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Re: To Soak or Drip, That is the question

Square Foot Gardening List - http://www.flinet.com/~gallus/sqft.html

Hi, 
I have used soaker hoses in my slightly less than 4 ft. by 30 ft. beds for 
years and I find it works best for my needs.  I run one hose up and back on 
the 1 and 3 ft. lines, but I'm wondering what you'll do with the extra hose 
in a 8 ft. bed.  Perhaps you could buy a hose repair kit with the end pieces 
and cut it the length you need and put a new pardon the expression female 
thread on it.  Or you could string them from on bed to another( I did that 
until this spring and I finally smartened up and just used one hose in each 
of my three beds.  Otherwise you waste water and create a mess between the 
beds (Makes for slippery walkways).
I just finished putting matted grass clipping over the soaker hose (just the 
hose)to keep the water from spraying out of the beds.  I find that soaker 
hoses don't always just soak;they often spray even with the little restricker 
washers(which sometimes walk off on their own) or how low you turn the water 
down.  Using a single hose instead of three or four strung together helps 
that anyway.  My idea for using so many was that I could water all at once, 
but I had a problem in August when I wanted to slow down and eventually stop 
water to the tomatoes, but the other plants still needed a lot of water.   I 
use the two straight runs on plants that work out in straight  lines or  X   
X  X
                                              X   X      three then two or 
similar spacing, but
for larger spaced plants like melon and squash I circle the plant or plants.

I did try drip early on and found it just didn't work for me(too many little 
emiters and I had different requirements each year).  The emiters always 
seemed to emit too much or the water came out too much at the source and 
trickled down to nothing along the rest of the line.
Hope that helps.
Bonnie Christensen.
Mt. zone 5 Hats on


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