Drip Irrigation System

Earlier this summer, my plants were sad. Michael began driving over the road and my daughter and I could hardly keep up with the intense heat drying out our garden beds.

I wanted to set up a drip system for several years. I purchased the timers, but hadn’t purchased the other accouterments because I felt horribly intimidated by all the options.

This year, I was tired of watering so many boxes by hand. I decided the worst thing that could happen is I put the drip system together wrong and have to do it again. So I went to the hardware store (can’t remember if we got our supplies at Home Depot or Lowes) and purchased everything I thought I would need for this project.

• 1/2 in tubing
• 1/4 in drip line
• Drip spouts
  • 1 Gal/Hour for peppers and squash
  • 0.5 Gal/Hour for tomatoes
• Stakes for 1/4 in tubing
• Stakes for 1/2 in tubing
• Various barbed couplers
  • Barb Male Adapter – 17mm x 1/2 in This one was important for my configuration because of the multi connector manifold I chose.
• Manifold
• Street 90 1/2 in elbow pipe fitting For connecting manifold to tubing with the barbed male adapter above.

The image above shows the completed manifold assembly. I cut the 1/4 in tubing to fit my box with the manifold in the middle. My garden beds are a little over 4×4. In a previous post I talked about how we build our current boxes around our failing old boxes in order to help trap the dirt, etc. This is why are boxes are slightly over-sized today. The process of placing the 1/4 in tubing was vary scientific – Hold one end near the manifold stretch the other end to where it will lay down and cut. Honestly, I didn’t bother with any measurements for the entire projects.  Just lay it out and cut where it lay.

Once I had all the tubing cut, I used the appropriate fittings and drip ends. Be sure to direct the water toward the roots of larger plants or in the center of your cluster of smaller plants. This is where the quarter in tubing stakes come in handy. Each tube received a stake. You can move them around as needed for various planting seasons. Some of my planters had fewer plants, so they got more attention, such as water hungry squash plants.

I can without a doubt that this has been a blessing to have. We were able to get full sized peppers for the first time EVER because our watering was plentiful, deep and consistent with these great gadgets. Here are some before and 1 month after pics, where you can see the sad limp and/or dying plants, and the full heavy with fruit plants!