Drip Irrigation

With the shortage of water I had to come up with some other methodologies for watering the garden. I've always been excited about drip irrigation but have never really set that up. A deep watering right to the roots of the plants seemed to be the key so I went about setting that up this morning as a field test.

I started with a 5 gallon plastic bucket and drilled a hole in the lower side. I then ran a piece of 3/4" PVC pipe through there and caulked it. That piece runs out to an elbow which then runs the length of one side of the garden. (16 feet)

I marked where each of the plants sits and then drilled a small hole in the pipe along there where each plant is.

This works fine. You pour 5 gallons of water in and about 10 minutes later it has cycled through and watered the plants. This is VASTLY time saving as opposed to manually watering each plant. It also saves water as less gets splashed about, runs off, or evaporates.

It will take two buckets per raised bed as I plant down both sides, but that's easily done. I'll put a stand on each end.

Overall cost is $16 for the materials to do each raised bed. As this is a success I went and bought enough materials to do each of the 7 beds, but now it looks like I'm about to be rained out for the day.

Ironic, eh? My water sustainability efforts are going to be put on hold because of rain.