Anyone got an irrigation system at home in the garden? I'm looking to set one up this spring for flower patches but I'm spoiled with too many micro sprinkler nozzle choices and am also unsure what hose is best. Any ideas?
Just a standard run of the mill underground sprinkler system here. I didn't install it, but I would go full underground drip irrigation if I did. Less wasted water running down the street and evaporation. Plus, you don't get stuck forever replacing heads when you whack them off with the lawnmower. We have neighborhood nazi's that will throw you under the bus if water is running more than 50feet down the road. If you have a well feeding your sprinkler, tap into that sucker! I'm on city water and I can easily drop $250 a month on my water bill during dry times.
Was going to do rainwater in a 1550 gal storage tank. But the exact sprinkler nozzle type is what I'm mostly debating and also to get a 1/2" tube? Then tee off 1/4" tubes to the sprinklers? Do different brands make a difference in durability?
Brand durability? Not that I've found. But pick a brand and stick with it. This way you'll eventually have a shoebox full of spare parts and can fix broken junk later. I buy rainbird, but I doubt it really matters. PVC comes in thinner and thicker gauge, I always buy the thicker stuff. It's not much more money really. You live where it gets pretty friggen cold, so have a way to purge your setup with come compressed air so you don't blow pipes in the winter when it freezes. Cities usually require a back flow preventer on the supply of your water irrigation system. I had a brass one that froze one year despite being wrapped up in a towel and covered with a bucket. That was the end of that mother! I made it disappear and buried the evidence under ground. Another thought might be to run PEX. I think that stuff tolerates freezing up without breaking. Some PEX even has UV protection or you can sleeve it too. PVC has some UV protection, but I've replaced a lot of brittle PVC pipe on pool systems exposed to daily harsh sunlight. So we usually paint it with some cheap spray paint. Seems to help.
On the rare occasion we need to water, I use a soaker hose. It waters the root system not the foliage. For tomato's and such, it helps to keep diseases down.
I built watering machines for commercial greenhouses. The secret to growing flowers is not just irrigation, you also want a fertilizer injector. Without food your plants stay alive but don’t grow or continue to flower. The water powered medicator injectors used by farmers work well and are fairly inexpensive. My wife’s flowers were in full bloom all the way to the first frost in late october. You’ll truly be amazed if you have never fed fertilizer through your irrigation!
I was planning on doing compost/biochar/manure/mulch each year to enrich the soil. I want to steer clear of artificial ferts if possible as it doesn't contribute to long term health of the garden although it can help grow plants quickly/bigger initially. I mainly want the water system because I hate menial chores that can be easily automated haha.
toss the neighborhood cats in your tank, when they decompose, you'll have the biggest flowers on the block
YUP! Time for a live trap. If a cat will come up to me with a little food, they get spared. But if I so much as suspect it's feral, I EXPORT them about 20miles away. A few tried to move in on my cats little slice of heated paradise and they MARKED on my front door! Nothing worse than the smell of cat. It's really hard to get the smell of cat piss out of soft patio furniture. I use one of these traps. https://www.walmart.com/ip/ZENSTYLE...VxvDACh28HQYpEAQYAyABEgL4uvD_BwE&gclsrc=aw.ds
Yeah this one marked the front door and taunted us by marking the furniture. We sealed up the fence by moving the stack of wood and it hasn't been able to get in again as far as I know.
That's a male cat for you. I'll never have another one. My lazy tom begs at the back door constantly. If I had a female, she would probably at least hunt and bring me a bird or mouse.
Made a lot of purchases. Will see how it pans out when it arrives. $250 of stuff to set up the irrigation. Will need a water pump and rain catching tub too. But will get those later on.
Here's my system. Best use for one of these that actually SAVES ME MONEY rather than enriching my blood sucking city. If they want my cans, they can pick them out of my trash! I priced out large tanks and those suckers are not cheap! How much is a 1500 gallon tank going to run you? An IBC is pretty big and they are only a few hundred gallons. 1500 gallons has got to be enormous!
I set up a 1000 gal system for camp water. Tank was 4' x 7'. The cleanest water is 6 inches below the surface of the water level. Installed a bulkhead fitting for outflow, attached a flex hose to it and used a bleach bottle as a float to suspend the end of the hose. As the water level changes, the hose end follows.
It would supply the camp with 6 of us for a week with a third left over. For watering a garden in your area that gets plenty of rain, one of those IBC's would be plenty.
I edited the drawing to show the roof washer. Screen guards on the gutter and window screen on top of the tank. The rule of thumb is to waste the first gallon of water per 1oo square feet of roof area. (Get rid of the bird shit.) When it rains the 4" PVC pipe fills and the floating bottle acts as a stopper to divert the water to the tank. Drill a small hole in the bottom plug of pipe to let the pipe drain after the rain stops. If your tank is full you can remove the bottom plug and let the water flow out of the pipe.
I dug a 1500 gallon cistern some years back in heavy clay and limestone soil with a shovel. 1500 gallons will be a pretty large tank.
