9/21/2024
With our rain water barrel collectors we can collect almost 400 gallons of rain water. YAY! We just fill up our 2-gallon watering cans and water the plants. This works well for potted pots but not so much for the raised beds.
For the raised beds we are walking back-and-forth several times to make sure everything gets enough water. Very time consuming.
In the flower bed in the picture above I had added a 1/4″ irrigation system but it used sprayers, not drippers, so I could not bury the the sprayers and they seemed to waste quite a bit of water with the over-spray.
It worked, but I wasn’t happy with the setup so I pulled that system out and buried a soaker hose under the mulch.
Now I can get water to the roots of the plants and cover the hose with the mulch so it doesn’t evaporate. You can see my YouTube video here on how I set this up.
Watering the North side.
On the North side of the house we have planted some plants and shrubs where we used to have raised beds (you can see the beds in their new location in the picture at the top of the page).
To get the new plants established we have been watering them everyday with a hose and a small sprinkler. Whilst this worked and the plants are doing great, it just took way too much time.
We would place this sprinkler under each plant, one-at-a-time, and run the sprinkler for 15 minutes, move it to another plant and repeat. Took 1-1/2 hours to water 6 plants. Yikes! Something needed to be done here.
I went to Menard’s and bought 100′ of 1/2″ drip irrigation tubing and a bunch of different size drippers, and some other accessories in case I need them.
I have laid down about 30′ of the tubing where we want it but have not added the drippers yet.
9/22/2024
It has been raining all day, YAY! and my rain barrels are filling up, so I have not been outside to add the drippers yet. The plan is to place 1 or 2 drippers per plant and then cover the 1/2″ tube with the mulch. Then we will be able to water all of the plants at the same time, which should save us some water and definitely time! I will keep you updated as I move forward.
9/27/2024
Added a drip irrigation system to the blueberry patch. In the wild flower garden I am using a soaker but for the blueberries I wanted to experiment with a drip system. 1/4″ tube with emitters placed by each plant. You can see the drip tube in the foreground.
