Irrigation

This is one of my posts from early May that got removed from the blog thanks to a glitch. So it had to be resurrected, and thanks to the great timing right around my year end it has taken me a while to get this up with all the images.

Drippers, sprayers, sprinklers, rotary sprinklers, misters, risers, coupling, elbow, tee, threaded, slip, hose thread, pressure regulator, anti siphon, controller, pop-up head, control valve, timer, T-tapes...and so the list goes.

We are now self taught experts in garden irrigation, and well because of a reason. As with everything else in the "money pit",  the irrigation infrastructure was pathetic.

The old irrigation system was done with Sch -20 pipes that are extremely thin walled. They were also not buried deep enough and when the first supply of dirt was delivered for installing our pool, the 10 cu yard dump truck managed to crack all the pipes underneath.

After a month went by, and an obvious after effect i.e. a pretty expensive water bill we went on a fact finding mission and shut off the entire irrigation system.

We dug out the old pipes and laid down thicker and better pipes in the front yard.

We also moved the risers in the front yard so we could cover them up with the faux rock feature I found. Here is the "before" (actually the "during")

And the "after"

In the backyard, we had to redo the entire irrigation from scratch.

We ripped out the pool and all the concrete and debris that surrounded it and put in our "eco lawn". We also had to plan and provide for irrigation of the other flowering plants that we eventually want to grow.

We also set up drip irrigation controllers for the fruit trees and our raised vegetable planter beds. We have four such controllers set up all over the backyard controlling different areas.

Even in the world of drip irrigation we have learnt along the way. Our Gen1 planter beds were set up with drippers on half inch tubes. The fruit trees have a 2 gal per hour dripper, the Rose bushes have a 1 gal per hour one.

Our Gen2 planter beds that we installed in the spring of 2010 were set up with 1/4 inch soaker hoses. I read somewhere (wish I remember where it was) that soaker hoses were a good option for garden beds. In my opinion they are much more easy to install when compared to the drippers we set up in 2009.

However, the flip side of these 1/4 inch soaker hoses is that the water does not get all the way to the end of the soaker hose. With a 130 ft long side yard, even dividing the soakers into 3 sections did not help.

So, over the last couple of weeks we have been busy ripping out the 1/4 inch soaker hoses we installed last year and replacing them with 1/2 inch cloth based soaker hoses (The Gilmour brand carried by HD).

I will have to wait and see how well that works.