Drip Irrigation For Vegetable Garden Layout – Vegetables need sufficient and consistent water to grow well. Most vegetables are 70-95 percent water, and it all has to come from somewhere. When it comes to watering your vegetable garden, we have found that a drip irrigation system with an automatic timer is the best way to achieve the even watering your plants need. While a drip irrigation system is a little more expensive and time consuming to install than, say, a garden hose, it will save you time, water and money in the long run.
Drip irrigation is a system of narrow plastic pipes that slowly deliver water directly to the surface of the earth. Because the water is released slowly, it has time to seep into the soil rather than run off or flow through the soil. A properly installed and monitored drip system provides just the right amount of water with very little waste. Once installed, it’s largely hands-free, although you should check the soil’s moisture level every week or so if the weather changes to make sure you’re not over- or under-watering. A weekly moisture check and a 30 second update of your timer settings will ensure you are properly watered all season long.
Drip Irrigation For Vegetable Garden Layout
Drip irrigation can also be useful when planning your garden. We always sow and transplant along drip lines so that we have even germination and water is directed to the emerging plant roots.
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One of the key benefits is that once you have a drip system installed and up and running, you can spend your garden time weeding, planting, and harvesting instead of just standing around with a hose. You’ll be amazed how much easier it is to keep up with seasonal gardening tasks when the watering component is off the to-do list.
Drip irrigation systems can seem complex, but all you need for a vegetable garden is something simple, easy, and inexpensive.
Many companies sell small garden drip irrigation kits that include everything you need to build your system. We strongly recommend looking into these. We particularly like the DripWorks Garden Bed Irrigation Kit from Dripworks. (Don’t let the naming confuse you: Soaker Drip Line, this is actually a ¼ hose with emitters every 6 inches. We recommend any size emitter hose over the soaker hose as it tends to last much longer and water more evenly. ) We also like the Drip Tape Row Crop Kit Drip tape is our preferred watering medium and what we use in 80% of client gardens, but it’s also less flexible in terms of spatial arrangement.
1/4″ Emitter Tubing (Drip Tape Row Crop Kit with Timer) works very well in pots, around perennials, and in garden beds shaped in organic shapes.
How To Install Drip Irrigation In Raised Garden Beds (drip Tape)
Drip Tape (Drip Tape Row Crop Kit with Timer) works well in square beds or for long rows.
For detailed instructions on installing your own drip irrigation system, see our book: Growing Food Properly in Your Garden. How to build a drip irrigation system.
By following this photo diagram for the PVC manifold you can cut and assemble the necessary pieces to accommodate a 3 foot wide garden bed.
Proper watering is one of the most important aspects of growing your own vegetables. On a recent trip to Virginia, I met Scott and Susan Hill of Hill Farm. Scott and Susan turned their retirement into a profitable farming venture. Susan is a master of the add-on and accounting part of the operation and Scott is the architect, maintenance man and everything else. Scott was a helicopter maintenance test pilot in the US Army before retiring. His skills in fluid dynamics shine in his development of this unique dual irrigation system.
Vegetable Garden Drip Tape Irrigation Kit
Scott and Susan use these dual irrigation systems in both their raised beds and soil beds at Hill Farm. One part of the system consists of a series of three soak hoses and the other part is for drip irrigation. Scott designed this system to get the most out of Hill Farm’s well water and support the farm’s amazing harvests month after month all year round.
With a little time and effort, you can build your own dual irrigation system with easy-to-find parts at a reasonable cost. Depending on the length of your garden beds and the quality of your materials, you can expect to spend around $60 to $85 per unit. Scott suggests using higher quality materials because, in his own words, “The better the quality, the fewer repairs are needed.”
The length of your growing beds ultimately determines how many emitters, pipe clamps and hose feet you need for each bed. Scott recommends that you purchase your soak hose in large coils, which are the closest to the quantity you need. You can then cut it to the exact lengths that work best for your garden beds. These rolls are generally available in lengths from 50 feet to 500 feet.
Scott also suggests, “Don’t make the same mistake I did – don’t mix sizes.” He only uses 3/4-inch tubing to build his systems because the male and female tubing fittings only come in a single size, to accommodate hoses from 5/8 inch to 3/4 inch. Scott has found that when using these fittings with 5/8″ hoses in the past, after about a month the hoses snapped at the coupler and his beds were getting a lot of water, so he decided to stick with 3/4″. stay -inch hose.
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The width of your bed will determine the lengths of PVC that make up the dual irrigation system manifold. The spreader described in this guide is for a 3 foot wide garden bed, but you can modify the same basic spreader design to accommodate garden beds of different widths. So, once you’ve gathered all your supplies and have an idea of the length of hose you’ll need and the spacing of your emitter and soaker hoses, you can start laying out your components next to your grow bed. This will help you visualize how everything will fit together before you start gluing the PVC components together and cutting your drip tubing and drip irrigation tubing to length.
1. Start by cutting your drip hoses and drip irrigation hoses to the length of your garden bed. Cap one end of each hose and attach a female hose patcher to the opposite end.
2. To create a PVC divider for a 3 foot wide garden bed, cut three 10″ pieces, one 4″ piece and eight 2-1/2″ pieces from your length of PVC. By cutting the 10″ pieces either longer or shorter, you can accommodate wider or narrower beds and create the correct spacing of your soak hoses to meet your specific needs.
3. Using the photo diagram on page 73 as a guide, lay out your fittings and PVC pipe sections in the correct configuration for assembly.
Master Gardener Kit
4. Apply PVC adhesive to a single joint, press the joint firmly and hold the joint until the cement hardens. Repeat this process for all PVC connections and fittings.
6. Using the drip irrigation hose punch, place the emitters on the drip hose at the desired spacing (see photo above left). Attach the polyethylene tubing to the emitters.
7. Attach the manifold and drip irrigation hose to the frame of your raised bed using the 1″ pipe clamps. Alternatively, if you are using soil beds, you can route the drip hose where it is needed for the plants you are growing.
8. Connect a water source to your completed irrigation system and turn it on to check for leaks, check your hoses for proper placement, and make sure your shut-off valves are working properly.
Online Class: Watering Your Vegetable Garden: Saving Time, Money, & Water
Now just sit back and marvel at how well this watering system waters your plants. By not spraying water on the leaves of your plants, you help prevent them from scorching in the hot sun. You’ll also save water after determining how long you want to run your system based on the growth stage of your plants and the time of ye
ar. And with this system, you can spend less time watering and more time harvesting and prepping your beautiful plants throughout the growing season.
For tips on setting up and maintaining your irrigation system, see “Watering Tips from Mother Earth News.”
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