan banks (susan.banks@sait.ab.ca), January 28, 2002.


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