Last year, around outdoor planting time, I was reading the sticky thread on OG titled "Irrigation 101", by The clone stranger.
I came across descriptions of battery operated timers used to control irrigations systems over long periods of time, with little need for attention from the grower.
I often dreamed a thing like this might exist, that silver bullet that might slay the beast that is my summer. Last year we had more than 45 days over 90F(7 of those over 100F), and we had about 3" of rain between July 1st and Sept 1st.
Basicly the bulk of my growing season resembles a yearly drought.
These dry conditions mean 1-2 trips a week with as much water as can haul. Also I share the woods with deer hunters from late August all the way to harvest in October. I love to visit my plants, but when the buds get fat, and the bow hunters are thick, I get paranoid.
My hope is a irrigation system using one of these timers will be the answer to my problems.
It was too late to start with a system last year, so I used the same thing in my vegtable garden as a test.
The first part of the system is a water source, a creek, a pond, or like I will do, a reservoir.
**Link to my rez thread**
Other examples of a rez would be Fuel/oil drums, plastic barrels, garbage cans, etc etc. Anything you can hold lots of water in.
The plot should be located down hill from the water source, this will allow the water to move by natural gravity flow though the pipe to the system at the plot.
PVC, or poly pipe would be best for moving water from the rez to the plot, garden hose could work, but I fear it would be easily destroyed by rodents and prone to leaking.
With my rez, I will use the gravity flow to draw water up from my rez, rather than installing a outflow at the bottom of my rez, which may leak later on.
Next down the line is the water timer.
My timer is a Gilmour electronic. It can be set to open any day of the week, or every day if you like. There are many brands of similar timers on the market right now, I got mine at Lowes.
After the timer you would place what ever you are going to use to brach out to the plants. My method uses a Rainbird "Hydroport".
The hydroport performs two functions for me. The first is to branch out the smaller lines to the plants, the second task is regulating the flow to each plants line.
The screws allow me to ajust the flow to each plant, which is important because the natural flow of the water could be very erratic for each line(one plant may recieve half the water its neighbors get).
Also this ajustment allows you to control the overall water usage, along with the water timer you can give your plants a exact ammount of water each time, allowing you to budget your water in case you have a limited supply.
Some folks use flow ajusters at the end of each plants line insted of in one unit like I do, I like that idea as well, it should give you alot of control over flow.
I had the timer hooked up to several hydroports through out the garden, 26 plants on the system, running on gravity flow. It worked great! I intend to hook my whole garden up this year, along with most of my weed out in the bush.
It is very important to put screens in as many places in the system as you can. And it is very important to make sure the water feeding the system is as clean as possible, if you are using a natural source make sure you have a good sediment filter to keep crap out of your line.
When you visit the plot, the screens should be the first things you check. You don't want to visit after 3 weeks and find the system plugged, and plants wilted.
I am planning to do 3 of these this year, more if I have the time.
I came across descriptions of battery operated timers used to control irrigations systems over long periods of time, with little need for attention from the grower.
I often dreamed a thing like this might exist, that silver bullet that might slay the beast that is my summer. Last year we had more than 45 days over 90F(7 of those over 100F), and we had about 3" of rain between July 1st and Sept 1st.
Basicly the bulk of my growing season resembles a yearly drought.
These dry conditions mean 1-2 trips a week with as much water as can haul. Also I share the woods with deer hunters from late August all the way to harvest in October. I love to visit my plants, but when the buds get fat, and the bow hunters are thick, I get paranoid.
My hope is a irrigation system using one of these timers will be the answer to my problems.
It was too late to start with a system last year, so I used the same thing in my vegtable garden as a test.
The first part of the system is a water source, a creek, a pond, or like I will do, a reservoir.
**Link to my rez thread**
Other examples of a rez would be Fuel/oil drums, plastic barrels, garbage cans, etc etc. Anything you can hold lots of water in.
The plot should be located down hill from the water source, this will allow the water to move by natural gravity flow though the pipe to the system at the plot.
PVC, or poly pipe would be best for moving water from the rez to the plot, garden hose could work, but I fear it would be easily destroyed by rodents and prone to leaking.
With my rez, I will use the gravity flow to draw water up from my rez, rather than installing a outflow at the bottom of my rez, which may leak later on.
Next down the line is the water timer.
My timer is a Gilmour electronic. It can be set to open any day of the week, or every day if you like. There are many brands of similar timers on the market right now, I got mine at Lowes.
After the timer you would place what ever you are going to use to brach out to the plants. My method uses a Rainbird "Hydroport".
The hydroport performs two functions for me. The first is to branch out the smaller lines to the plants, the second task is regulating the flow to each plants line.
The screws allow me to ajust the flow to each plant, which is important because the natural flow of the water could be very erratic for each line(one plant may recieve half the water its neighbors get).
Also this ajustment allows you to control the overall water usage, along with the water timer you can give your plants a exact ammount of water each time, allowing you to budget your water in case you have a limited supply.
Some folks use flow ajusters at the end of each plants line insted of in one unit like I do, I like that idea as well, it should give you alot of control over flow.
I had the timer hooked up to several hydroports through out the garden, 26 plants on the system, running on gravity flow. It worked great! I intend to hook my whole garden up this year, along with most of my weed out in the bush.
It is very important to put screens in as many places in the system as you can. And it is very important to make sure the water feeding the system is as clean as possible, if you are using a natural source make sure you have a good sediment filter to keep crap out of your line.
When you visit the plot, the screens should be the first things you check. You don't want to visit after 3 weeks and find the system plugged, and plants wilted.
I am planning to do 3 of these this year, more if I have the time.
PEACE
