The Garden Irrigation System
Making our gardening job easier by automatically watering everything
As anyone can figure, with all of these trees and bushes and gardens, how the hell do you water it all? Well I'm here to tell you, in the beginning, it was a pain in the ass. Every day, twice, we would go out there with the extra long hose, watering everything, trying to apply a good enough soaking to everything so as to keep the plants well quenched. This grew old very quickly.
I then got the idea of using a regular lawn sprinkler to try and catch a larger area of plants then just move the sprinkler to another area to get another cluster. This worked real good for a while, only having to move the sprinkler around 2-3 times, leaving it in that spot for 30 min so as to water everybody real good.
While this worked way better than the hose, there was still the issue that we did need to go out there to move the sprinkler multiple times. Also there was the issue that if we go out of town, or maybe just don't have the opportunity to do it or don't want to do it that day. Our answer was an automated irrigation system.
This would consist of a water line running from the pipe supplying the hose spigot, running out through the raised bed area with, then branching off to go through the orchard and over and along the ground level garden and the far side of the orchard. At this time, sprinklers are going to be used, until we can figure a better way to do the irrigation of the raised beds.
The first part of the project was a fun undertaking, using a trenching shovel to dig the trench for the PVC pipe all the way from the house, straight over to the west side of the garden, doing a left turn, going straight through the raised bed area, then branching off, one side going straight through the orchard and the other turning right and going through to the ground plantings, making another left turn and running along the far end of the orchard parallel to the ground garden. The main line totaled approximately 180', the branch offs totaled about 75'..
After the digging, I had to cut the PVC where the garden hose spigot is to glue in a tee, then I added a short length of PVC pipe with an adapter to allow me to screw on a sprinkler valve, then another adapter is added where I can then start gluing in the 10' lengths of PVC pipe, one after another, using couplings, until I get to the point where I turn, then until I get to the points where I have to put tees for the sprinklers. The sprinkler setup consists of an adapter to accommodate 1/2" threaded PVC pipe nipples, which are over 1' in length, with the sprinkler screwed to the other end of the nipples. The branch off area required a pipe cross.
The sprinkler valve has a little bleeder valve on it that allows you to manually open the pneumatic diaphragm to start the flow of water to the sprinklers. This is how we tested and use the sprinkler system right now. In the evening, we just turn that valve and fire up the system for 30 min or so, and turn it off again, job done.
I will have to run power line over to where the pipe is at so I can add the outdoor box that will accommodate the timer for the sprinkler valve. Once I get that hardware set up, all I have to do is program the timer, and the entire job of watering the gardens will be completely out of our hands!
I then got the idea of using a regular lawn sprinkler to try and catch a larger area of plants then just move the sprinkler to another area to get another cluster. This worked real good for a while, only having to move the sprinkler around 2-3 times, leaving it in that spot for 30 min so as to water everybody real good.
While this worked way better than the hose, there was still the issue that we did need to go out there to move the sprinkler multiple times. Also there was the issue that if we go out of town, or maybe just don't have the opportunity to do it or don't want to do it that day. Our answer was an automated irrigation system.
This would consist of a water line running from the pipe supplying the hose spigot, running out through the raised bed area with, then branching off to go through the orchard and over and along the ground level garden and the far side of the orchard. At this time, sprinklers are going to be used, until we can figure a better way to do the irrigation of the raised beds.
The first part of the project was a fun undertaking, using a trenching shovel to dig the trench for the PVC pipe all the way from the house, straight over to the west side of the garden, doing a left turn, going straight through the raised bed area, then branching off, one side going straight through the orchard and the other turning right and going through to the ground plantings, making another left turn and running along the far end of the orchard parallel to the ground garden. The main line totaled approximately 180', the branch offs totaled about 75'..
After the digging, I had to cut the PVC where the garden hose spigot is to glue in a tee, then I added a short length of PVC pipe with an adapter to allow me to screw on a sprinkler valve, then another adapter is added where I can then start gluing in the 10' lengths of PVC pipe, one after another, using couplings, until I get to the point where I turn, then until I get to the points where I have to put tees for the sprinklers. The sprinkler setup consists of an adapter to accommodate 1/2" threaded PVC pipe nipples, which are over 1' in length, with the sprinkler screwed to the other end of the nipples. The branch off area required a pipe cross.
The sprinkler valve has a little bleeder valve on it that allows you to manually open the pneumatic diaphragm to start the flow of water to the sprinklers. This is how we tested and use the sprinkler system right now. In the evening, we just turn that valve and fire up the system for 30 min or so, and turn it off again, job done.
I will have to run power line over to where the pipe is at so I can add the outdoor box that will accommodate the timer for the sprinkler valve. Once I get that hardware set up, all I have to do is program the timer, and the entire job of watering the gardens will be completely out of our hands!
Left: Shot of sprinkler head on elevated pipe to give better reach of water spray
Right: Closeup of sprinkler valve attached to hose spigot line in ground