Installing Drip Irrigation

Jamie and I ran the third line for the drip irrigation system yesterday. It's so simple to do and can save you so much time watering I wanted to show you guys some pictures. This post is a little long. Everything you need to do this you can find at the drip irrigation system section in Lowes or Home Depot. Or, for beginners you may want to just buy the little kits with everything you need to run you drip system for about 35 or 40 dollars. The kit was too small for our purposes so we just bought everything individually. We have hundreds of feet of lines running in our yard. The system can be as complicated or as simple as you like. Ours even fills the bird bath and waters the hanging pots. If you go with the kit, you can always add on to it later as you get use to what you are doing. It’s cheaper to just buy what you need. Look at the pictures on the back of the box; it will help let you know what to do and what you need.

This first picture shows the line running from our faucet to the yard. Our faucet has one of those inexpensive attachments on it that changes it from one spigot to four. It came with a timer kit we bought made by Orbit. It’s an extremely efficient system at a very affordable price and I highly recommend it. It can be found online or in your local big box store. I don't understand why, but you can get the same kit I've linked to for much cheaper in the stores than you can from the actual site, the link is to show you what we are using. We actually just bought a second one from Wal- Mart for about 25 dollars less. It can be just a tad bit tricky learning to program it, but after you learn how it’s set up you’ll realize how simple it really is to operate.***For those of you that are wondering I have no affiliation with the company I just really think this is a fantastic product and Jamie and I are very pleased with it’s performance.***



In this second photo you can see the half inch water line running into the bed and under the side walk. I had the foresight to think about running a section of line under the sidewalk when we put in these two beds. Then when we got ready to run the line all we had to do was to connect to it. It’s very simple to do. Just attach your water hose to a broom handle or pipe with some good tape, turn it on full force and keep pushing. Before you know it that water will wash away a small tunnel and you will be under the side walk in no time.



The quarter inch line that you use to run water to your drip emitters and sprinkler heads just snaps into the side of the line in a hole you make with a provided hole punch.



You just lay out your half inch tubing where ever you need water to go.







All the connectors just simply slide into the pipe. This takes a little strength. They come in T’s and elbows and two sided to connect two sections of line.





You can see the quarter inch line running to each plant here. It’s held in place by little plastic stakes that you can buy.



All that’s left to do now is bury the line. It doesn’t have to be deep; all you do is stick your shovel in the ground and lean it forward and back to wiggle open a little slit in the ground. Just push your hose into the little slot in the ground and step on the grass to push it back down when you are done. It’s barely detectable that anything has been disturbed and after a week you can’t even tell you buried a line. You just want it covered so the lawn mower can’t cut it or to hide if from view. You can see in the picture it’s about an inch or two deep in our yard. In the beds, just cover it with mulch and use landscape cloth pins or pieces of old wire hangers to hold it in place. The reason this is so dug up here is because we were tying into another line that was already buried.



For just a couple of hours effort, you can save yourself tons of hours standing in heat, dragging hoses. It’s the best thing we’ve ever done. If you need any help or need pictures of how to do something, just let me know. Jamie and I have become old pros at this.

Oh, one more thing you should know. The half inch line can only carry 244 gallons of water an hour. So if you are using sprinkler heads that put out 4 gallons per hour you can only use 61 heads, 10 gallon per hour – 24, drip emitters that put out 2 gph you can use 122. You can never put out more gallons per hour than the hose carries. Well you could, it just won’t work as well. It would be better to just run another half inch line to make another watering zone.

In other news Jamie and I have been researching the new lighting system we will be installing in the garden. It can be so confusing with so many types to choose from today. As luck would have it, I’ve been contacted by Teak, Wicker & More and I’m very excited to say they have asked me to do a review of a solar landscape lighting product for them, so look for the post to be coming soon. If you aren’t familiar with Teak, Wicker & More they have a very nice line of patio furniture and tons of other home and garden products.