Setting Up Some Irrigation

Planting season is fast approaching here though the weather seems to be a bit indecisive right now.  We keep alternating between nice days in the 60's and 70's and blustery days that barely clear 45.  Night time frosts are becoming fewer and fewer, though we did have a night in the low 20's just this week.  The wind has been another issue.  We have been hit with windstorm after windstorm for the past few weeks, so even though the temps have been suitable for cold weather crops like broccoli, I haven't planted them out yet because I don't want them to get beat up from all the flying debris coming through the yard.  The high winds make working outdoors unpleasant to say the least.  It makes watering harder, digging too dusty, and planting tiny seeds impossible.  I finally had a break in the weather that coincided with my day off so I took advantage of the opportunity to start laying out my drip irrigation.

This year I am trying to revamp my system now that I have a better idea of the layout that I want for my yard.  I have a hose that reaches to the far side of the middle of my yard.  At the end of the hose I have a series of hose splitters that direct water to different sections of my garden.  The line that I focused on today was the section of long garden beds that will hold my tall growing warm weather crops.  I am trying to standardize having three drip lines per bed and I also am making sure that each drip line lines up with the edges of the bed better than the way I had them set up before.  I don't want to be watering weeds at the ends of my beds if I can help it.  For this section I recycled the lines that I used in these beds last year.  Most of the drip lines didn't drip consistently so I took the time to poke holes in them every couple inches with a thumb tack which was a tedious chore.  I have found that doing this works well to revitalize clogged lines and saves me from having to buy fresh lines every year.  Last year I didn't have three lines in each bed so I will be adding a couple new ones as I go along.

So far I only have lines plugged in to the beds that I have planted already.  I don't want to start watering empty beds because that will just give any weeds in the beds a head start.  The first two beds I have planted with corn.  I try to get corn in early so that it can get established before I add the companion crop of squash when the weather gets warmer.  It may have to tolerate a few cold nights after it germinates but the weather forecast doesn't call for any nights below freezing for the next few weeks so I hope it will be in the clear.  If worst comes to worst I can always throw a sheet of plastic over the bed for some protection.  The next bed that irrigation was set up on was the potato bed.  I have been hand watering this bed and others for the past few weeks, so this should make things a little easier for me.  The last area that I irrigated off this line was my perennial bed by the compost pile.  This will guarantee that these plants are watered every time I water the garden which further simplifies the work I will be doing in the garden this summer.

The next section of irrigation that I worked on was the section of short beds that made up the original footprint of the garden.  This section got a brand new main line that was custom fit to the length of the garden on this side.  My goal this year is to have fewer lines to trip over as I work my way around the garden, so I made sure that there are no hoses running down the central path in the garden.  Maybe this year I will be able to get a lawn mower in there to help control the weeds too.  Each of these beds will also be standardized to three lines each.  I think that having three lines in each bed gives good coverage with watering and makes it easy to plan where to plant things.  In this section I focused on getting irrigation on the beds that were already planted: garlic, onions, peas/carrots, and lettuce/spinach/turnips.  I will add more lines as the crops go into the ground and in a few more weeks the garden should be completely irrigated.

I have one hose that I will be using to move around the yard to water the different sections of grass as I plant them and I plan on getting one more hose splitter so that I can set up irrigation for my flower bed.  My goal is to make watering my yard as easy as possible with as little water waste as I can manage.  Drip irrigation is nice because I can water the base of my plants right where they need it without worrying about the water getting on the leaves of the plants or blowing the wrong way and evaporating off before the plants can use it.  The drip line that I am using can be on top of the soil, or I can cover it with mulch and it will still water my garden just fine.  As dry as it is here in this high desert every drop counts.  I have to pay for my water so I want to use as little as possible, yet still have a productive garden.  I will mulch beds where I can to help conserve water even more and help extend the length of time between watering.