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Re: automatic watering

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

Living in the Albuquerque NM area, where our average annual rainfall is
less than 7 inches, irrigation is a must if I want to grow anything other
than cactus.  When I installed an in-ground sprinkler system for the lawn
in '96, I also installed six drip irrigation zones, one of which is
dedicated to the garden.  I have an electronic timer that controls the drip
zones.  The garden has been irrigated this way for two years now, and the
system works great.  I travel a lot, and never have to worry about the
garden drying up while I'm away.  (Can't say the same about squash bugs
wreaking devastation while I'm not there, though!)

I tried laser drilled tubing, but I have the same clogging problem that
others have pointed out.  I now use drip tubing (from Raindrip) that
incorporates the pressure compensating emitters in-line.  It comes in
various flow rates and spacings, and has not clogged the way the laser
drilled tubing has.

For the fruit trees, I used a fitting with 6 1-gph emitters, with drip
tubing distributing the water around the tree's drip line.  But I've found
that these units tend to clog, and because they are a molded single-piece
unit, I haven't been able to clean or unclog them.  So I'm replacing these
fitting with one called a "drip hydrant", which has 8 individual
pressure-compensating drippers inside.  This way I can clean or replace
drippers that develop a problem.  I could have used 1/2 inch drip tubing
with individual emitters for the fruit trees, but since I was installing
underground piping anyway, I decided to run 3/4 inch PVC underground to
each tree, with the above fixtures.

The lawn sprinklers require 60 psi, so that is what my water supply is set
to. (Water is from a well.)  I put an in-line pressure regulator on each
drip zone, but I haven't been happy with the results.  The Raindrip brand
from Homebase costs almost $8, and works better than the unbranded one from
Home Depot ($5).  These pressure regulators are supposed to drip a little
water from the hole in the side, but after a while (no longer than a year),
a constant stream of water comes out -- not a dribble, but under pressure.
At first I replaced the ones that failed, but that is running into money,
so I'm considering removing them entirely and depending on the pressure
compensating drippers to do the job.  The dripper instructions say the
pressure should be 15-25 psi.  Does anyone have any experience or guidance
to give me regarding the pressure regulator problem?

In the garden, this year I installed a couple "drip sprayers" in the salad
square.  These come on for 3 minutes every afternoon during the summer to
cool down the salad vegetables, due to our hi-temp, low-humidity
conditions.  It seemed to work pretty well.

Someone mentioned buying drip watering supplies mail order.  Do these
outfits have web sites?  I recall Dripworks, Watermiser, and Peaceful
Valley Farm Supply being mentioned.

Andy Arkusinski
a.e.arkusinski@ieee.org


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