IRRIGATING Containers and container gardens?

I know it can be done, and I've even seen posts of how to set it up. Do I remember? Of course not. Now that I have a LOT of containers (63!), suddenly I'm a lot more interested. I generally prefer my in-the-ground perennials (and wintersowed seeds) to make do with what's served, or go elsewhere. (Darwinian gardening.) But I feel that's too much to ask of my gorgeous containers. Still, I'd rather not water the patio, or the space between the containers. Can someone refer me to a website or a thread? I thought there was an irrigation forum - silly me.

THANKS!

xxx, Carrie

This is the container garden my DDs and DH made me for mothers day - now crammed with 63 containers! If only my USB port were working. I would show you some of the more recent group shots! Meanwhile, please be assured that in addition to the 63 aforementioned containers, there are also plenty of hanging (or waiting for a hook) baskets, etc.

x. C

Hi Carrie,
I love my drip irrigation system. I think of it as tinker toys for grownups. Here is my herb garden, which is a sort of container garden. It has spaghetti (0.25 inch) tubing along the inside (black line) and each plant has a T with a short segment of clear tubing and a dripper at the end. Both ends of the spaghetti are connected to a half inch main line and the whole thing waters 21 containers. It took me about an hour to set up.
Janel

The other way to water lots of plants is with inline drippers. This photo is my tomato bed. The tubing has drippers set in it at each place I want to water and makes a big loop (both ends connect to the big line). Small tubes can only carry about 10 gallons per minute so you want to limit the number of drippers on a small line and connect both ends so the pressure is relatively equal along the whole length, instead of strong at one end and weak at the other.

Sometimes on a big container I will make a loop of 0.25 inch soaker to fit inside and connect that to the supply line instead of a dripper. The water gets distributed around the pot better that way.

What's a dripper? "each plant has a T with a short segment of clear tubing and a dripper at the end. " It took you an hour to set up with xperience? How long would it have taken a rank amateur?

BTW, what a beautiful herb garden! What are you using for containers? They're perfect!!!

And how do you turn the water on and off?

Thanks so much, Janel. My DH is already groaning at the idea of another project. How much does all this stuff cost? I don't think I've ever seen such lushness unless at a college campus or a hotel in the your area! Then again, most of my experience with Nevada is the Las Vegas airport.

xxx, Carrie

Hi Carrie,
We're not quite as hot and dry as vegas but it almost seems like it today. It's 99° with the wind blowing smoke over from California.

You can usually get a starter kit at lowes, HD, etc that has a timer that you connect to your spigot and assorted tubes, connectors and drippers. Here's a photo of a small kit I bought to keep all the little parts organized.

I got my mom started with one of the kits and she tells everyone that she has very little gardening ability, but her flowers look great.

Our system is on a big computerized timer with five valves and underground pipes all over the yard. I don't recommend it as a weekend project. Here is a photo of some of the parts from my irrigation box. The mister and sprinkler are set up on stakes to water a small patch of lawn or groups of small pots. The valve can be added to a line to control the flow of water to a group of sprinklers or a stretch of soaker hose.

The inline dripper has two barbed ends and lets most of the water pass through while dripping a little out the side. Several inline drippers can be connected in a row and the end of the line has to be capped or connected to something else. The button dripper has one barbed and one straight end. The barbed end connects to the water supply and the water drips out the other end. Buttons can only be connected at the end of a line.

The two connectors connect pieces of tubing and plug fills holes that are made by mistake or if you want to change something. The clamp nails into wooden fence posts or deck rails to hold tubing off the ground. Stakes are handy for holding a piece of tubing with a dripper in the right spot of keeping it from falling out of a pot.

The spaghetti is solid tubing that carries water and the dripper or soak hose leaks water along it's length. The half inch pipe can be used to deliver a larger amount of water and smaller tubes are connected by punching a hole and popping in a connector with small tube on the other end. Half inch can also be connected to a hose by adding a special connector to the end of the pipe.

The 4 port manifold replaces a sprinkler head (you might have to add a piece of pvc pipe to the sprinkler pipe) and small tubes connect to each barb.

Whew! That's a lot to absorb but the system is very flexible and you can buy all of these parts separately or in packages.

A good website with tutorials and a wizard to hepl you figure out parts is http://www.dripirrigation.ca/

I hope all that helps,
Janel

Thank you very much, especially for the website! Once I have a website, I usually feel well-equipped. Today it's raining - a lot!

x, C

I've also used mrdrip.com, and if you call them Darryl will give you some good advice about setting up a system. I've been thinking about setting up a system for all the containers out on my deck, and I don't think it'll be that complicated... I'm planning to run half inch tubing, probably just under the railing on the outside to "hide" it, and then run skinny quarter inch tubing from there to each container. Drippers will be good for some containers, and quarter inch soaker tubing might be better for others. There are barbed fittings for connecting the skinny tubes to the supply line, so all you have to do is punch a hole (there's a tool to make this easy) and push in a fitting (it's a little easier to connect the quarter inch tubing first, then push the fitting into the hole). It does take some hand strength, so I generally recruit DH's help with assembly, but it goes together quickly enough.

If you're running pipes or burying hose lines, then putting in irrigation is more time consuming...

Oh, and getting a hose end timer is totally worthwhile! We've got a digital controller and half a dozen electronic valves that are in charge of watering a lot of our garden beds, but they also make simpler timers that you just put in place between the hose bib and the supply line. With any of these systems, it's a good idea to put in a pressure reducer and a filter.

You might also be able to put together a system locally... Home Depot, Lowe's, and WalMart have started carrying more irrigation stuff.

We just put a system in for DH's folks (soaker hoses for some bed areas and drippers for new trees), and it all hooked up together with a very simple timer. You just turn the dial to set how long you want the water to run, and it will repeat that program every day, every other day, or every third day. We put a Y-splitter on the hose bib so that both the irrigation system and the regular garden hose can be attached (we've got a 4-way one on the hose bib on our deck).

Here's a description of the timer, http://www.mrdrip.com/timer62024.htm
and here's a photo of how it looks with the filter, etc.

Hey critter, can I have some of those pots? LOL. All very interesting and informative - DH wants to get a rain barrel and have it run off of that!

xxx, Carrie

Sorry, those pots belong to my MIL... and she thinks they look cute on her white bench when they're not in use! ;-)

that's an interesting notion about the rain barrel... that might be a good question to ask Darryl at Mr. Drip... I'm not sure whether you'd get enough pressure to run drippers or soaker hose from a barrel, but it's worth looking into.

Tell her I think they look cute too, and even cuter filled with some of my wintersown cuties!

I'll check out Dr, Drip when I have some actual free time, not time I'm taking from another project! DH wants to put the rain barrel high up, so gravity would be on our team.

xx, C

You might try www.dripworks.com their catalog will have you going in quick time.. the secret is tuneing after you install it... so the watering requirements of each plant/situation /pot/microclime is addressed with the proper emitter/ time cycle...
emitters are sized for flow/hour.. say 2 gallons/hour.. at perhaps 40 psi.. if you were running gravity feed.. your psi would likely be greatly reduced.. so your 2 gal/hour emitter would allow say 1/4 gal/hour.. you'd have to increase your number of emitters.. or increase the time..till you got as wet as you'd like to become.. the higher pressureswill help keep the emittersclogfree...soyou might want to filter the water well
My problem is every year I put out the 100's of pots of different sizes in different places...So it's a new system installed every year..this is usually finally accomplised a day or so before I have to leave to go some where... Leave Paradise for required mandatory beach enjoyment.. good luck with it

Carrie,
you are lucky to have enough rain to use a rain barrel. I did some quick calculations last year and it would take the annual runnoff from all of the houses on our block to water our garden for a month. Considering we've only had about 2.5 inches of rain all year it wouldn't water the garden very long. Good luck on your project.
Janel

Carrie,
I forgot to answer your earlier question about the herb garden. The containers are chimney flue liners that I got at the local masonry store. I had a thread about it last year http://davesgarden.com/forums/t/605540/

The largest ones cracked this winter so I reconfigured it to have a larger raised area in the middle and used the flues as a border.

Janel