Irrigation

[austin]

Hello Gardeners,

I would like to start this discussion on plans for irrigation of the
garden. Liev and Tom, could you inform the group about any plans you
have for irrigation of the garden? I bring this up because dragging a
hose around could become exhaustive for a garden covering a large
area. If we start talking about this process now, hopefully it will
help prevent problems and headache later in the year for all of us as
well as keep the garden healthy and luscious.

I have little experience with actual garden irrigation system setups,
but I do have some experience with water distribution systems and
plumbing of landscape irrigation systems. I have no experience with
rain barrels, but I understand the process of collection and
filtration to provide quality water for the garden.

We could check with other gardeners and sources for estimates of water
use for gardens around the size of this one.

I would like to hear input from any gardener that has experience with
garden irrigation. What works; what does not? What problems have you
encountered throughout the season?

Thanks to everyone for their time and response.

Austin

[Liev Aleo Black]

Thanks for this, Austin!

I've been researching different systems in Steve Solomon's Gardening When it Counts, and I'd like to go over it with someone who knows these things better than I, for purposes of getting the actual parts and deciding on specifics, if that's the way we go.

Other gardeners will tell us their watering needs, sure, but I want to caution that reports will vary greatly based on plant spacing, soil "weight" (clay vs. sand or loam), how fast the plants grew (from fertilization, etc.), and on how effectively plants were watered.  I plan to garden in such a way that plants don't even need frequent watering, even during the dry hot months.  With the proper care, they really don't!  Let's learn the process, hands-on, together.  And in this case, we might feel that watering by hose isn't such a burden, because it's not so frequent.

I'm somewhat convinced that irrigation hoses laid on the ground are not the way to go because it's difficult to water seeds and seedlings well.  Also, with water pressure waxing and waning and stopping, they move around, and they interfere with hoeing and are easily cut from hoeing, and it's easy to miss watering a bunch of plants if it shifts, and this might not be caught before water stress occurs.  I'm more in favor of ag-style irrigation or just using the hose together with a hole-in-a-bucket situation shared in turns by the thirstier plants (I'll show you, if you'd like to see the illustration/description).  Even kid sprinklers, I think, are better than hose irrigation.  (Ha.  I just typoed it "hose irritation.")

By the way, we're planning to pick up a rain collection barrel in a few days.  But its only one 55-gallon barrel.  Anyway, it would be interesting to learn together how to use it.  (And it IS edible-garden-safe.)

Liev

[austin]

Liev,

Good to know you've been thinking about it. I'm interested in your low
water frequency idea. What methods are involved? I agree less watering
is good for plants and gardeners. Can you post some links to the info
for the rest of the group to check out?

When you say irrigation hose, are you talking about drip irrigation
hoses? The main advantage I've heard to drip irrigation is the
efficient transfer of usable water to the plant. Less water is casted
onto the plant leaves where it evaporates before getting to the roots
where the plant utilizes it more efficiently. Drip hose irrigation
could become expensive if we needed lots of hose to cover the garden
area. Many of the points you make against irrigation hose sounds like
human error. People can learn not to turn the water valve to fully
open to prevent drastic movement of an irrigation hose just as easily
as they can learn where the irrigation hose is laying along the garden
beds to prevent cutting it with a hoe.

Here's a couple of links for gardeners to expand their knowledge of
drip irrigation systems. This seems to be the preferred way of
irrigating small and large gardens. Of course there's disadvantages
but every irrigation method has issues.
http://www.ext.colostate.edu/pubs/garden/04702.html
http://wasatchgardens.org/resource/drip-irrigation

Could you also post a link that explains the ag-style irrigation you
mention as well as hole-in-a-bucket?

Here's what I found when I searched for hole-in-a-bucket. It seems
like a form of drip irrigation. I like this cheap, simple idea if this
is what you meant.
http://www.csupomona.edu/~jskoga/dripirrigation/
http://www.chapinlivingwaters.org/Introduction%20to%20bucket%20drip%20031006.pdf

Do you mean kid sprinklers as the ones kids run through in the yard?
If so, my understanding is that they are the most tempting way for
gardeners to waters since it can run until everything looks soaked but
the least effective and efficient. Not all plants are created equal.
Water requirements vary among plants. Water evaporates extremely fast
during the hot, dry periods of summer in AR. Few plants need water on
their leaves and most of the water that gets on the leaves will
evaporate (ie. waste of water and time). Wet plants can develop
disease easily. Most need water on the roots where the water is taken
up by the plant. Broadcasting water can easily make the plant look
like it has been watered enough but the soil and roots are actually
under watered. Sprinkling water everywhere encourages weeds to grow
everywhere. There would be little need for a hoe in the garden bed for
weeding if we weren't watering the whole bed, just the base of the
plants we want watered.

I agree with you though that there are advantages and disadvantages to
each irrigation style. A combination of all types will probably be the
most effective for our garden.

Let's hear some input from others with good and bad experiences.

Austin

[austin]

One note on rain barrels. They fill up very quickly with very little
rain. I did some rough calculations. For a 2000 square foot house
using the rainfall runoff from the whole roof, it would take less than
0.05 inches of rainfall to fill up a 55 gallon barrel. That's less
than 1.25 mm. So a 1/16 inch rain would easily overflow one 55 gallon
drum. After I did this, I found the link below which is simpler than
my calculations. I'm a big fan of rain barrels though. Just think
about quantity. Here's a link to estimate how much rain has to fall to
fill the rain barrel(s) at a house.
http://www.aquabarrel.com/learn_rain_barrel_calculator.php

Austin

[Liev Aleo Black]

They can usually be linked together, though.  Not sure if I want to spend the money on this right now, but I'd like to link two on either side of the back of the house.

Thanks for the link!

[Liev Aleo Black]

Yeah, with the soaker hoses, we're looking at a lot of them to get everything watered well.  And it's not a matter of learning where they are; one wrong stroke with a hoe just due to being distracted for a minute, and a hose can be cut in half.  And, with a toddler on my hands, distractions will abound.  As importantly, it'll be a pain to hoe.

The problems with sprinklers can also be avoided!  By running them early in the morning, we minimize risk of moisture-related diseases, and, again, we won't be watering all that frequently, anyway.  The plants will be spaced enough that there won't be as much of a canopy as early in the season as most gardeners are used to (I was *going* to do biointensive, but have learned that increasing the spacings substantially has lots of benefits, done right).  So more water makes it to the ground.  Also, your point about watering the whole area creating more weeds is well taken.  But weeds are good at growing regardless of moisture levels, to a surprising degree.  They'll be there, anyway.  I'd rather hoe with ease, since I will be hoeing, and if we use soaker hoses, I'll be doing more of my hoeing near the hoses, where I'll have to work with a lot of care and frustration.

There's a type of agricultural irrigation that sprays water at a lower angle, which, done right (italics, boldfaced, underlined), reduces the amount of water on the leaves.  But again, since we won't be watering as much as we're used to having to water, I don't think it's as much of an issue.

Links: hmm...maybe tomorrow.  It's too late right now, but I can show you pictures in the book I was talking about, or I can try to swing some links tomorrow during Eden's nap.  Or you could google "bucket fertigation."

Yeah, this has the same problems as soaker hoses, only it's even more complicated, LOL.  Even though it looks like a great way to save water, I don't know if I, personally, have it in me.  And, again, we have so many beds to cover, and we need to tie plant locations very precisely to the location of the hose, which really constricts plantings, thinnings, etc.  But it might be worth trying maybe next year, when things settle down a bit and we figure out many of the other tricks of the trade.
 

Do you mean kid sprinklers as the ones kids run through in the yard?
If so, my understanding is that they are the most tempting way for
gardeners to waters since it can run until everything looks soaked but
the least effective and efficient. Not all plants are created equal.

I know.  I am used to the feeling that they're awfully wasteful.  But this would be the same issue with soaker hoses or ag-style irrigation, isn't it?  Besides, I'm analyzing the soil for water retention and how much water is needed to keep the correct balance in the soil, and I promise to not just guess that everything looks soaked.  I'm going to do a few test holes a couple of feet deep to make sure that the water has saturated to that level (capillary flow from a properly hydrated subsoil, plus further soaking down should take it from there).  Some of us could try this throughout the season.  It would be interesting to talk about the levels of soil and what's going on with water flow based on the type of soil that it is, etc.
 

Water requirements vary among plants.

My reasoning is, plants' needs really differ mostly - though I know not entirely - based on which *soils* they grow best in.  Plants that like a sandier soil won't be in our garden, because I'm choosing only plants that are happy enough in our heavier soil with more clay in it that absorbs water more slowly but holds it longer than sandy soils do.  Plants that need more sun (whose surrounding soils dry out faster) will be located where there is more sun.  Those plants will be watered for longer periods, but not much longer, even, as they'll be mulched longer and more deeply than the plants experiencing some shade through the day, so that covers that situation.  As for other plants - smaller as opposed to larger, say - their roots will be shorter and not grow to the same depth, so even though they might need less water than the larger plants, it works out kind of mechanically that they won't be getting it as much as the larger plants will (as the water soaks down deeper, and saturation from below - assuming that the soil begins the season fully saturated, and in our climate, with so much snow, it does, and I can certainly vouch for our soil this spring, and stays that way - provides more through upward capillary flow first to the larger plants with the deeper roots).
 

Water evaporates extremely fast
during the hot, dry periods of summer in AR.

I plan to schedule watering in the mornings.  I realize that it's often 80 degrees at 8:00!  But still, I think overall, we're saving water just in the act of gardening as opposed to just buying our produce at the store from industrial operations, so I'm easy on myself/us in that regard, and again, we'll be watering less frequently than most gardeners, so I think it all tends to balance in our favor.  I think it's still a more eco choice, even though - and I feel this too - we might cringe at using "kid sprinklers" or even ag-style irrigation.  I think a closer look at the whole of it makes it sounder than it looks, and I can understand where you're coming from.  I'll show you what I've been reading, and it really does make a whole lot of sense, even though some of it really goes against what we've all been taught.  But as the author explains why, I really appreciate his logic.
 

Few plants need water on
their leaves and most of the water that gets on the leaves will
evaporate (ie. waste of water and time). Wet plants can develop
disease easily. Most need water on the roots where the water is taken
up by the plant. Broadcasting water can easily make the plant look
like it has been watered enough but the soil and roots are actually
under watered. Sprinkling water everywhere encourages weeds to grow
everywhere. There would be little need for a hoe in the garden bed for
weeding if we weren't watering the whole bed, just the base of the
plants we want watered.

I agree with you though that there are advantages and disadvantages to
each irrigation style. A combination of all types will probably be the
most effective for our garden.

That's a very good point :)

Liev