Best irrigation system for food garden?

[BoPeep75]

I’m looking for the best irrigation system for my garden, for my flowers but especially my vegetable garden. I know plastic is unavoidable in our world, but I would at least like to have the best food-grade materials available- just like I like my hoses to be certified as ”drinking safe” if they are watering my food. After looking around, I have determined that drip tape might be the best solution for the food beds. Easy to move around when things change and easy to lay out. Does anyone use drip tape? or some other method that they would suggest? If you use drip tape, where did you get it? Some of my favorite gardening shop sites don’t have any.

 

[DirtMechanic]

I find water can get hot in pipes exposed to sunshine. Not my fave. You may enjoy using a 1\4" line emitter system when the drip tape ages out. It is a flexible system that is very customizable and more reusable.

 

[BoPeep75]

I actually have some of that, but how do you use it? Do you bury it? Do you use the little sprinkler heads or just the type that has the holes directly in the pipe? I do not have mine buried at the moment and my test bed is not going very well. It also gets hot for one thing.

 

[DirtMechanic]

Its use has to be purely imagination. There are drips and spray tips and timers to suit all manner of needs. And planning a layout would be part of the design too I would think. For a longer run some basic fluid flow ideas help, such as running a supply of water to BOTH ends of a longer run so that the quantity of hole diameters do not exceed the diameter of the pipe. An example would be my neighbor, who ran a 3\4", or 24\32" line if you will, to 6 overhead oscillators in his garden. He had a problem with it and I observed 6\32 diameter tips on the oscillators so he had a system that drained too much with an effective hole of 36\32". He had to limit usage to 3 or max 4 heads at a time. This is the main peril of the small line systems. It can be remedied by extending the larger line and attaching shorter runs or possibly some sort of plenum or manifold, much like the new pex plastic lines for homes may have a box much like a breaker box for electricity where each smaller line might be controlled independently by valve or wi-fi controller these days.

Would you care more for a permanent setup or more for a generalized setup where plants might change annually? This is more my thinking, because who knows what I might add or remove from a spring planting. If that is the case, one might look to some things that won't change much, such as the angle of the sun as it impacts where a row or boxes may normally be located. A permanent connection to corners might be useful, saving the detail of how much water and how it might be delivered until those details are known. You may have an emitter line or spray line, high or low lines, or rotating heads or who knows? I would not think lines that simply drip would be too hard to manage. Maybe you end up with some different lengths over time. But then there is always free dump day around here for when my cup runneth over.

edit: Well I had to go look on the web and found this resource:

Irrigation Supplies

1

www.dripdepot.com

Just reading that is dangerous for me as now I want a setup too! It looks like the plumbing section at a hardware store, but it is fairly plain to see how they solve different problems with the different parts. I would generalize that most of the emitting parts would be above ground for a few reasons, reverse flow back into the system ranking fairly high among them. But then I see they have the one way valves that hopefully prevent contaminating the house water.

 

[BoPeep75]

Its use has to be purely imagination. There are drips and spray tips and timers to suit all manner of needs. And planning a layout would be part of the design too I would think. For a longer run some basic fluid flow ideas help, such as running a supply of water to BOTH ends of a longer run so that the quantity of hole diameters do not exceed the diameter of the pipe. An example would be my neighbor, who ran a 3\4", or 24\32" line if you will, to 6 overhead oscillators in his garden. He had a problem with it and I observed 6\32 diameter tips on the oscillators so he had a system that drained too much with an effective hole of 36\32". He had to limit usage to 3 or max 4 heads at a time. This is the main peril of the small line systems. It can be remedied by extending the larger line and attaching shorter runs or possibly some sort of plenum or manifold, much like the new pex plastic lines for homes may have a box much like a breaker box for electricity where each smaller line might be controlled independently by valve or wi-fi controller these days.

Would you care more for a permanent setup or more for a generalized setup where plants might change annually? This is more my thinking, because who knows what I might add or remove from a spring planting. If that is the case, one might look to some things that won't change much, such as the angle of the sun as it impacts where a row or boxes may normally be located. A permanent connection to corners might be useful, saving the detail of how much water and how it might be delivered until those details are known. You may have an emitter line or spray line, high or low lines, or rotating heads or who knows? I would not think lines that simply drip would be too hard to manage. Maybe you end up with some different lengths over time. But then there is always free dump day around here for when my cup runneth over.

edit: Well I had to go look on the web and found this resource:

Irrigation Supplies

1

www.dripdepot.com

Just reading that is dangerous for me as now I want a setup too! It looks like the plumbing section at a hardware store, but it is fairly plain to see how they solve different problems with the different parts. I would generalize that most of the emitting parts would be above ground for a few reasons, reverse flow back into the system ranking fairly high among them. But then I see they have the one way valves that hopefully prevent contaminating the house water.

My husband has been talking pex and other things that I don’t know what he’s taking about (he’s a contractor). And that’s great for my permanent flower beds, but my food garden is so fluid -changing multiple times in one season - that I think for them it must be simple. I’m going to ask him about what you’ve mentioned because I’m sure he would understand it better

 

[DirtMechanic]

My husband has been talking pex and other things that I don’t know what he’s taking about (he’s a contractor). And that’s great for my permanent flower beds, but my food garden is so fluid -changing multiple times in one season - that I think for them it must be simple. I’m going to ask him about what you’ve mentioned because I’m sure he would understand it better

Haha. There are no weedeaters or ultraviolet light inside a house so that should be kinda fun!

 

[BoPeep75]

Haha. There are no weedeaters or ultraviolet light inside a house so that should be kinda fun!

LOL. He does outside projects as well, I should have mentioned that! Sometimes when he talks, I hear Charlie Brown's teacher in my mind. I'm a nurse by trade, so he probably thinks the same for me.

 

[Oliver Buckle]

Call me old fashioned if you like, but I use a watering can. There is nothing quite as good as having a human on hand to regulate what is needed where. Bit more work of course, but being there regularly to check on what else is going on is another advantage, and my two gallon galvanised one I inherited and is now on its third generation of gardener, no plastic, and must have been going over a hundred years.

 

[javert]

Do you have a water anaylisis of the groundwater which is used for irrigation?
Drop irrigation is hyped beyond what it can actually do (at least here in my country, they mutter "drop irrigation" as the cure all solution to all negligence they do.
The truth is, drop irrigation can damage plants: as the water evaporates, the dissolved salts (usually expressed as Total Dissolved Solids or TDS) rise in concentration and can become noxous to non tolerant plants. The remedy becomes to irrigate more to carry the salts away which defeats the purpose of drip irrigation, so that's why a water analysis of primary salts (sodium, potassium, calcium, magnessium, boron, choride, carbonates and sulfates) is required.

 

[Oliver Buckle]

Ollas are good, terracotta pots you bury and fill with water which seeps out gradually. You can make something similar by blocking the hole in a terracotta flower pot and using a saucer as a lid, the real thing cost an arm and a leg, for no apparent reason I can see, essentially they are only terracotta pots, however there is terracotta and terracotta, I bought some that were much denser and smoother and the water doesn't go through them.

 

[Mike313]

There is nothing quite as good as having a human on hand to regulate what is needed where.

I'll second that. It also means you get up close and personal with your plants and you are much more likely to spot the signs of disease or pests earlier. I put in an irrigation system last year but I'll do a separate post about that.

 

[Mike313]

A good friend asked me to install an irrigation system which was recommended to her by a professional gardener. This is a system of solid plastic distribution pipes, about 20mm diameter, which feed a network of porous pipes in the various vegetable and flower beds - the latter are what do the actual irrigation.
As well as being quite expensive, (I'm talking hundreds of pounds), they would require quite a complicated system of valves etc if you wanted good control over different watering regimes for different beds etc. This system I was asked to install was managed by a single controller with two outlets, one fed the irrigation pipework and could be set to come on at various times for a settable period of time; the other outlet - quite wisely - was a regular tap/faucet that allowed a hose to be connected or a watering can to be filled.
It works fairly well but there are some drawbacks:

• A standardised watering pattern does not suit all plants, some need a bit more, some a bit less. This means my friend has had to do some additional watering to make up the difference.
• The pipes need to be buried to protect them from UV light degradation, so if a pipe gets blocked, you can't see it. This has only happened once however.
• In a couple of places where the pipes became exposed to daylight, the porous pipe has disintegrated and the resulting leaks saturated the soil, with the drop in pressure causing the irrigation to stop elsewhere in the beds. These pipes had to be dug out and replaced.
• Then, just one of my bugbears, I personally would not want plastic or rubber (disintegrating) in my vegetable plot!

If I had to choose between the two - an irrigation system and a watering can - I would choose a watering can. However, my preferred method for watering is with a lance on the end of a long hose and low water pressure so I can deliver a gentle flow onto the soil under the leaves of the plant. I have more control than with a watering can.

As with most things in the garden, watering (like weeding) is best done 'a little and often'. Putting your plants through a rollercoaster of drought-and-flood might result in problems, such as causing tomatoes to split etc.

That said, controlled drought can actually be used as a tool - vine growers sometimes use what is called PRD - Partial Rootzone Drying - to encourage fruit growth and ripening. But that's a whole other subject . . . .

 

[Oliver Buckle]

watering (like weeding) is best done 'a little and often'.

Well, like hoeing, when it needs weeding I have been negligent. Watering little and often can be almost miraculous though. I have had plants that appeared to be goners that have revived perfectly after watering just a cup full or so three or four times a day. Last one was a tomato that I discovered had never extended its root system outside the original pot when I took it out to see what was wrong. That was worth it because it had already set fruit, and they were the first of the year, you need to ask yourself is it worth it though, often it is better to start again with a healthy, thriving plant and just put the struggling one on the compost heap.