Square foot dividers/irrigation

When trying to decide what to use to divide up my 4x4 square foot plots, I decided to use a spare pile of PVC and fittings I've had sitting around. I made a grid 4x4 with 4 way junctions and tees, then drilled and tapped for 180 and 360 degree microsprayers, and hooked it all up to a hose. Picture to follow!

This sounds interesting. Can you provide an estimated cost of materials? I am wondering if it gets under other irrigation ideas?

I thought of making the ridge pole in my hoop house out of 3/4" pvc and fashioning a hose fitting to the end with holes drilled about every 12" along the ridge. But, I don't think things will spray/spread out uniformly. I think I will have 12 individual wet spots in my 4x12 garden with the rest being bone dry.

BackyardBirdGardner wrote:This sounds interesting. Can you provide an estimated cost of materials? I am wondering if it gets under other irrigation ideas?

I thought of making the ridge pole in my hoop house out of 3/4" pvc and fashioning a hose fitting to the end with holes drilled about every 12" along the ridge. But, I don't think things will spray/spread out uniformly. I think I will have 12 individual wet spots in my 4x12 garden with the rest being bone dry.

BackyardBirdGardener, If it were my hoop house, I would be concerned about using the ridgepoles as a watering source. If you water from the top all those plant leaves will get wet. Some just can't tolerate wet leaves as it frequently encourages disease.

If there were a way to get water from the ridgepole directly into the Mel's Mix :scratch: ( like water tubes and emitters maybe? )

Bill's way listed above is the way to go on this, esecially if you use the pressure regulated drippers or tap the pipe for the sprayer heads (I'm waaayyy to lazy to do it this way ...but it's the best way to maintain uniform pressure/water distribution over the entire grid)

I use the drippers vs spray heads, because I do tomatoes primarily & and as mentioned above wet leaves are a fast-track to fungus problems.

A couple of things to keep in mind though:

1) All that PVC takes up a lot of space: so if your going to go the entire grid, go with 1/2" pvc.
2) All micro-irrigation is extremely susceptible to fouling .... so have a gameplan for what you are going to do if one of the heads fouls
3) Low pressure irrigation is just that, low pressure. The header will pressurize and the heads will leak if you have the slightest leakage past you spigot/water source. I recommend an independent inline cut off valve, if your going to go this way.

Personally, I find it easier to run a 1/2" line around the perimeter of the box and run the 1/4" soft lines to the individual plant/square locations. i also use 1/4" valves on the individual lines, so that I can isolate the individual squares, if nothing is growing in them.

- makes change out/replacement of a clogged line/head easier
- More room in the SFG
- allows use of a splitter T's, if I need multiple drippers for multiple plants in the same square

Again though ... a lot of this is predicated on how/what I grow ...