These days, conservation is a definitive sign of the times. While our economy limps along due to the outcome of the final surges of the pandemic, people are really taking an interest in outdoor, backyard activities. With home gardening on the rise, keeping other energy resources like a water bill and resources on an even keel is tough. You can still grow a healthy, huge harvest if you have the proper tools to help you conserve without reserve. From raised beds to fields of yields, some tips about how to make the most of drips could be just what you are thirsting.
The Multi-Faucet Approach:
What is an irrigation system?
Any form of bringing moisture to your plants, lawn, vegetables can be called an irrigation system. The man-made process to irrigate via irrigation systems, including a simple garden sprinkler system to drip line irrigation. Climate zones will often dictate the type of irrigation needed for your needs, as will your soil structure, plants you are propagating, access to a water source and time you have to spend at the end of a garden hose.
Apocalypse rising:
What are the four types of irrigation?
- Sub-surface or underground irrigation is a series of below-ground waterways carried primarily via pipes to reach your crops root structure and providing high quality watering. Depending on your water table, soil, and slope of your inground plot garden, this form of irrigation ranks as one of the top conserving methods available. The disadvantages, however, are the costs of installing, maintenance to any below-ground roots and damage caused by heavy equipment. But for the average back yard gardening guru, an irrigation system repair should be minimal.
- Surface irrigation, much like the sub-surface garden irrigation type, gather’s it’s steam and relies on gravity to keep the moisture evenly distributed on gently sloped gardens with fine to medium tilled soil. Because it is gentler, it won’t erode the hilling around your vegetables or plants. Surface irrigation also breaks down into subcategories, with a few examples:
- Border irrigation most commonly seen on commercial farmlands border or strip irrigation uses a series of gates much the way canals rely on locks and diversions to run water to massive amounts of land.
- Basin irrigation uses bund flooding to promote healthy harvests to resources like cranberries, rice and sweet grasses. By enclosing the flood with bunds (built up mounds), larger crop gardeners/farmers can control flooding damage to surrounding plants.
- Furrow irrigation runs the length of your garden row along side it’s other rows in trenches. Natural pathways used for back yard gardening weeding and planting are the common example. Most of us DIY irrigation system green thumbers use this natural method without even knowing.
- Sprinkler Irrigation was the best garden watering system around when I was growing up. Normally seen by use of oscillating garden hose fuelled arcing streams of water now use in ground secured pop up heads, timer released and swing arm set gently soak the gardens without the need to use a hand held pivoting nozzle. The drawbacks are minimal but could be pricey to install, energy efficiency isn’t the greatest and even high winds will cause the swing of the water jets to spray off course, wasting the water. ** Drip Tip: Searching the web, you might find a wifi enabled app to control a sprinkler timer**
- Drip Irrigation aka soaker hoses, is a series of pipes drilled with tiny holes called emitters or drippers that can irrigate using the drip line. One disadvantage would be a mild to moderate clogging of the tiny drippers with fine grained soil. A well-pinned diy irrigation system, drip irrigation supplies are inexpensive and often can be made by recycling an older irrigation hose.
Water my choices?
What is the best watering system for a garden?
- How much time have you got in a day? While a backyard gardening space is contained within a specific border, you still may not have enough time to stick to the conventional hand-held hose and nozzle approach. Or this might be what you do want to keep in touch with the garden zen. This is truly a question answered by choice and region, not by voice and reason. Your garden watering system should also fit your budget. There are dozens of “irrigation” kits available to choose from, including a fantactic all-inclusive “drip and soaker” bucket buys ( average price range under $50.00 ) multi-metered diverting timing pipe systems. A majority feature sprinkler heads that resemble plastic tent spike that just get pressed down into the soil. Economically proven by consumers, also front runners in the back yard time, energy and water saving realm, you really can’t go wrong with at least one considering the irrigation system cost can be less than a super quality garden hose.
Drip or drop, what’s best for the crop?
Are drip irrigation systems good?
- A watering system for a smaller contained garden area is worth serious consideration. If you’re in the ranks of millions of other backyard enthusiasts who now find themselves returning to the work force due to loosening regulations. Is your planting region dry, rainless and normally arid? Generally, are you interested in conserving water, energy and time or have you switched up your crops and the plants require a specific amount of water? All of those scenarios are supportive toward picking a good drip watering system. A drip irrigation system can be purchased in an “all in one” kit in small sections so chances are great if you are a small garden grower with limited space, you’ll just need one or two drip irrigation systems and still not have begun to make huge waves in your wallet.
- A DIY drip irrigation system can come from a store bought boxed kit or by repurposing garden hoses, collecting rainwater in buckets and barrels, or even simpler ways. I have often used clear plastic bottles with the bottoms cut off, buried into the soil next to the plants and left capless so that I can collect rain or even hand fill when my veggies need an extra boost of moisture.
- A drip tape irrigation makes use of flat flexible hoses with tiny perforated emitters along each strip. Most drip tape irrigation systems take up less storage space and efficiently ensure that soil erosion is minimal while in use. Super easy to install, you just roll it out beside your plants and let it drip. Check periodically for any silt or fine sand clogging.
- Tubing- is another option for a best drip irrigation system. Premium value, also sold in kits that include complete drip irrigation supplies. Heavier duty plastic or PVC, this drip system is a joy for the DIY drip irrigation seekers. You can efficiently design your own grid work with PVC tubing and Y connectors as diverters to cover more than one row of veggies at a time.
- Small space gardeners can also have the advantage and upper hand when choosing a garden irrigation system; finding that the third option for a best drip irrigation system is your own DIY sprinkler system: a watering can. Of course, the best garden sprinkler might just be your time spent with your thoughts and a garden hose and nozzle as you destress from the day.
What are the disadvantages of drip irrigation?
- Suppose you are speaking in terms of high-yield investment crops from the perspective of a commercial farmer with hundreds of acres to cover. In that case, the disadvantages of drip irrigation are the obvious: the expense of installation, maintenance, and upkeep. Small vegetable gardens, especially those of a raised bed variety, mimic some of the same disadvantages but to a lesser degree. The main pain after a rain with even the best drip irrigation system is any clogging of the emittors or drippers. The finest of soil particles, grass clippings, or normal dust can clog the tiny perforations found in drip tape irrigation hoses, tubing valves and sprinkler heads. Some of the cheaper drip irrigation supplies cut costs by using second-grade plastics that are prone to adding damaging chemical particles into the earth as they age. Discharge harmful bacteria into the plant root structure and possibly contaminating an entire growth seasons worth of vegetables. Installing a filter may also cause a bit of an installation problem with any drip irrigation supplies but only in extreme backyard small space situations where there is a propensity for constant clogging from soil erosion. General rule of green thumb? When it comes to vegetable garden irrigation plumbing, it really shouldn’t cause a lot of mind numbing. Keep your irrigation hoses clean, dirt and damage free.