My first experience with drip irrigation was as a teenager living on a kibbutz in Israel. I think it was controlled by some sort of DOS based system running on a computer in a hut at the edge of the date fields. Each irrigation line had to frequently be unclogged, the system required constant maintenance and the whole thing seemed confusing and cumbersome.

That’s not the case anymore, especially for home gardens.

Irrigation can, when used properly, dramatically reduce the amount of water you’re using.* It can also help keep your plants healthier, help avoid problems like hydrophobic soil, and save you a lot of time.

Using a sprinkler seems easy but it is also a great way to spread disease. Those wet leaves are perfect landing spots for all sorts of diseases (late blight, anyone?). They also usually involve a lot of water lost to overspray – watering the driveway, the neighbor’s shed, etc.

Standing with watering wand in hand typically results in poor watering because nothing gets the amount it needs. Providing adequate water can mean you need to stand, wand in hand, slowly moving from plant to plant for 30-90 minutes, depending on the size of your gardens and whether you’re watering appropriately or if you’ve set it to “fire hose” mode.

So two things really make your life easier, do a better job watering, may reduce water usage* and help the health of your plants:

1. An irrigation timer, and,
2. Drip irrigation.

Irrigation timer: In gardens I tend to set up the easiest, most basic timers because they’re easy for people to understand.

The easiest and least expensive looks and functions much like the kitchen timer of old. Turn the dial on the timer to the duration you want the irrigation running and listen to the “click, click, click” as the spring loaded mechanism runs. When time is up, the valve snaps shut so the water stops flowing. This ‘kitchen timer’ type model requires you to go out and turn it on, but if you can do that as necessary (or ask a friendly neighbor to do it while you’re away), it’s really easy.

Slightly more advanced models require batteries and have an interface allowing you to specify how frequently the water should turn on and for how long. This way you don’t need to remember – it will turn on automatically whether you remember or not.

 

From there you can go up to a variety of features including bluetooth enabled models. Cool, but probably not necessary for most people reading this blog.

2. Drip Irrigation

This is really where it gets good, because you get all the advantages mentioned above. The water will drip, drip, drip at the rate you choose and (more or less) the locations you choose. There are options for every want and need, from mini sprinkler heads to drip tape to plug-in emitters that can soak a very specific area.

Unlike many other systems, drip systems really allow the water to go into the soil where the roots can make use of it. You’re not creating puddles, you’re not watering the leaves and therefore creating disease opportunities, you’re not flooding the area, you’re not watering the sidewalk. You’re providing the right amount of water in the right place.

I’m not going to go into all the different options and instead I’m going to recommend two excellent purveyors listed below because as a home grower, you’re probably going to fit more or less into one of the pre-designed kits they’ve come up with.

Start with a pre-designed “kit”

Go with one of their pre-designed irrigation kits that matches your setup. It comes with all the doodads you need, except the timer, and if next year you decide to expand your garden, you can add more pieces. Want to also add the apple tree? You can do that without difficulty. Realize you forgot about the potatoes? You can add that.

These systems are modular, allowing you to expand, reduce and alter your system as you wish. (There are limitations based on water pressure but realistically, if you’re reading this blog, you probably don’t need to worry about that.)

A few random tips:

1. Do NOT use a soaker hose. Soaker hoses clog, break and work well for a maximum of three days before the break down. That’s a bit of an exaggeration, but not much. Don’t waste your time or money.
2. Check your irrigation for leaks. The most frequent damage I see on the systems I set up include damage from raccoons, children yanking at things, chipmunks chewing, turkeys (really) clawing and poking holes, and errant garden tools. Looking for leaks usually involves looking over your garden for any geysers and walking around listening for the hissing sound of water spurting out somewhere.
3. In the fall, remove the filter, the timer, the pressure reducer (it comes with the kit – don’t worry if you don’t know what it is yet) and bring them all indoors. No, not the shed, bring them indoors. If water is inside and freezes, it’ll screw things up.
4. If you get a timer, make sure you can attach your irrigation AND your hose. If you’ve got carrot seeds that require frequent watering, for example, you don’t want to have to water the whole garden for that. Or if you’ll be using the hose for any other reason (wash your hands/tools, spray your kid, spray the neighbor’s kid, slip and slide, etc.) then you’ll want to be able to turn the hose on without the irrigation.
5. Wash your filter. Your kit comes with a filter. In my area, the filters frequently clog, which is better than clogging all the drip emitters but can reduce water flow.
6. It is possible to add too much to your system so nothing gets the amount of water it needs. That is, however, rare in home gardens. If it does happen, you can create multiple zones and buy an irrigation timer with multiple zones.

I again want to encourage you to look at the kits available at the vendors below, but here’s a brief description of what I use, which may or may not have any relevance to what you use.

Circle Garden: This area is relatively flat so I use ‘drip tape’ down each of the 30″ wide rows. I run two lines of tape down each row.

Semi-Circle Garden: I’ve got two pieces of 1/4″ tubing with in-line emitters (it comes this way – you don’t need to add emitters) that are spaced every 9″.

Raised beds: I’ve got 7 raised beds here of different sizes. I run main line (which carries water) up the side of each bed and across the top. From there I run one to three 1/4″ tubing with 6″ emitters across the top.

Potato pots: I use low flow “downspray” sprinklers, one in each pot.

This year I finally set the raspberries and blueberries on their own zone. The raspberries are fed by 1/2″ tubing with emitters while the blueberries and strawberries use standard 1/4″ tubing with emitters every 9″.

Suggested vendors:

Drip Works: Located in CA, they provide not only materials but extremely helpful videos, layout designs and more. Honestly, if you’re starting out then this is a great way to go because they have guidance and answers to almost all of your most frequent questions.

Drip Depot: They have mostly the same items but less guidance, as a result they usually cost a bit less.

* – I said above that irrigation “may” reduce water usage for a reason. If you’ve got a simple to use irrigation system and timer, and you set it to run every day, but you don’t turn it off when it rains for a week, or you set it to run 4 times/day for an hour each time or similar scenarios, you can really use far more water than is necessary.

Water is precious and requires a surprising amount of energy to purify and deliver to your tap – please use it appropriately.