We spent a lot of time and money on an irrigation system for our garden. It involves a complicated arrangement of black pvc pipe with t-tape coming off the nozzles at each row, and turn-off valves for each nozzle as well as for various zones, so we can control what gets watered when. We have been running the system during the night so that the hot sun doesn't crack the tape when the cold well water flows through it, using low pressure, but it doesn't seem to moisten much more than just the area directly under the tape. As a result we're back to an oscillating sprinkler to make sure the garden gets enough water. Does anyone else have that sort of system and do you have any better luck with it?
Irrigation Systems
Hey Gal. Do a search for automatic watering system in the self-contained gardens forum by Bocabob. Costs about $65 and will deliver water to 45 different sites. Can be put together in about 30 minutes. Linda
We've been using T-tape for years. Yours sounds like it's working exactly like it's supposed to. No need to water the areas where only weeds will grow.
The water from the T-tape will get down to the roots of your vegetables.
We grow lots of carrots. In order to be able to pull them out of the ground we run the T-tape for a couple hours. Then you can go along & pull any carrot you care to without hurting the others.
Never heard about cracking T-tape with cold water. Our water comes from our well & is very cold. We water only during the day. Somebody would have get up in the middle of the night to shut it off.
It only takes 2 or 3 hours to get an area enough water.
Oh, by the way, we are covering a couple acres with our T-tape.
Bernie
Bernie, do you run yours at a trickle or is the faucet turned on more than that? I double-plant my rows and I was hoping that a tape between the two would get them both, but apparently not.
Maybe it was just a faulty piece of T-tape, but when we ran it in the daytime one of them cracked and we had to replace it. The friend who has it on his huge garden and loves it just runs it all night, which is what we've tried to do, but the last time I did that the ground was barely moistened, especially further away from the source. My T-tape has emitters every 12". What brand do you use, do you know? I was going to order mine from Peaceful Valley but decided to go with a local supplier and then found when I needed replacements that I had to stick with the ones I bought locally because the parts, of course, were not interchangeable.
How much area do you cover each time you water? Is yours set up in zones or do you water everything at once?
My soil is very sandy, even with all the amendments, so that may make a difference in how it works.
Linda, what took so long to set my system up was the layout of my garden. We have four zones, one of which is a small orchard of dwarf trees, and had to run the pipe for half the garden under a brick walk. It was a huge hassle to get it all in place and I'm really disappointed that it isn't working better. Maybe, as Bernie suggests, my expectations are at fault.
I'll take a look at Bocabob's system just out of curiosity. Thanks!
Leslie
We have T-Tape brand. Our carrots & beets are double rowed, about 6" apart. Tape right down the middle. Some of our runs are nearly 300 feet long. We had some over 350 feet last year.
We use the 5/8" 6 mil tape.
We run about 5 lbs of water pressure.
We have hooked it to a 750 gallon tank & let gravity feed it. Worked great, too.
To much pressure might be cracking your tape. It's not made to handle high pressure.
Do you have a pressure gauge on the line? We used to have one on ever line, but have kind of got used to what it should be & don't use as many. 5 lbs isn't a very fast stream of water!
Bernie
Wow, if it works in your setup it should work in ours. None of our tapes are that long - even the one that loops around the end of the tomato row and comes back down it. I'll have to take another look at our situation. Thanks, Bernie.
greenhouse-gal - I'm doing this from memory - but as I understand it - SANDY soil will only water the ground immediately below the water source. The more CLAY there is in the soil, the further away from the water source the water will go.
Imagine a pyramid -- with sandy soil, the top point gets water, and then the water goes straight down. -- with Clay soil, the whole pyramid gets water.
Hope that was easy to understand.
Very easy, Honeybee, and it's what I suspected. Our soil isn't really pure sand, of course, or it wouldn't grow crops, but even with the amendments it's mainly sandy loam. We joke that in our area the drops of rain move faster once they hit the ground than they do falling from the sky!
greenhouse_gal - I was thinking more about your watering woes this morning, and the only think I could think of was for you to put a loop around each plant - but that seems impracticable.
Honeybee, I almost have that in the tomato rows, but those I've been watering with the oscillating sprinkler. It just seems to deliver a lot more and more thoroughly. HOWever, yesterday we got 1.25" of rain, so my watering woes are at bay right now! Everything looks a lot greener, too. Thanks for the thought, though!