Developing a permanent irrigation system
During the 2008 droughty summer, we were low
on both time and money since I was working for pennies at a local
nonprofit. After shelling out so much cash to find a type
of sprinkler that worked for us, we could only afford to get a couple
of them. So I laboriously moved hoses and sprinklers multiple
times a week to reach every zone in the garden, often crushing plants
at the edges of beds in the process.
This year, we're working
on a more permanent setup. The upfront cost has been about $80,
since we splurged on several more sprinklers, but we've nearly gotten
to the point where we can water the entire garden just by flicking a
switch and then a series of valves. Our permanent system consists
of pulsating sprinklers on three foot tall fenceposts at the edges of
the garden --- the height allows water to spray over tall beds of
tomatoes to reach shorter plants in the background. We turn on
two sprinklers at a time, since adding any more sprinklers to the
system drains the water pressure.
We're still tweaking the
system to achieve the head to head coverage recommended by sprinkler
experts. We'll keep you posted about anything we figure out as we
optimize this stage.
| This post is part of our Irrigation lunchtime series.
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About us: Anna Hess and Mark Hamilton spent over a decade living self-sufficiently in the mountains of Virginia before moving north to start over from scratch in the foothills of Ohio. They've experimented with permaculture, no-till gardening, trailersteading, home-based microbusinesses and much more, writing about their adventures in both blogs and books.
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