Drip Irrigation Rules!
 

It must be time to talk about gardening.

I'm such a fan of drip irrigation. It gets hot and dry here in the summer. Used to be, I'd spend hours every week standing with a hose and sprayer, watering and watering. I'd always forget some pot or corner until the plants there were wilting. When we left on trips, my neighbor had to come over and water for me.

A couple years ago, I spent $150 on a simple hose bib timer and a sack of drip bits, and ran drip to almost all of the back yard planters and containers. Also ran lines to the hanging plants on the back patio and front porch. Like magic, I got several hours a week back for more productive uses like napping. The plants were much happier. I saved water.

But there were still areas in the back yard and most of the front yard planters that are too big to cover with emitters. So there was still time wasted dragging hoses around.

Today I bought a bunch of micro spray heads and set up spray watering for some of those areas. I've always thought those cute little micro sprayers were silly. Turns out I was the silly one. They cover a radius of 5-7 feet and it took all of an hour to cover 50 feet of planters with them. And they work!

A couple more sessions with the bag of drip bits, and I'm going to have as close to an effort-free yard as I could possibly want. Once the spring weeding and planting is done, I'll spend maybe an hour a week maintaining the landscaping.

I like interesting landscaping, but don't want to devote too much time to it.

Trivia alert : Modern drip irrigation started in Israel where a farmer noted one tree in his orchard was significantly larger than the others. There was a leak in the intermittent irrigation pipe at that point so that tree received a constant drip. Netafin was the result.

My drip system has probably been the most expensive thing to repair in my house. I have had so many repairs done, a major leak that tripled my water bill and took months to track down, occasional ruptures that spray like geysers. Consider me a hater.

What?. You must have a very large or complex system. Mine is literally a AA battery powered two outlet programmable timer and $200-250 of tubing and little plastic bits for DIY. Granted, my yard isn't big. But you're in Phoenix, lots there aren't huge either? I'm confused.

I don't know what you consider complex, but it's probably a good 300-400' of lines around the front and back yards with one going under the driveway. Lots of fun when that one went right after we moved in. The one that tripled the water bill was caused by a rock that shifted and ruptured a pvc pipe by the driveway. But the leak was right under a bush and it was low pressure, so the water never made a puddle we could see. It just stayed like a swamp under that bush. The control box was replaced once. I think we paid $900 to have some of the lines replaced and leaks repaired. There are now two more leaking that I'll have to do some digging to track down.

Okay, that is a much more involved system than mine!

I installed a system of that size, but with regular heads instead of drip, in a house long ago. Lots of buried pvc, complicated controller, manifolds and valves. I recall it was fiddly.

Mine is all above ground to feed multiple container plants-mostly italian clay pots. Beats the hell out of hand watering.

The funny thing is, in that previous house I tried a drip system but it constantly clogged and the lines were always getting pulled askew. That turned me off drip for two decades. Now I have neither problem.

Problem with irrigation out here is that they run it all in that crap thinwall black pipe. I'm going to redo several of our runs with sched 40.


And yes irrigation rocks. I'm a terrible gardener, and my tomatoes are 3ft tall already, but they get scheduled watering!

Sid, FWIW I only use thin wall PVC pipe for my irrigation systems and that works very well. I think Sch 40 is an overbuild for just standard irrigation lines. I do use sch 40 for pumps and where pipes are above ground (rare).

There's nothing wrong with using Sch 40 but it adds cost and is a little harder to work with and the inside diameter is a tad smaller so your volume is slightly less.

As far as drip irrigation goes....99% of the type I use is the Rainbird brand with a hole every 12". The drip tubing they sell here at HD has holes at only 18" apart...too far apart for my applications. I use a local supply house of course for my goods.

If you can stick to just the drip lines and avoid the small staked emitters, you'll reduce risk of damage. Just be careful if you do any digging where you have lines.

I love drip. It's very efficient and very agronomic. But it has to be installed correctly - but not rocket science by any means.

Drip Irrigation Rules! ?

What there are rules?

Like in baseball or driving?

How many rules?

Where are they listed?

But it would totally suck if you lost gravity.

All emitters must be facing the same way with the logo pointing up.

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