Farmall Cub

How do you fellows irrigate your garden? It appears that a whirly bird type sprinklers would feed more weed than feed the garden. I plan to have a garden 25x50 to start. I have a 3/4 water supply nearby.

I have several small garden patches, couple of container tomato plants and one plot about the size you describe. I use soaker hoses on the larger garden plot. For the smaller plots and containers I water by hand with a garden hose.

Wet last year. I didn't water the garden.

A drip irrigation system does the job with the least amount of wasted water. Do a Google search on "drip irrigation". You will find dozens of suppliers.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drip_irrigation

I have to haul water from the river,---but a soaker hose works good and most folks recommend the drip system! thanks; sonny

I use the hose in the furrow method.

One thing to consider with the soaker hoses, and with the drip systems is the amount of calcium in your water. In this area they only last 2 years, or maybe 3 at most.

Excellent point John!!!---water quality is a limiting factor as to the smaller openings of these hi-tech. systems,---even filters are not going to help ! thanks; sonny

i just picked up a book on water storage.it talks about different ways to store water for garden and potable . i plan on running the water off of my shed into a 250 gallon plastic tank. it has a shut off valve and i will run it into the soaker hose.hopefully when there is dry times it will help and i'll be watching the weather like a hawk to know when to drain it looking for a refill. i have the water trough for my beef set up similarly . i have yet to put up the two rain gutters i have to drain into their trough but ,even with out, the rain keeps it topped off pretty well.

Old timers in this area had diverters on the downspouts so the water coming off the roof for the first few minutes of a rain could be diverted carrying away the dust, bird droppings. etc. that had accumulated on the roof. You might want to think about that so the hoses don't plug up.

Mother Earth News had an article or two on collecting rain water. Perhaps the article is on line.

I did the Google search on drip irrigation. Many claims about the use from container plants to row cropping. Seems to me that it's use on anything more than a small garden or greenhouse would not be cost effective or practical. Some how I cannot picture a 1/2 acre garden with 5000 feet of little tiny plastic tubing running thru it. I'm no hydrologist but 25 # of water pressure at the start of a 5/8 hose is not going very far to be useful.

For that type of set up you use a manifold system with a larger pipe supplying smaller pipes along it's length. The thing about drip irrigation is that the water flow is very small, so length, etc. does not create as much of a problem as on normal sprinklers.

A disadvantage is the you only get water right under each emitter, so you must lay everything out EXACTLY the same each year.

daddy dip, will the pressure, or lack thereof, have any effect on your drip-type hose?

I irrigate our fruit trees with drip irrigation and love it. Our garden (when we plant one) is done with soaker hoses because I was too lazy to set up drip. Drip irrigation is very easy to set up though. What I like the most is knowing exactly how many gallons I'm putting down and where.

I split a water bill with my neighbor for both of our fruit and landscape trees, so the convenience of knowing how much each of us use is a big plus...

Dave

Miss Farmall wrote:daddy dip, will the pressure, or lack thereof, have any effect on your drip-type hose?

i think that what john said about filtering is the first priority, due to if it's blocked i would not have any way to clean the hose out thoroughly. i think gravity will help in my garden due to a slight grade i plant on. after the hose fills with water the slight pressure of the water and gravity should help the soaker hose weep. the trick i guess is to keep every thing after it leaves the tank on a downward grade. this is all theory ,it could be a big failure or a wind fall. i plan to mulch heavy and to also plant using landscape cover the black porous stuff that stops weeds but allows water through. i have a script to mother earth news and will try any of that stuff with in reason or availability.