We spent a large amount of time on weekends and evenings last week setting up our drip irrigation system. It’s not only required by our community garden, but it should also help ensure that our plants get enough consistent water to grow and produce a lot of vegetables this summer. Plus we’re lazy and the idea of the garden watering itself is very appealing. Lastly there’s the added benefit of delivering water more efficiently so we use less water.

We weren’t able to find very good information on what to do or how to set up drip irrigation so I thought I’d give a detailed post that might help someone else set theirs up.  First, we drew up our garden plot and how we wanted our hoses laid out, so we knew how many of each piece below to buy.

We used the Raindrip system which is sold at Lowes. Here are the items we purchased:

Raindrip Watering Landscape Kit with Anti-Syphon
Professional Hole Punch
3/4″ “Y” Filter and Fertilizer Applicator
50 1GPH PC Drippers
200′ 1/2″ Poly Hose
10 1/2″ Compression Couplings (T connectors)
13 Raindrip 1/2″ Compression Hose End Plug with 3/4″ Cap
Raindrip Digital Water Timer Dig 9001DC Irrigation Timer with LCD Display

Yes you read that last one correctly, we spent about 3 days fighting the Raindrip timer and trying to get it installed without leaking. It’s a piece of junk. If you have purchased a Raindrip timer and it’s still in the packaging, take it back. If you’ve opened it consider it a $32 sunk cost and move on to the Dig timer. It will save you hours. After we fought the Raindrip timer for a couple of days we looked around the community garden. Of the 41 garden plots in our community garden only ONE had the Raindrip timer installed, everyone else is using the Dig timer, this was our first tip off that we needed to give it a try. I was stubborn and thought I could make the Raindrip work, but Steph went out and bought the Dig while I was at work as she was tired of seeing me covered in mud yelling at the garden plot. Smart girl.

Once we had all of the correct parts it was just a matter of hooking the system up. You want to make sure the timer is connected directly to the faucet/hose so you don’t have the other parts under pressure. The Dig timer simply screwed on and didn’t leak the first time.  Turn off the water if you had it on to test the timer for leaks before you start adding the other parts in case you accidentally loosen the timer in the setup. We had some incidents where the Raindrip timer the literally exploded off the end of the hose.

The rest of the parts just need to be screwed to the timer in order (Faucet> Timer > Anti-Syphon > Pressure regulator> Water Filter > Hose adapter > Hoses).   Make sure everything is hand tightened very snugly and use any washers that are called for so no water leaks out.

Once you have the assembly set up it’s just a matter of laying out the hoses in your beds. We attempted to cut roughly 20′ long pieces to run the entire length of our beds and one hose to run across the width. After the hoses we laid out all of the T connectors and elbow connectors. Once everything was laid out we cut the hose to length and then inserted the ends into the connectors. We hooked up the hoses in each bed to each other using T connectors and then connected the beds to each other after the hoses were in place.

Once all the hoses are connected and in place you can cut the ends to the proper lengths and then put on the end caps. We purchased ends with screw caps so we can easily drain the system. Once all the ends are in place unscrew the caps  and turn on the water. You want to flush the system of any dirt before attaching the drippers.

Attaching the drippers is fairly simple. We bought the professional punch tool instead of using the simple hand one provided in the kit. If you flush the system with cold water it will cool the hoses. It’s much easier to punch the holes when the hoses are cool and stiffer. When the hoses are out in the sun they get soft and it’s much more difficult to get a clean hole punched through. Once you have a hole simply insert the drippers until they pop in. Once you have everything in place turn on the system to test for leaks, then just monitor it for a couple of days to make sure the timer is working as you intended and there are no unknown leaks.

The total system with extraneous hoses we didn’t need and the faulty timer was $289 for a 20′x20′ vegtable garden.  The way we did this is just one of an infinite number of ways you could lay this out.  You can also buy soaker hose and punch holes in it without actually using the drippers.  Depending on the variation you use your system could cost more or less.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, May 27th, 2009 at 8:20 am and is filed under Colorado Gardening. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.