My adventure with drip irrigation
I have always dreamed to have a self watering system for my garden and always believed it would be very expensive. After a few research on the web on DIY irrigation projects I accidentally discovered a huge deal on expansion and repair kit (model DRIPPAILQ) from Rain Bird at Home Depot. For only 25$ this includes: 40 drip emitters, 250 foot long hose and a lot of accessories! I don't know how long the deal will run, but if you are interested here is the link to the product:
In my case, because I only have pots to water (my garden and flowers are rain watered only) I only used the 1/4 inch tube included. The kit even includes a standard faucet adapter to 1/4 inch tube so I had almost everything needed to get ready with just one kit! The only things missing if you want to make use of all the drip emitters are 30 bug protectors/stakes and 20 splitters.
Initially I was not sure if the 1/4 inch tube could handle approximatly 50 pots (for an approximative consumption of about 40 GPH) so I ran some tests. Here are the results:
10 feet tube: 72 GPH (2 Gal took 1 min 40 sec)
250 feet tube: 14~15 GPH (2 Gal kook between 8 min and 8 min 40 sec )
As I estimated my system to be about 30 feet each side of my main split so that should be plenty of pressure, but it you are to water farther away, consider runnig larger ose or split the load on multiple 1/4 tubes.
It turned out to work perfectly and I still have a lot of pressure for future expension at the end of the line if needed.
I quickly added a timer and a splitter with valve to my system to also water some other plants when it is very dry outside. The final setup look like this:
Nice tempered water delivered directly to the roots.
If you are to water pots, make sure your timer can handle as little as 1 minute water period as even at 0.5 GPH the pot get quickly wet! I usually let it off, and operate it once or twice per day for 5 minutes as needed. When I leave home, then 2-3 times per day for a few minutes is safer for very dry days.
The next step will be to hook up a inline fertilizer to my system, although the one I have seen yet are too expensive for the work it would save me. I am also considering a DIY/recycling project for that may come eventually.
Stay tuned for more!
