Drip Irrigation for SFG

Hi from Abbotsford, BC. My husband and I are newbie gardeners. Last yr we started with 2 raised beds 3x3 and 3x6 and over the course of 2 months
ended up with any and every size of plastic barrel full of soil and growing veg. This yr we have demolished the old shed in the sunniest corner of
our backyard and are putting in 3 large keyhole raised beds that we would like to keep in some form of production for most of the yr. Due to our work schedules last yr we found that through June,July, August and part of September when temps were often between 25 and 30 degrees it was hard to keep the soil evenly moist so we were thinking of putting in a drip irrigation system. My question is this... With SFG since there are often different vegetables side by side, with different #s of plants in each square foot, what would be a good and effective spacing for the drip line, and for the holes in the drip line? As Abbotsford is still a farming community there are a number of drip irrigation suppliers around so getting the line will not be hard, there is just such a large choice in spacings. Need input.

Maria,  Welcome to the Forum from California, US.  You are in Canada but might also fit within the North Pacific Growing Region.

If you use the SFG plant spacing guide, I would personally recommend drip lines with 6" spaced drippers.  Two lines with 2 drippers = 4 drippers per square.  Where I live, we have summer days on end of over 38*C (100*F).  So your garden should do just fine with temps 25-30*C  (77-86*F).  In the photo below, there are 2 lines in each square 4" apart.  I cut and capped the lines that would have been under the string.  Just over kill, too much water.  I also mulch the top to reduce surface evaporation.  I hope this helps.

Thanks for the photo. It helps a lot seeing the spacing working in an actual garden. I will check out the Pacific Northwest region too. I have a number of gardening books written specifically for our PNW rain,rain,rain!

MariaOlson wrote:Hi from Abbotsford, BC. My husband and I are newbie gardeners. Last yr we started with 2 raised beds 3x3 and 3x6 and over the course of 2 months
ended up with any and every size of plastic barrel full of soil and growing veg. This yr we have demolished the old shed in the sunniest corner of
our backyard and are putting in 3 large keyhole raised beds that we would like to keep in some form of production for most of the yr. Due to our work schedules last yr we found that through June,July, August and part of September when temps were often between 25 and 30 degrees it was hard to keep the soil evenly moist so we were thinking of putting in a drip irrigation system. My question is this... With SFG since there are often different vegetables side by side, with different #s of plants in each square foot, what would be a good and effective spacing for the drip line, and for the holes in the drip line? As Abbotsford is still a farming community there are a number of drip irrigation suppliers around so getting the line will not be hard, there is just such a large choice in spacings. Need input.

from Kelejan, the Regional Host for Canada.
Some one actually from the same province as me, British Columbia.  I seemed to miss your first post so will get back to you.

Maria, one thing i can suggest for the dry months is to mulch.  I mulch with leaves and wood chips.

I not too experienced a gardener but on this site I have learned a lot and I feel that I am getting better each year.

Ask lots of questions; I may not be able to answer too many but there are heaps of people here ready to help out.

May I ask, how did you happen on this site?

Using a time clock watering device so you can water long before the sun comes up , thus giving the water achance to soak in deeply also helps tremendously .

( I have time clock controllers on all three of  my adjustable spray head set up's )

Thanks, both of you. We were definitely going to put timers on,so on the longest days we could beat the heat, and I have been reading a lot about mulching, so as temps go up we will be mulching as well. As for questions,I will probably have lots over the gardening year.

Maria, ask away!

Hi, Maria, from Atlanta, GA. 

Sorry it took me so long to get to this.  I've been gone most of the week and then helping my mom w/ some minor surgery.  Always busy...

Timers are a wonderful thing!  I don't have drip irrigators in the actual garden, but use them w/ a timer on my deck for herbs.

How are you coping with the rains, MariaOlsen? I am having a little too much as it is streaming down my driveway via the hillside behind my house.  Normally this would not happen as it is usually snow that melts  gradually so causing no problem.

In addition my garden is now completely exposed so I am hoping that we do not get a freeze before the snow fall again.  Far too early for all this rain, it should be snow.

Yuch,yuch, yuch!!!! My husband and I grew up in Vancouver. Lots of rain,but more evenly spaced throughout the year. Abbotsford is almost all rain (of biblical deluge proportions ) November to March except for maybe a month of -10 weather mid Dec - mid Jan. Spent some time today turning over and amending 1 bed, was hoping to do a second one tomorrow but the rains came again tonight.

Where are you that you might get more snow?

I was looking at kits from home Depot and lowes. Does anyone know if parts are interchangeable?  Do you have any favorites sites you like to order from? 

Please share some pics and why set up what you did.

Thank you,

Stephen

www.dripworks.com is my favorite.

Stephen, please see above for my set up and explanation.  If you use the Search box for "driplines," you can see prior discussions on this subject.

Just had a look at the " Dripworks " site .. they are good , especially the misting & greenhouse misting gear.
I wish we had cheap access to such a site here in the UK . However as we are an island we tend to have much cooler & wetter weather all year round so it might not be a financially viable option to open such a shop here.

MY HUSBAND WAS LOOKING

My husband was looking at a Canadian online drip irrigation seller irrigationdirect.ca and he went to Southern Drip Irrigation in Chilliwack (30 km east) to actually talk to someone. They do a lot of large farm irrigation as well as smaller garden. We have no idea if any of the different parts are interchangeable. We are looking for somewhere that can supply everything. Due to where the spigots are in relation to where the garden boxes will be we will need a fair amount of both solid and drip tubing and don't want to be piecing a number of smaller kits together.

Plantoid this is totally off topic, but I started watching Gardeners World and Beechgrove Garden midway through this yr. Someone posts them on Youtube the day after each episode. If you watch it do you know when they usually start broadcasting each year? I learned so much from watching them this yr, that I can't wait.I am hoping they continue to post them this coming yr. I have this vague idea that there were Canadian Gardening shows on when I was a kid, but there doesn't seem to be any anymore.

Maria, Are you referring conversion kits for traditional water systems to 1/4" drip systems? Or kits for laying out in the beds? I just buy a roll of solid 1/4" tubing, order a roll of the 6" spaced dripper tubing, bags of elbows, tees, straight couplings and lots and lots of good plugs (end stoppers) and make my own designs depending on the size of the box or if they are for the pots that supplement the box systems. The tubings and connectors from different suppliers should be interchangeable.

MariaOlson wrote:Plantoid this is totally off topic, but I started watching Gardeners World and Beechgrove Garden midway through this yr. Someone posts them on Youtube the day after each episode. If you watch it do you know when they usually start broadcasting each year?  I learned so much from watching them this yr, that I can't wait.I am hoping they continue to post them this coming yr. I have this vague idea that there were Canadian Gardening shows on when I was a kid, but there doesn't seem to be any anymore.

Sorry , I don't know as I don't watch or listen to the TV much , life's too short for me to waste it these days , for I'll be along time dead  .

 Perhaps you can look at BBC TV programmes or BBC iPlayer  and see what you can glean as the programmes used to be on BBC .  Maybe even send an email to the BBC programming folk as they are usualy very good at answering enquiries about their programmes.

I was referring to the kits I've seen at Home Depot that seem to be made to cover a certain area. As we've never put one together we have no experience with whether the parts you can buy at Lowe's would go together with the parts from a kit purchased elsewhere. That's why we were finding somewhere to get everything "in bulk"

Another source for drip/soaker hoses that I have used and will use again:  http://www.mrdrip.com/580-Soaker-Hose_c_632.html

Unfortunately, I can't remember their shipping costs but they couldn't have been too bad because I used the company a second or third time.

Thanks

sanderson wrote:Maria,  Welcome to the Forum from California, US.  You are in Canada but might also fit within the North Pacific Growing Region.

If you use the SFG plant spacing guide, I would personally recommend drip lines with 6" spaced drippers.  Two lines with 2 drippers = 4 drippers per square.  Where I live, we have summer days on end of over 38*C (100*F).  So your garden should do just fine with temps 25-30*C  (77-86*F).  In the photo below, there are 2 lines in each square 4" apart.  I cut and capped the lines that would have been under the string.  Just over kill, too much water.  I also mulch the top to reduce surface evaporation.  I hope this helps.

I live in the mountain foothills east of LA. We average 90's all summer with bursts into the hundreds a few days at a time. Last year was my first year doing SFg and besides disease, irrigation was my biggest issue and I suspect the powdery mildew may have been the result of some of my watering. What size main line are you using? what is the flow rate of the emitters and lastly how long and how often to you water?  And how do I remove pics when I am replying to a post. Thanks for the help.

seamammal wrote:....And how do I remove pics when I am replying to a post. Thanks for the help.

Thanks for asking.  I'm assuming that you mean when you reply to a post using the 'quote' button.

The easiest way is to be in 'code' mode when you write your post.  The button shown in this pic switches between WYSIWYG mode and code mode.  Code mode shows the code in the edit box, and WYSIWYG shows what your post will look like when posted.  You can switch back and forth without losing anything.



If you wanted to quote this post without the pic, get into code mode and delete the picture code, which looks like

Code:

[url=http://www.servimg.com/view/18287222/476][img]http://i38.servimg.com/u/f38/18/28/72/22/screen13.png[/img][/url]


I find it easiest to write all my posts in code mode, then use 'Preview' when I'm done to make sure it looks like I want it to, before I post it.

seamammal wrote:
And how do I remove pics when I am replying to a post. Thanks for the help.

Boffer is a wiz and knows more about this forum and computers than just about anyone.  But if he just confused you, what I do is click on the quote button and then highlight the part of the quote I want to delete and then hit delete.

Seamammal,  to answer your question, we haven't yet put in the irrigation. While preparing the backyard for building the raised beds,we discovered that where there was supposed to be drain tile it was crushed and had to be replaced. So...we've spent the last 3 weeks replacing drain tile (busting out concrete digging trfenches and shovelling drain rock) Raised beds will hopefully be finished by the end of next weekend. This will be the first time 'we've used drip irrigation, so as to how long we will run it per day, we don't know. We were assuming we woud be using 1/2 inch line from the faucet to the boxes, and 1/4 inch dripline in the boxes. We are trying to figure out what the difference is between dripline and the emitter tape, and we haven't gotten as far as pressure and flow.  There will be 2 lines branching from the spigot at the back of the house to cover all the beds.