Two float valves on your 1000L tank would be another upgrade to your system. One on the inlet hose and one on the stock tank you use to fill your cans. This would allow you to fill the 1000l passively when you are watering and the stock tank would re-fill in a controlled manner. Maybe a 90 degree pipe with the float on the end? We use a variety of irrigation systems on the farm. Really enjoy your video on the topic. Thanks for posting!
I've been setting up an above ground drip irrigation in my garden (USA desert 9b, sandy loam). Prior to that, I would hand water everything which I thought I was doing well. After seeing the plants prosper with the irrigation system, I realized the water hadn't been penetrating deep enough. Sometimes, there is no substitute. A large time investment up front but well worth it over time.
I'm on Florida sand. Once it dries it's hydrophobic. I can flood it with 2 inches standing on it and five minutes later when the water has soaked in I find it's all gone down in a few spots, most is dry under a thin crust of muddy grit. Putting down a layer of compost, then drip tape and covering with mulch seems to work best.
I'm in the desert southwest myself, and I find that in the July heat the drip system just isn't adequate to keep up with the amount of water necessary. I end up doing a daily supplemental hand watering. The other issue is that consumer watering products simply aren't reliable. Part of its the mineral content of our water -- drip lines clog regularly. I spend almost as much time doing maintenance and repairs on the drip system as I would otherwise spend on the watering itself! I'm probably feeling extra frustrated today after a bad search at the hardware store for parts I needed.
@@llanitedave I feel you on that. So much calcium build up. It seems like I have to unclog the emitters every other day. I've been coming home in the evening and manually turning on the irrigation system for 10 minutes and checking each plant. Sometimes I will hand water if they are looking poor. The monsoons have been helping me with my evening chores lately 🙂
I put a drip system in this year in my garden in London, and yes, I wish I had done it many years ago. It's on a fairly small set of beds - so good to experiment there first. But I would like to put more in.
Subsoil watering is ideal for me. Less water needed due to reduced evaporation, top layer stays relatively dry resulting in less weeds, encourages the veggies to grow deeper roots and the mulch decays slower. I use my own interpretation of the olla: 3 inch round plastic pots ballasted with some pebbles, dug in, a bit above soil level with the rim. If a weed emerges from a pot, half a turn will kill the weed. Couldn't do that with the square pots I used in the beginning. The amount of labour is the limiting factor for me. I only can handle 24 raised beds with 4 pots in each 3 by 4 feet bed. I don't use them for my potatoe beds, they are covered in a thick layer of straw like mulch.
Grow in more than a few hundred square feet, and ollas will get expensive quite quick. I'm a licensed irrigator, but still love low-tech and manual options too.
This is a very practical video, I'm going to try and emulate your set up there. That was a huge project for you but I think it's gonna pay off big time this season and the seasons to come for you
I refer to it as the irritation, not the irrigation. All the infrastructure seems excessive until you start spending over an hour every day dragging 200 feet (60m) of garden hose around. I love drip lines, but I have the issue of voles burrowing along them and putting a hole in it everywhere they want a drinking fountain. Also, mice, rats, squirrels and armadillos will hole it in the dry season. I currently have 400m of drip watering a hedge around three sides of my property and another 120m watering blueberry and blackberry. It always has a hole in it somewhere. I have Senninger wobbler sprinklers on tall risers in other places which I really like because it's like a gentle rain. They don't waste water creating a mist which blows away like other sprinklers. To cover a large area where I plow annually, I have an impact sprinkler on a sled. I can set it out at the end of the garden and drag it back in by the hose a little at a time. It covers an area 60 X 200 (18m X 60m) over the course of a day. It's a poor version of the Dutch hose reel system.
Thank you!! I just installed a drip hose in my raised beds and flower gardens. Appreciate what you did for the bags. That’s my next project. I didn’t know what to do. Here in the Midwest of the United States it’s been hot and we’ve had some drought, but are only 1.5 inches short of seasonal rain right now. And the heat was seasonal last week. This week it’s above average.
I've been so busy on our farm I haven't been able to tune in to one of your videos for a long time! It's great to see you back in action again! I especially liked the method you used to unroll the drip lines, seemed simple and looked like a back saver! Keep at it Bruce!
I live in a humid subtropical climate here in the US. Although it does rain a lot, there are large stretches of time with no rain and 95+f temps so the plants suffer. Next spring I’ll be putting in a drip irrigation system. I have 19 raised beds and it’s a bitch watering them all by cans lol. Much luck to you over in Ireland!
Nice to see you again. ☺ I am at the point of planning a better watering system as well so it is really great to hear what you have to share. Anything that can save some time in the garden is always worth weighing out the pros and cons, even if, like you say, it's only for a few weeks. So much is happening during peak season and I agree that it would really free up precious time for other tasks.
We also have drip lines, which bring out rain water from a pool sized reservoir through a filter and domestic waterworks with a secondary bigger pressure vessel. Works pretty decent, since years. The connections sometimes come apart, mostly when the lines are in bright hot sun, and then the scheduler diverts the water to this section. the initial pressure wave then is destructive. we tried hose clamps, but they are expensive and seep out and leak a lot. In the first lockdown I found these DIY wire clamp tools on YT, and built a few varieties of them. Normal zinc coated steel wire with 0.9mm works okay. It helps a lot if you construct the segments on a table, because then you can use pre-wound wire clamps and do not have to wind them in place. I use a hexagon nut of the correct size to pre-wind the wireclamps. I have tested some of them with a test pressure pump and had no failure, hose pops first. The end caps are still fixed with normal hose clamps, because then I can remove them for flushing out particles, for example if a mower or a spade killed a line and I had to fix it. I do not like the plastic pegs to hold down the drip lines at the ends, so we reused used tension wire from old wire fences. we pretty much have two varieties of pipe, connectors, t-connectors, endcaps and that is it. The system is segmented and egg timer type of water valves for the segments are installed. you set one timer and go weeding out or check the next segment, and so on (the pump only can do two segments at one time). rain water is so much better for the plants in our heavy loam, especially in the greenhouse. we have very hard water with lots of calcium in it. I am still unsure what is better: drip line on the muclh or under. If you fertilize with liquids, you will still need watering cans, or very fine filters. but I'm afraid to vlog the drippers' labyrinths, so watering cans are used for bringing out fertilizers.
I do like the technical aspect of the drip watering system. But I also like that cart for hand watering, shows that you don't have to go the technical route to save you from extra work. Just take some time to think what parts of your work could be optimized easily.
Yeah, I also like the large tanks and cart with multiple watering cans. As I said in the video, I had all the pieces, but just hadn't put them together in a way that made things a lot easier.
You will never regret the time and money invested in irrigation. Consistant, automated watering is one of the most straight forward thing you can do to see your garden excel.
Here in western Oregon we normally get ZERO rain in July, August and September, so irrigation is a must. I have 4 large garden areas, totaling about a half acre plus 3 polytunnels of about 1500 square feet each. All my life my motto has been "work harder, not smarter", but old age is making me change my ways and I have ended up with a similar setup to yours. Each garden area and each polytunnel is set up as one irrigation unit, so I can turn on the water and irrigate the whole area. Another big help has been to run 1" poly water line to each area, so now I don't have to pull hoses around any more. It's cheap and easy to install (above ground). Try to enjoy your free water from the sky!
We just went from a long dry period for the last month , so the fires in all in the north. But now we are having big rainfalls and flooding in areas , so now we have to look for rot.
"I wonder why I hadn't set this up before..." We live and learn, right? It's taken a while, but you refine as you get more experience. that's why it took a while to find this solution for watering.
I have found soaker hoses with a 10 year or lifetime warranty actually last. Normally soaker hoses are less than1/8 inch thick. The lifetime warranty ones are 3-4 times that thick. I have had a ton running for a decade with water pressure above 80 psi.
@REDGardens I have ones over 20 years old that are still working. The cheap ones have 1/8” walls. The good ones have 3/8” walls. Trials like this are hard though because you really don’t know until you implement. Good luck.
I admire your devotion to your project. Have you considered installing some wicking buckets or wicking beds? They can be built cheaply and scaled to whatever resources you have. You could use them for growing seedlings or in a polytunnel for a valuable and thirsty plants. I can't believe I'm suggesting a concept which originates from Australia to someone in Ireland.🙂
We have had rain heavily pouring down at least once a day now for half a week. Just to be sure I put some of my dwarf bean containers under a roof. Greetings from Sweden/Stockholm, 59N, 18E.
If you bury the drip tape I would think it would do a better job and possibly use less water but that's hard to do in an established garden but maybe an idea for next yr. I would also think the drip tape would last longer not being in the light
@Disabled.Megatron I would assume depends on your climate in my area I would have to either purge the lines or dig it up my frost line is 3ft tho now if you was in the south zone 7 or 8 I'd say this would probably be good. Plus it looked like he used main line with punched holes and not the tape kind for the rows I bet that stuff is tough like schedule 40 it might survive my winters not far under the soil. It's got me wanting to try my own tests for sure
We had a month of unusually hot weather in June. We were on holiday and I hadn't set up the dripline. Everything suffered: potatoes, courgettes, raspberries, squash, etc. The effects are still visible today, never mind the soil, which took weeks to rehydrate. Even though it's been raining for weeks now, I wish I would've set up the dripline. A lot of harm can be done in a short time.
Where I live in the northeast of the u.s. we had a very wet and cool spring and beginning of summer, so until mid-july I had only watered my vegetable garden about 5 or 6 times, then when it finally dried out a few weeks ago I decided the vegetables could decide for themselves if they wanted to make it haha This summer was more about establishing a garden in my new yard and seeing what I had to work with, and less about actually producing food, but I still got some squash, zucchini, cucumbers and peas out of it!
I've also paid more attention to irrigation this year following an 8 week dry spell we had with only 13mm of rain. We bit tge bullet and invested in the equipment to be able to pump up from the lake. Whilst a late addiction this year i feel we're now set up well for next year and over winter i'll have time to consider how we best utilise this precious resource. We also have the same free draining sandy loam. I'm a big fan of automation where possible to lessen the workload but equally share your concerns on plastic.
Why is that? My only guess would be, that at some point someone set up the system incorrectly and didn't attend to it, resulting in uncontrollable discharge of water and waste. On the bright side: you could still set up an automatic watering from a barrel with pressure-compensating supply lines. Can't imagine anyone having anything against it if you are disconnected from mains.
Very interesting to me. I am also always reviewing my water systems (arid) and can always feel what you mean, Bruce. As for the problem with watering containers where moisture bypasses roots and does weird things, don't forget bottom watering. It's the only system that I find really works. The soil soaks up what it needs, and coverage is perfect. Grats on all your rain , enjoy it.
I’ve never seen someone dip the ends of the poly tube into a thermos of hot water, but that’s a great idea. I spend a lot of time man handling those fittings. Great video, as always. This season has been wet and mild here in New England, and I’ve also wondered if all the plastic is worth it. I’m sure it’ll come in handy another year.
It took me a while to figure out the hot water trick, but it makes that task quite a bit easier, especially when doing a load of them. I was thinking I wouldn’t need to use the driplines again this year, but now we are in a dry spell and loads of strong plants still in the gardens, so I am happy the system is there waiting to go!
a holding tank with an automatic shutoff and a pump, could reduce issues for you guys, when water is low. As you could have the water simply fill the holding tank constantly as its needed, isolating you to some degree from the others that might use water. This would be the most ideal resolution, as you could leave the water on constantly, and even a trickle would eventually fill up the holding tank for day to day use. Cheap or free, would be ideal. Ibc totes help for small gardens, as you can chain a good number of them with the right fittings, and the pump could draw from all of them at once.
That would work quite well. First step would be to get an electricity supply to the site. I'm planning to get a few solar panels and a battery setup. I also want to start collecting the rainfall off of the polytunnels, and would need a large storage area for that.
My potato plants in the garden are as tall as a 4 ft fence and have just started to flower. I hope the potatoes are maturing for a good harvest at the end of the season. I will get back to your channel with my results. I live in northern Wisconsin, and these amendments may be helpful.
A couple of years ago, you made a video about the ecological costs of a polytunnel where you mentioned that the amount of plastic involved was a drawback but I believe you felt it was worth it. What are your thoughts on growing in plastic bags compared to other more durable and less wasteful containers such as hard plastics or even terracotta?
Every gardener ever - " I wish I had put in this water infrastructure sooner ". Seriously, I bury pipes any time I realize I keep dragging a hose to the same spot. It is a great task to do late fall or very early spring when not much is going on. The other thing you can do is set up an Arduino ( might have to hire a kid ). I have my irrigation system controlled by an Arduino that is Bluetooth connected to my laptop. During morning coffee, I look at the weather and enter a number 0-10 on my laptop that determines how long the water should run in my irrigation. It basically resets my timers everyday depending on what number I enter.
Normally when you plan a cultivating project your first priority is your watering system, that is the first thing that is implemented, the rest follows. They you have done it shows your inability to plan.
'Normal' really depends on where you are, and can be radically different in different parts of the world. I can see how what you say applies in countries that have very regular dry periods, but here in Ireland, irrigation systems have rarely been used in the past. In most cases it does not make enough sense, and is seen as too costly for the potential benefit. Or at least that has been the case, but with more extreme weather patterns becoming more common, things are changing.
when you're watering things in containers that have dried out you need to do multiple passes because as you said most of the water just flows around the soil ball if it's completely dry. if you do a first light pass just to moisten the soil then go back around and give them a better watering it helps the soil absorb it better.
@@REDGardens makes sense, they look like good sized bags. idk if you've tried sticking bits of tube into the pot so the water can get to the center easier? I hear that can help too.
At your scale a watering system is a must. I think for most of us growing food only for our families on a limited time budget, less is more. I used to spend a lot of money and time managing drip and sprinkler irrigation systems for our home garden. For the last 10 years I've been hand-watering only. It's a bit more time, but the only materials required are two watering cans, a barrel, and the pump and battery filling the barrel from our pond. It also has the distinct advantage that at least once a week you are inspecting every plant while you water. After emptying my cans I weed and do maintenance on that section before refilling. It has been a good rhythm for me. I also avoid container growing as it is much more intensive of my time in terms of watering. Putting things in containers means needing a drip system, so now you've bought the containers, had to fill and replenish them, buy the plastic to keep the weeds out of the area, and buy, set up, and maintain the watering system. Compare that to laying some weed fabric in late summer, pulling it off in spring, fertilising, and planting straight into the ground. Very little watering, no soil handling, no additional expense. When you compare the total cost in time and treasure, it's hard to beat the old way.
At a weekend course in early 2019 I heard John Martin Fourtier call dripp irrigation "drip irritation". As a licensed irrigator who also does landscape maintenance and weeds beds for clients, I totally agree. I much prefer "sprinkler" irrigation with efficient nozzles, and watering more deeply and less often. I like to be able to run a hoe or 4-tine cultivator through a bed without any drip line in the way. I do wonder how you'll feel about drip lines when needing to reset the beds. I think micro drip in the pots (bags) are worth it, yes. I just wouldn't put drip lines in the large beds, even though it is more efficient. I place weeding / cultivation as a higher priority, along with easier bed flips.
Yeah, ai get that. They are a pain. One of the key reasons I went with drip line is the low/unpredictable water pressure we have access to, as it is a supply shared with other growers, and a problem with the main supply pipe. They makes sprinklers quite unreliable, and I can only water a small area at a time. With the drip line, it will still work with the variable pressure, and I can water a full section at a time, just set it on for longer. In the current dry spell, it has been real easy to keep most things watered.
Thank you for the great video ! What are you dipping your fresh cut drip line in at 1:46 ? Why are you watering th frost cloth at 11:20 In South germany we had a very dry period starting in may for 6 weeks without any rain. But July was very rainy and untypically cold.
Pretty sure he's dipping the cut line into hot water to increase the flexibility of the end as it is pushed into the barb. It looks like the water is in a Thermos to keep it hot while he's working.
Here in the sahara desert we have always +40C during the summer, i used all methods, plus i have an underground water tank to collect the low pressure main water and pump it to an overhead water tank that i use for drip irrigation and for direct watering i also have a fish/algae/azolla tank i can use to water with the buckets or a bigger 25mm low pressure pipe for emergency watering. but more importantly i realized that july was too hot for tomatoes and corn, and only plants that can flower and produce are okra and eggplants i plant maize in beginning of august now and harvest in november. tomatoes are better grown in autumn and winter, growing them in summer is just a waste of time and bed space, they die too easily plus their flowers are sterile in this heat. one exception was a forgotten cherry tomato plant covered by weed on the ground, which produced well.
That would be cool, especially for the polytunnels. In the outside gardens, it really depends on the weather and season, so it would be constantly changing.
Also, the majority of plastic waste floating around in the ocean is manufacturing waste and fishing nets. This concern about plastic is very realistic but your plastic usage (and water usage) will never be able to compare to these insanely wasteful large industries who thrive off this waste
True. Also the plastic recycling is a scam created by plastic companies. They marketed their products as "recyclable" even though most of it is not and than shifted the responsibility onto the consumer, instead of factoring in the disposal cost of plastic they use. You are not allowed to discharge industrial waste into rivers, why shouldn't it apply to packaging manufacturers? Same with "carbon footprint". It's called greenwashing and its obfuscation of necessary policies, like banning single use plastics altoghether.
Had the exact same thoughts during the spring hot spell here in Ireland, eventually decided on drip irrigation but opted for sprinklers which meant a lot of shut off valves to keep the pressure up. In hindsight may have been better to use the drip pipe or drip emitters, do you use Fruit Hill Farm as they seem to have a good range of fittings, thanks
For your grow bags, could they go in one or few big "saucers" that when needed you could just fill with water and the bags could wick water up into them? I envision a depression in the ground where all the grow bags could group together, the depression could collect natural water, or you could just fill it and let reverse gravity do its thing?
If I were You i would think about dig a pond in midle of garden .It could be ussefull for more things as watering from it,collecting rain water,fish growing,and as temperture ballast (help cool in hot,and heat in cold)...I forgot ....to relax in it too....:) just saying
Plastic wouldn't be so bad if it lasted longer and the waste got burned instead of breaking down into microplastics. You going to keep using grow bags in the future?
we got some felt ones online, they're quite nice and were a reasonable price. now i'm trying to imagine an alternative to plastic pipes, perhaps bamboo but joining (maybe some kind of hemp twine coated in lanolin or something?) and drilling them would be a job! @@steventatlock5443
What is the benefit of letting the water warm up a bit before watering? I had always heard that watering with cold , aerated water was a nice way to get some extra dissolved gasses down to the roots as cold water holds more oxygen and nitrogen than warm water
Here in Ireland, we generally have cool soils, that we want to warm up, and dumping a lot of cold water can cool down the soil and be a bit of a shock to the plants and soil biology. Also letting it sit for a bit will allow some of the chlorine to pass off. Hadn't heard about the oxygen/nitrogen thing.
You'll want to get some UV protection on your IBC water tanks. If you don't protect the plastic from UV, the plastic bottles will become brittle and break. With UV protection it will last much longer. I bought a special UV protection cover for mine and it wore out after one year. I'd rather not replace it every year. Some people paint their tanks with black paint to protect them, that should work. I read that fabric fence covers for chain link fences are meant to last 5 years in all elements, so I bought one of those to wrap around my tank. With luck that will last me 5 years or more.
It will take a long time for the IBC plastic to break down - the covers are usually to block sunlight and stop algae forming inside and possibly to keep the water inside cooler. They aren’t meant to protect the plastic and the covers themselves seem to breakdown fairly quickly. The black paint is a better idea, but again needs to be renewed and I don’t want the flakes of paint in my soil any more than the plastic fibres from covers. We are going to build a wooden structure around our banks of IBCs as they are a bit of an eyesore especially the ones by the house, collecting water from the roof.
Thanks Bruce for a very interesting video. I think that your investment was necessary. I’ve just returned from my allotment where I put in leaky hose pipes linked to 200 litre tanks in each of my ten growing beds.I don’t have permanent access to mains water though. You are lucky to have that. It’s very frustrating for me. Respectfully suggest that you move away from hand watering as this will take a toll on your body. It did with mine with back pain etc. Also, could you harvest more of the rain hitting the poly tunnels to create a self sufficient supply? It’s a big task I know but 1,000 litre tanks with 12v bilge pumps powered by solar panels and 12v batteries might help. These could be linked together. Alternatively, construct a community lochan ( not you personally) to feed the gardens with appropriate planting. This might mitigate the CO2 emissions of the plastic. I hope that my comments are helpful.
A lot of times when farmers are talked about wasting water it isn’t sprinkler systems. The main issue is when flooding is used as an irrigation technique. Sprinklers are dramatically less of a problem than youd think. Flooding is so insanely wasteful compared to anything else
That is true. I was thinking more of the evaporation from the ground and leaves, and the fact that I also end up watering the surrounding grass in order to get descent coverage in the vegetable beds. I figure about 40% was lost (just a wild estimate) and when flow rate and time is an issue, I'd rather not waste the water.
For the grow bags where's the water come from is it rain water sourced through the drip from the water tanks or from nearby river? I would love to try this. Also, does this all get put away for winter or is there any winter hardy drip irrigation for larger amounts of filed crops?
I dont think it needs lifting in the winter as it doesn't get very cold here and the plastic pipes seem to expand to accommodate any freezing. But I laid out the system so that individual sections in the gardens could be disconnected and stacked together for storage. It will be a bit of work, I expect, but removing it for the autumn and winter will make it easier to prepare beds and reduce potential damage to the pipes.
We have compared a solar timer drip irrigation on a rain bucket, and hand watering (deeply) every day with rain water. The drip irrigated are yielding 3x on 2.5x less water. I’m anti’plastic too, but i’ll be realistic if the whole garden was drip irrigated i could cover my veggie and fruit needs better. So jntil someone comes up with locally sourced organic based, durable but biodegradable drip irrigation, i’m going to invest in some plastic tubing ;)
Your point about being able to cover your food needs better with a bit of plastic, is an important one. If you were not able to produce as much without it, then you would have to buy food to replace it, and all of that would probably use a lot more plastic.
I have don't that in a few places, and it does help, but the plants pull so much water out of the soil for transpiration that the soil still dries out. in the middle of the summer, when so much of the soil surface is covered with leaves of the plants, there is very little evaporation.
I installed a drip irrigation system this year and pretty much rained all summer. Murphy's law states: that if you have it, you won't need it, and if you don't have it, you will need it.
How confident are you that you will get many years use from these systems, and that damage by sunlight and temperature variation isn't going to leave the pipelines and connectors brittle and fragile? Have to say that, between the tunnels and the growbags and the mesh mats and now the pipe systems, you seem to have a LOT of exposed plastic in your garden, especially for a gardener who is obviously aware of and very concerned about the use of plastic. Ib guess part of the research aspect of the gardens is to monitor the performance of this gear.
Yes, it is a lot of plastic, and the concerns you express are part of the reason that I delayed so long. I have had drip line pipes and sprinklers in the polytunnels for about 5 years now, and haven't noticed any deterioration in their quality, as they are made from UV resistant plastic. But all things plastic eventually degrade. I have set up the driplines so that they can be dismantled in sections for storage over the autumn, winter and early spring, so at least they will not be as exposed, and they will not be in the way and I am less likely to damage them during bed preparations. For this project, I think it is essential equipment, as it reduces one of the main issues that can undermine a lot of the different explorations. And as you say, I can only evaluate how long they last, and if they are effective in the longer term, by trying them out. And the amount of time we spent watering in previous season really set us back on other tasks. So I see all of this plastic as a safety net, to build resilience (which always requires redundancy and excess materials) especially as the weather seems to becoming more extreme. I want to be ready for when we get another drought like 5 years ago.
@@REDGardens That's cool. All tools/equipment come with costs and inconvenience, as well as benefits. Balancing the pros and cons can be very tricky, and I'm glad you are doing the research. 👍
I'm confused as to why you're not using rain collectors and soaker hoses connected to them instead of watering cans and municipal water. Is it not legal to collect water where you live?
More an issue with storage of rainfall, and lack of electricity supply at the gardens, and the municipal supply is easy and convenient. Once I get solar panels and a battery, I want to start to collect water from the tunnels.
Even if it cost a thousand bucks, write that down over 10 years it'll last and it'd be £100 a year. I'd pay a kid £5 a week to go and water everything. Totally worth it!
There is no way this is a waste of money, or time. My garden is wholly grow bags. Pressure compensating drip emitters. I fill a tank with the shitty water pressure available to me, and water my garden on a schedule with a cheap water pump that delivers the pressure I want. I have a manifold of solenoid valves and a rainbird (cheap household timer with 8 zones) that does what I say. Has an app and wifi. In the tank I put the nutrient solution of choice and my plants get what they need all the time. It is very easy to go to the app and stop everything when it's raining or increase when it's hot. In my experience, more automation is better. Fuck watering cans.
Sounds like good system you have set up. I also want to explore putting nutrient solution into the storage tank, and using a pump to distribute things at the pressure I want. I think I will set up a similar system once I get the rainfall collection system up and running.
Two float valves on your 1000L tank would be another upgrade to your system. One on the inlet hose and one on the stock tank you use to fill your cans. This would allow you to fill the 1000l passively when you are watering and the stock tank would re-fill in a controlled manner. Maybe a 90 degree pipe with the float on the end? We use a variety of irrigation systems on the farm. Really enjoy your video on the topic. Thanks for posting!
I've been waiting a decade for your next video.. thanks for everything...my inspiration..
It has been a while ... sorry! 😁
I've been setting up an above ground drip irrigation in my garden (USA desert 9b, sandy loam). Prior to that, I would hand water everything which I thought I was doing well. After seeing the plants prosper with the irrigation system, I realized the water hadn't been penetrating deep enough. Sometimes, there is no substitute. A large time investment up front but well worth it over time.
I'm on Florida sand. Once it dries it's hydrophobic. I can flood it with 2 inches standing on it and five minutes later when the water has soaked in I find it's all gone down in a few spots, most is dry under a thin crust of muddy grit. Putting down a layer of compost, then drip tape and covering with mulch seems to work best.
I'm in the desert southwest myself, and I find that in the July heat the drip system just isn't adequate to keep up with the amount of water necessary. I end up doing a daily supplemental hand watering. The other issue is that consumer watering products simply aren't reliable. Part of its the mineral content of our water -- drip lines clog regularly. I spend almost as much time doing maintenance and repairs on the drip system as I would otherwise spend on the watering itself! I'm probably feeling extra frustrated today after a bad search at the hardware store for parts I needed.
@@llanitedave I feel you on that. So much calcium build up. It seems like I have to unclog the emitters every other day. I've been coming home in the evening and manually turning on the irrigation system for 10 minutes and checking each plant. Sometimes I will hand water if they are looking poor. The monsoons have been helping me with my evening chores lately 🙂
@@llanitedaveyou can get ground valves right? Run higher pressure with little t valves that have little sprayers
To me your the most educated gardener I've ever came across... . more videos please
Thanks! Sorry for the lack of videos lately. I hope to upload more frequently for the rest of the season.
I put a drip system in this year in my garden in London, and yes, I wish I had done it many years ago. It's on a fairly small set of beds - so good to experiment there first. But I would like to put more in.
🙂
Another great video! Thank you for making it
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as usual a really good rational investigation and evaluation on the problem keep going its appreciated :)
Thanks!
Can you do a video on how to install drip lines, highlighting what made the 5th plot go faster. Thank you.
This would be great.
Have you considered buried irrigation pots? AKA ollas. I love that they're so low tech.
Subsoil watering is ideal for me. Less water needed due to reduced evaporation, top layer stays relatively dry resulting in less weeds, encourages the veggies to grow deeper roots and the mulch decays slower. I use my own interpretation of the olla: 3 inch round plastic pots ballasted with some pebbles, dug in, a bit above soil level with the rim. If a weed emerges from a pot, half a turn will kill the weed. Couldn't do that with the square pots I used in the beginning. The amount of labour is the limiting factor for me. I only can handle 24 raised beds with 4 pots in each 3 by 4 feet bed. I don't use them for my potatoe beds, they are covered in a thick layer of straw like mulch.
Grow in more than a few hundred square feet, and ollas will get expensive quite quick. I'm a licensed irrigator, but still love low-tech and manual options too.
This is a very practical video, I'm going to try and emulate your set up there. That was a huge project for you but I think it's gonna pay off big time this season and the seasons to come for you
Thanks. Hope the system you set up works well for you.
I refer to it as the irritation, not the irrigation. All the infrastructure seems excessive until you start spending over an hour every day dragging 200 feet (60m) of garden hose around.
I love drip lines, but I have the issue of voles burrowing along them and putting a hole in it everywhere they want a drinking fountain. Also, mice, rats, squirrels and armadillos will hole it in the dry season. I currently have 400m of drip watering a hedge around three sides of my property and another 120m watering blueberry and blackberry. It always has a hole in it somewhere.
I have Senninger wobbler sprinklers on tall risers in other places which I really like because it's like a gentle rain. They don't waste water creating a mist which blows away like other sprinklers.
To cover a large area where I plow annually, I have an impact sprinkler on a sled. I can set it out at the end of the garden and drag it back in by the hose a little at a time. It covers an area 60 X 200 (18m X 60m) over the course of a day. It's a poor version of the Dutch hose reel system.
Thank you for this! Loved that dripper system you showed.
🙂
Thank you!! I just installed a drip hose in my raised beds and flower gardens. Appreciate what you did for the bags. That’s my next project. I didn’t know what to do. Here in the Midwest of the United States it’s been hot and we’ve had some drought, but are only 1.5 inches short of seasonal rain right now. And the heat was seasonal last week. This week it’s above average.
August is the hottest month!
I've been so busy on our farm I haven't been able to tune in to one of your videos for a long time! It's great to see you back in action again! I especially liked the method you used to unroll the drip lines, seemed simple and looked like a back saver! Keep at it Bruce!
I live in a humid subtropical climate here in the US. Although it does rain a lot, there are large stretches of time with no rain and 95+f temps so the plants suffer.
Next spring I’ll be putting in a drip irrigation system. I have 19 raised beds and it’s a bitch watering them all by cans lol.
Much luck to you over in Ireland!
Nice to see you again. ☺ I am at the point of planning a better watering system as well so it is really great to hear what you have to share. Anything that can save some time in the garden is always worth weighing out the pros and cons, even if, like you say, it's only for a few weeks. So much is happening during peak season and I agree that it would really free up precious time for other tasks.
We also have drip lines, which bring out rain water from a pool sized reservoir through a filter and
domestic waterworks with a secondary bigger pressure vessel. Works pretty decent, since years.
The connections sometimes come apart, mostly when the lines are in bright hot sun, and then the scheduler diverts the water to this section. the initial pressure wave then is destructive. we tried hose clamps, but they are expensive and seep out and leak a lot.
In the first lockdown I found these DIY wire clamp tools on YT, and built a few varieties of them. Normal zinc coated steel wire with 0.9mm works okay.
It helps a lot if you construct the segments on a table, because then you can use pre-wound wire clamps and do not have to wind them in place.
I use a hexagon nut of the correct size to pre-wind the wireclamps. I have tested some of them with a test pressure pump and had no failure, hose pops first.
The end caps are still fixed with normal hose clamps, because then I can remove them for flushing out particles, for example if a mower or a spade killed a line and I had to fix it.
I do not like the plastic pegs to hold down the drip lines at the ends, so we reused used tension wire from old wire fences. we pretty much have two varieties of pipe, connectors, t-connectors, endcaps and that is it. The system is segmented and egg timer type of water valves for the segments are installed. you set one timer and go weeding out or check the next segment, and so on (the pump only can do two segments at one time).
rain water is so much better for the plants in our heavy loam, especially in the greenhouse. we have very hard water with lots of calcium in it.
I am still unsure what is better: drip line on the muclh or under.
If you fertilize with liquids, you will still need watering cans, or very fine filters. but I'm afraid to vlog the drippers' labyrinths, so watering cans are used for bringing out fertilizers.
thanks for the upload, great info
🙂
I do like the technical aspect of the drip watering system. But I also like that cart for hand watering, shows that you don't have to go the technical route to save you from extra work. Just take some time to think what parts of your work could be optimized easily.
Yeah, I also like the large tanks and cart with multiple watering cans. As I said in the video, I had all the pieces, but just hadn't put them together in a way that made things a lot easier.
You will never regret the time and money invested in irrigation. Consistant, automated watering is one of the most straight forward thing you can do to see your garden excel.
I think I agree.
@@REDGardens I love your feed!
@@kevinhunter8585 🙂
Here in western Oregon we normally get ZERO rain in July, August and September, so irrigation is a must. I have 4 large garden areas, totaling about a half acre plus 3 polytunnels of about 1500 square feet each. All my life my motto has been "work harder, not smarter", but old age is making me change my ways and I have ended up with a similar setup to yours. Each garden area and each polytunnel is set up as one irrigation unit, so I can turn on the water and irrigate the whole area. Another big help has been to run 1" poly water line to each area, so now I don't have to pull hoses around any more. It's cheap and easy to install (above ground). Try to enjoy your free water from the sky!
In the North West my only problem has been to keep the poly tunnel watered. There has not been enough sun.
Birdy
I would love to have more sun!
We just went from a long dry period for the last month , so the fires in all in the north. But now we are having big rainfalls and flooding in areas , so now we have to look for rot.
"I wonder why I hadn't set this up before..."
We live and learn, right? It's taken a while, but you refine as you get more experience. that's why it took a while to find this solution for watering.
توثيق رائع. و عمل مبدع
I have found soaker hoses with a 10 year or lifetime warranty actually last. Normally soaker hoses are less than1/8 inch thick. The lifetime warranty ones are 3-4 times that thick. I have had a ton running for a decade with water pressure above 80 psi.
I am hoping that the ones I have put out will last at least a decade.
@REDGardens
I have ones over 20 years old that are still working.
The cheap ones have 1/8” walls. The good ones have 3/8” walls.
Trials like this are hard though because you really don’t know until you implement. Good luck.
I admire your devotion to your project. Have you considered installing some wicking buckets or wicking beds? They can be built cheaply and scaled to whatever resources you have. You could use them for growing seedlings or in a polytunnel for a valuable and thirsty plants. I can't believe I'm suggesting a concept which originates from Australia to someone in Ireland.🙂
BS. Nothing good comes out of the Stralia.
Excellent video. Lot to learn
🙂
11 inches of rain in NW England in July and I’m off to water in my greenhouse and polytunnel. Crazy! 😂
That is crazy!
We had just 1 inch in Czech. Now 1st of August and 1 inch already 🙂
We have had rain heavily pouring down at least once a day now for half a week. Just to be sure I put some of my dwarf bean containers under a roof. Greetings from Sweden/Stockholm, 59N, 18E.
There has been a lot of rain here too!
If you bury the drip tape I would think it would do a better job and possibly use less water but that's hard to do in an established garden but maybe an idea for next yr. I would also think the drip tape would last longer not being in the light
@Disabled.Megatron I would assume depends on your climate in my area I would have to either purge the lines or dig it up my frost line is 3ft tho now if you was in the south zone 7 or 8 I'd say this would probably be good. Plus it looked like he used main line with punched holes and not the tape kind for the rows I bet that stuff is tough like schedule 40 it might survive my winters not far under the soil. It's got me wanting to try my own tests for sure
I plan to remove the pipes for the autumn/winter, mainly to get them out of the way, but it will also reduce the chance of damage from frost.
We had a month of unusually hot weather in June. We were on holiday and I hadn't set up the dripline. Everything suffered: potatoes, courgettes, raspberries, squash, etc. The effects are still visible today, never mind the soil, which took weeks to rehydrate. Even though it's been raining for weeks now, I wish I would've set up the dripline. A lot of harm can be done in a short time.
Where I live in the northeast of the u.s. we had a very wet and cool spring and beginning of summer, so until mid-july I had only watered my vegetable garden about 5 or 6 times, then when it finally dried out a few weeks ago I decided the vegetables could decide for themselves if they wanted to make it haha
This summer was more about establishing a garden in my new yard and seeing what I had to work with, and less about actually producing food, but I still got some squash, zucchini, cucumbers and peas out of it!
I've also paid more attention to irrigation this year following an 8 week dry spell we had with only 13mm of rain. We bit tge bullet and invested in the equipment to be able to pump up from the lake. Whilst a late addiction this year i feel we're now set up well for next year and over winter i'll have time to consider how we best utilise this precious resource. We also have the same free draining sandy loam. I'm a big fan of automation where possible to lessen the workload but equally share your concerns on plastic.
A drip irigation is a gamechanger.
Yes, it can be!
Most uk allotments don't allow automatic watering. Its a shame because drip watering saves water and it is allowed even in a hose pipe ban.
Why is that? My only guess would be, that at some point someone set up the system incorrectly and didn't attend to it, resulting in uncontrollable discharge of water and waste. On the bright side: you could still set up an automatic watering from a barrel with pressure-compensating supply lines. Can't imagine anyone having anything against it if you are disconnected from mains.
@@sodalitia you are spot on and im looking into a barrel system ,i just need either a gravity system or solar pump one
Very interesting to me. I am also always reviewing my water systems (arid) and can always feel what you mean, Bruce. As for the problem with watering containers where moisture bypasses roots and does weird things, don't forget bottom watering. It's the only system that I find really works. The soil soaks up what it needs, and coverage is perfect. Grats on all your rain , enjoy it.
Thanks. I do use bottom watering for occasional pots/bags, but with so many large bags we are using, it would be so much work.
I’ve never seen someone dip the ends of the poly tube into a thermos of hot water, but that’s a great idea. I spend a lot of time man handling those fittings. Great video, as always. This season has been wet and mild here in New England, and I’ve also wondered if all the plastic is worth it. I’m sure it’ll come in handy another year.
It took me a while to figure out the hot water trick, but it makes that task quite a bit easier, especially when doing a load of them. I was thinking I wouldn’t need to use the driplines again this year, but now we are in a dry spell and loads of strong plants still in the gardens, so I am happy the system is there waiting to go!
a holding tank with an automatic shutoff and a pump, could reduce issues for you guys, when water is low.
As you could have the water simply fill the holding tank constantly as its needed, isolating you to some degree from the others that might use water.
This would be the most ideal resolution, as you could leave the water on constantly, and even a trickle would eventually fill up the holding tank for day to day use.
Cheap or free, would be ideal.
Ibc totes help for small gardens, as you can chain a good number of them with the right fittings, and the pump could draw from all of them at once.
That would work quite well. First step would be to get an electricity supply to the site. I'm planning to get a few solar panels and a battery setup.
I also want to start collecting the rainfall off of the polytunnels, and would need a large storage area for that.
My potato plants in the garden are as tall as a 4 ft fence and have just started to flower. I hope the potatoes are maturing for a good harvest at the end of the season. I will get back to your channel with my results. I live in northern Wisconsin, and these amendments may be helpful.
Those are tall plants!
A couple of years ago, you made a video about the ecological costs of a polytunnel where you mentioned that the amount of plastic involved was a drawback but I believe you felt it was worth it. What are your thoughts on growing in plastic bags compared to other more durable and less wasteful containers such as hard plastics or even terracotta?
Every gardener ever - " I wish I had put in this water infrastructure sooner ".
Seriously, I bury pipes any time I realize I keep dragging a hose to the same spot. It is a great task to do late fall or very early spring when not much is going on. The other thing you can do is set up an Arduino ( might have to hire a kid ). I have my irrigation system controlled by an Arduino that is Bluetooth connected to my laptop. During morning coffee, I look at the weather and enter a number 0-10 on my laptop that determines how long the water should run in my irrigation. It basically resets my timers everyday depending on what number I enter.
A video or videos on your Arduino watering setup would be great!
Normally when you plan a cultivating project your first priority is your watering system, that is the first thing that is implemented, the rest follows. They you have done it shows your inability to plan.
meow!
💅😼
'Normal' really depends on where you are, and can be radically different in different parts of the world. I can see how what you say applies in countries that have very regular dry periods, but here in Ireland, irrigation systems have rarely been used in the past. In most cases it does not make enough sense, and is seen as too costly for the potential benefit. Or at least that has been the case, but with more extreme weather patterns becoming more common, things are changing.
This knowledge is so damn amazing. I wish I could do this for a living. I truly wish
It is pretty cool to be able to spend time doing all of this!
when you're watering things in containers that have dried out you need to do multiple passes because as you said most of the water just flows around the soil ball if it's completely dry.
if you do a first light pass just to moisten the soil then go back around and give them a better watering it helps the soil absorb it better.
Yes, that does work a lot better, though I found with a few of the bags last year it took 3 or 4 passes.
@@REDGardens makes sense, they look like good sized bags. idk if you've tried sticking bits of tube into the pot so the water can get to the center easier? I hear that can help too.
At your scale a watering system is a must. I think for most of us growing food only for our families on a limited time budget, less is more. I used to spend a lot of money and time managing drip and sprinkler irrigation systems for our home garden. For the last 10 years I've been hand-watering only. It's a bit more time, but the only materials required are two watering cans, a barrel, and the pump and battery filling the barrel from our pond. It also has the distinct advantage that at least once a week you are inspecting every plant while you water. After emptying my cans I weed and do maintenance on that section before refilling. It has been a good rhythm for me.
I also avoid container growing as it is much more intensive of my time in terms of watering. Putting things in containers means needing a drip system, so now you've bought the containers, had to fill and replenish them, buy the plastic to keep the weeds out of the area, and buy, set up, and maintain the watering system. Compare that to laying some weed fabric in late summer, pulling it off in spring, fertilising, and planting straight into the ground. Very little watering, no soil handling, no additional expense. When you compare the total cost in time and treasure, it's hard to beat the old way.
I was surprised to hear you have had water issues up there but look forward to your 3 month analysis...
We had 3 weeks without rain, and a fair amount of sun, heat and wind at the same time, when many of the plants still has small root systems.
@@REDGardens Well the new system should sort that out, keep us posted thanks...
Some awesome ideas. Thank you Dude.
Glad you like them!
At a weekend course in early 2019 I heard John Martin Fourtier call dripp irrigation "drip irritation". As a licensed irrigator who also does landscape maintenance and weeds beds for clients, I totally agree. I much prefer "sprinkler" irrigation with efficient nozzles, and watering more deeply and less often. I like to be able to run a hoe or 4-tine cultivator through a bed without any drip line in the way. I do wonder how you'll feel about drip lines when needing to reset the beds.
I think micro drip in the pots (bags) are worth it, yes. I just wouldn't put drip lines in the large beds, even though it is more efficient. I place weeding / cultivation as a higher priority, along with easier bed flips.
Yeah, ai get that. They are a pain. One of the key reasons I went with drip line is the low/unpredictable water pressure we have access to, as it is a supply shared with other growers, and a problem with the main supply pipe. They makes sprinklers quite unreliable, and I can only water a small area at a time. With the drip line, it will still work with the variable pressure, and I can water a full section at a time, just set it on for longer. In the current dry spell, it has been real easy to keep most things watered.
Central Texas 102F today and drip irrigation tuned to water requirements for a hot summer Austin TX. summer say yes to infrastructure
Wow, that is hot. We haven't got above 26C or 80F yet this summer.
Nice wind tech pants 😎🤙
Bentonite clay in your compost could help with water and nutrient retention.
Something I want to try.
Perforated Drip tape is great IMHO i always use pumps and reservoirs also. One system per crop.
I also use automation. And fertigate a fair bit.
I would like to do more automation and fertigation.
@@REDGardens its nice to be able to drop some nutrient in the tank and the jobs done.
You could harvest rain water in that 1000 L tank. I have 11 tanks in which I harvest rain water from the roof...
Thank you for the great video !
What are you dipping your fresh cut drip line in at 1:46 ?
Why are you watering th frost cloth at 11:20
In South germany we had a very dry period starting in may for 6 weeks without any rain. But July was very rainy and untypically cold.
Pretty sure he's dipping the cut line into hot water to increase the flexibility of the end as it is pushed into the barb.
It looks like the water is in a Thermos to keep it hot while he's working.
Here in the sahara desert we have always +40C during the summer, i used all methods, plus i have an underground water tank to collect the low pressure main water and pump it to an overhead water tank that i use for drip irrigation and for direct watering
i also have a fish/algae/azolla tank i can use to water with the buckets or a bigger 25mm low pressure pipe for emergency watering.
but more importantly i realized that july was too hot for tomatoes and corn, and only plants that can flower and produce are okra and eggplants
i plant maize in beginning of august now and harvest in november.
tomatoes are better grown in autumn and winter, growing them in summer is just a waste of time and bed space, they die too easily plus their flowers are sterile in this heat. one exception was a forgotten cherry tomato plant covered by weed on the ground, which produced well.
That sounds awesome you should post a video
You need my automation controller system. Fully schedule and automate all watering and fertilizer.
That would be cool, especially for the polytunnels. In the outside gardens, it really depends on the weather and season, so it would be constantly changing.
Do you habe a preference between drip tape and drip tube for row crops?
I have only used drip tube, so can't comment.
Also, the majority of plastic waste floating around in the ocean is manufacturing waste and fishing nets. This concern about plastic is very realistic but your plastic usage (and water usage) will never be able to compare to these insanely wasteful large industries who thrive off this waste
True. Also the plastic recycling is a scam created by plastic companies. They marketed their products as "recyclable" even though most of it is not and than shifted the responsibility onto the consumer, instead of factoring in the disposal cost of plastic they use. You are not allowed to discharge industrial waste into rivers, why shouldn't it apply to packaging manufacturers? Same with "carbon footprint". It's called greenwashing and its obfuscation of necessary policies, like banning single use plastics altoghether.
Does the drip irrigation work with your low pressure in the tap? Or do you have a pump in the system to push the water?
We have better pressure now, enough to make it work on one garden at a time.
Had the exact same thoughts during the spring hot spell here in Ireland, eventually decided on drip irrigation but opted for sprinklers which meant a lot of shut off valves to keep the pressure up. In hindsight may have been better to use the drip pipe or drip emitters, do you use Fruit Hill Farm as they seem to have a good range of fittings, thanks
For your grow bags, could they go in one or few big "saucers" that when needed you could just fill with water and the bags could wick water up into them? I envision a depression in the ground where all the grow bags could group together, the depression could collect natural water, or you could just fill it and let reverse gravity do its thing?
Tank on pallets....great idea!
Save your back.
Yes! Keeping the lower tank almost full makes the whole process so much easier. I don't know why I didn't think of it before!
If I were You i would think about dig a pond in midle of garden .It could be ussefull for more things as watering from it,collecting rain water,fish growing,and as temperture ballast (help cool in hot,and heat in cold)...I forgot ....to relax in it too....:) just saying
Pond pump, hose, water wand and if needed gallon counter. Hand watering issues solved.
Plastic wouldn't be so bad if it lasted longer and the waste got burned instead of breaking down into microplastics. You going to keep using grow bags in the future?
A good natural alternative to plastic is felt. Fairly easy to make your own on a home sewing machine as well. 🙂
we got some felt ones online, they're quite nice and were a reasonable price. now i'm trying to imagine an alternative to plastic pipes, perhaps bamboo but joining (maybe some kind of hemp twine coated in lanolin or something?) and drilling them would be a job! @@steventatlock5443
What is the benefit of letting the water warm up a bit before watering?
I had always heard that watering with cold , aerated water was a nice way to get some extra dissolved gasses down to the roots as cold water holds more oxygen and nitrogen than warm water
Here in Ireland, we generally have cool soils, that we want to warm up, and dumping a lot of cold water can cool down the soil and be a bit of a shock to the plants and soil biology. Also letting it sit for a bit will allow some of the chlorine to pass off.
Hadn't heard about the oxygen/nitrogen thing.
You'll want to get some UV protection on your IBC water tanks. If you don't protect the plastic from UV, the plastic bottles will become brittle and break. With UV protection it will last much longer. I bought a special UV protection cover for mine and it wore out after one year. I'd rather not replace it every year. Some people paint their tanks with black paint to protect them, that should work. I read that fabric fence covers for chain link fences are meant to last 5 years in all elements, so I bought one of those to wrap around my tank. With luck that will last me 5 years or more.
It will take a long time for the IBC plastic to break down - the covers are usually to block sunlight and stop algae forming inside and possibly to keep the water inside cooler. They aren’t meant to protect the plastic and the covers themselves seem to breakdown fairly quickly. The black paint is a better idea, but again needs to be renewed and I don’t want the flakes of paint in my soil any more than the plastic fibres from covers. We are going to build a wooden structure around our banks of IBCs as they are a bit of an eyesore especially the ones by the house, collecting water from the roof.
Thanks Bruce for a very interesting video.
I think that your investment was necessary. I’ve just returned from my allotment where I put in leaky hose pipes linked to 200 litre tanks in each of my ten growing beds.I don’t have permanent access to mains water though. You are lucky to have that. It’s very frustrating for me.
Respectfully suggest that you move away from hand watering as this will take a toll on your body. It did with mine with back pain etc.
Also, could you harvest more of the rain hitting the poly tunnels to create a self sufficient supply? It’s a big task I know but 1,000 litre tanks with 12v bilge pumps powered by solar panels and 12v batteries might help. These could be linked together.
Alternatively, construct a community lochan ( not you personally) to feed the gardens with appropriate planting. This might mitigate the CO2 emissions of the plastic.
I hope that my comments are helpful.
A lot of times when farmers are talked about wasting water it isn’t sprinkler systems. The main issue is when flooding is used as an irrigation technique. Sprinklers are dramatically less of a problem than youd think. Flooding is so insanely wasteful compared to anything else
That is true. I was thinking more of the evaporation from the ground and leaves, and the fact that I also end up watering the surrounding grass in order to get descent coverage in the vegetable beds. I figure about 40% was lost (just a wild estimate) and when flow rate and time is an issue, I'd rather not waste the water.
Can you please link to where you sourced the pre-assembled drip lines?
dekerhort.ie/products/irrigation/drip-irrigation/
For the grow bags where's the water come from is it rain water sourced through the drip from the water tanks or from nearby river? I would love to try this. Also, does this all get put away for winter or is there any winter hardy drip irrigation for larger amounts of filed crops?
Silly question. Does the outside piping need lifted in winter? Which would be an awful lot of work and storage.
I dont think it needs lifting in the winter as it doesn't get very cold here and the plastic pipes seem to expand to accommodate any freezing. But I laid out the system so that individual sections in the gardens could be disconnected and stacked together for storage. It will be a bit of work, I expect, but removing it for the autumn and winter will make it easier to prepare beds and reduce potential damage to the pipes.
We have compared a solar timer drip irrigation on a rain bucket, and hand watering (deeply) every day with rain water. The drip irrigated are yielding 3x on 2.5x less water.
I’m anti’plastic too, but i’ll be realistic if the whole garden was drip irrigated i could cover my veggie and fruit needs better.
So jntil someone comes up with locally sourced organic based, durable but biodegradable drip irrigation, i’m going to invest in some plastic tubing ;)
Your point about being able to cover your food needs better with a bit of plastic, is an important one. If you were not able to produce as much without it, then you would have to buy food to replace it, and all of that would probably use a lot more plastic.
How about heavily mulching the place? 😊😊
I have don't that in a few places, and it does help, but the plants pull so much water out of the soil for transpiration that the soil still dries out. in the middle of the summer, when so much of the soil surface is covered with leaves of the plants, there is very little evaporation.
I installed a drip irrigation system this year and pretty much rained all summer. Murphy's law states: that if you have it, you won't need it, and if you don't have it, you will need it.
But it will be really dry again ... some day!
How confident are you that you will get many years use from these systems, and that damage by sunlight and temperature variation isn't going to leave the pipelines and connectors brittle and fragile?
Have to say that, between the tunnels and the growbags and the mesh mats and now the pipe systems, you seem to have a LOT of exposed plastic in your garden, especially for a gardener who is obviously aware of and very concerned about the use of plastic. Ib guess part of the research aspect of the gardens is to monitor the performance of this gear.
Yes, it is a lot of plastic, and the concerns you express are part of the reason that I delayed so long. I have had drip line pipes and sprinklers in the polytunnels for about 5 years now, and haven't noticed any deterioration in their quality, as they are made from UV resistant plastic. But all things plastic eventually degrade.
I have set up the driplines so that they can be dismantled in sections for storage over the autumn, winter and early spring, so at least they will not be as exposed, and they will not be in the way and I am less likely to damage them during bed preparations.
For this project, I think it is essential equipment, as it reduces one of the main issues that can undermine a lot of the different explorations. And as you say, I can only evaluate how long they last, and if they are effective in the longer term, by trying them out.
And the amount of time we spent watering in previous season really set us back on other tasks. So I see all of this plastic as a safety net, to build resilience (which always requires redundancy and excess materials) especially as the weather seems to becoming more extreme. I want to be ready for when we get another drought like 5 years ago.
@@REDGardens That's cool. All tools/equipment come with costs and inconvenience, as well as benefits. Balancing the pros and cons can be very tricky, and I'm glad you are doing the research. 👍
Red, if i may ask, what planting planning software do you use?
I don't use a specific software for planning. I use a spreadsheet and reminder app.
Say hi to my cousin Frank Moran in Coolbaun, Lisquillibeen, Co. Tipperary, Ireland
Hello, could you please tell me what is the name of the product between 10:00 minute to 11:00 minutes? many thanks in advance!
It is generally called a 'dripper' system around here.
@@REDGardens Thanks buddy!
Can I ask you a question? I recently got a raised garden bed about 42 cm deep will that be sufficient for growing indeterminate tomatoes?
I don't really know, as I have no experience in growing in raised beds. I imagine a lot depends on the quality of the soil/material that fills it.
I have all these woes 🙄😞
Do you have any data on how much water does each plant actually need?
Sorry, I don't. I work more to keep the soil moist enough.
Sadly with how the climate has been erratic, a watering system is an important investment.
Maybe you can later invest in a rain collection system.
That is the plan. I want to collect rainfall off of the polytunnel.
I'm confused as to why you're not using rain collectors and soaker hoses connected to them instead of watering cans and municipal water. Is it not legal to collect water where you live?
More an issue with storage of rainfall, and lack of electricity supply at the gardens, and the municipal supply is easy and convenient. Once I get solar panels and a battery, I want to start to collect water from the tunnels.
Where did you get the supplies?
Some from Fruit Hill Farm, and some from Deker Horticulture.
@@REDGardens cheers
Even if it cost a thousand bucks, write that down over 10 years it'll last and it'd be £100 a year. I'd pay a kid £5 a week to go and water everything. Totally worth it!
Yep, really worth it. Using it all these past few days with a really hot and dry period.
There is no way this is a waste of money, or time. My garden is wholly grow bags. Pressure compensating drip emitters. I fill a tank with the shitty water pressure available to me, and water my garden on a schedule with a cheap water pump that delivers the pressure I want. I have a manifold of solenoid valves and a rainbird (cheap household timer with 8 zones) that does what I say. Has an app and wifi. In the tank I put the nutrient solution of choice and my plants get what they need all the time. It is very easy to go to the app and stop everything when it's raining or increase when it's hot. In my experience, more automation is better. Fuck watering cans.
Sounds like good system you have set up. I also want to explore putting nutrient solution into the storage tank, and using a pump to distribute things at the pressure I want. I think I will set up a similar system once I get the rainfall collection system up and running.
In today's episode of "Keeping Your Sanity and Saving your Back"...
Haha!