It’s finally that time of year where we start to see some of the rewards of our hard work, the garden is coming to life!
This is only our second spring on the homestead, so we are still working on developing the health of our soil and figuring out what works and what doesn’t. Gardening at an elevation of 6,000ft can be a bit tricky at times, we are starting to get the hang of it. One year in and we are already growing food with the seeds we saved from last years harvest, that’s pretty exciting.
Watering Woes
One issue that we have ran into is watering. While we are pretty blessed to live in an area that gets plenty of rainfall, there are still certain times of the year when we just have to water the plants. Doing so in such a large space (100’x100’) can be a bit tricky though, especially when the faucet is not nearby.
The hubs has a pretty complex watering system designed for the future (think Arduino and sensors) that will minimize wasted water and save energy, but as many of you know, some things on the homestead take time. So, we needed something simple to solve the problem until then... our local tractor supply held the answer.
Yep, good ole soaker hose. We found a great deal on some and decided to use it to make customized drip irrigation for each row in the garden.
We cut the hoses to length for each row, then pieced the extra together to make sure nothing was wasted, using scrap metal tubing.
Then we put a Y valve on the end of each row, allowing us to water one or multiple rows at a time. This means I can turn the water on at the faucet and just flip the switch of which row I want to water... 🙌🏼
This has been such a time saver and the plants are getting watered more efficiently without excess waste... win-win. This combined with adding wood chips (that we are making ourselves here on the homestead) has really helped with the overall health of the garden.
I love when you can find a simple solution to help solve a problem on the homestead!
Thank you for reading,
Happy Homesteading
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Those soaker hoses work really well if you have water pressure to push the water out of the hose. I would imagine that you're using well water for the garden, so pressure isn't a problem. With a rain water gravity system like mine, there's not enough water pressure to push the water through the porosity of the soaker hoses.
Just thought if chime in that some drip drip systems need only 2 or even 1 psi, that's about 2-4 feet elevatin needed. We have used drip emitters on 1/2" poly tube with success on our system where the cistern only has about 5 feet of height on gardens.
My current system uses 1/2 inch PVC water pipe with a 1/16th inch hole drilled in it every 6 inches in a straight line. It works well with gravity feed, but the pipes need to be fairly level or the water all goes to the low end of the pipe... :-)
I wondered about pvc pipe... even with the soaker we get uneven distribution but I took a wide diameter needle to the low end where each plant is and that has solved the problem for now. It’s probably not a forever fix but should help to keep things watered as they should be until we get our ideal system going.
That's actually a pretty good idea for spots on the hose where it's not putting out much water.
Nice setup. Impressive for your second season. That's awesome you've already closed some seed loops. All things on the homestead take time, I feel ya. There's always a temporary fix before the "ideal" system is on track.
This year We're using overhead sprinklers and are fairly happy (some sun burnt leaves). our gardens and plantings are diversified and spread out , so it can make laying lines a bit of a challenge. Been giving 5 gallons a piece to some of our farther out plants and it takes some effort!
Thank you so much! We are still very much learning, but are really excited with the progress we’ve made so far.
It really does all take time for sure! The five gallon bucket is still my friend for all the fruit trees... and it was all I used last year, but man... it did take some effort... which may have led to some plants being underwatered a bit.
I love how natural your garden looks, it’s something I strive for as well... let it grow the way it was intended to.
Thanks so much for the support!
I hope some day to be able to transition to soaker hose systems here...
What do you use currently?
Old hoses and sprinklers, but mostly deep mulch. I seldom water unless it's drought.
Hey @llfarms I'm the Tinkershaman there on discord. Just saw this post, I used a similar soaker hose last season in my garden and the sun destroyed it. It may not mess the material up if its covered by mulch and protected from the sun. I helped with a irrigation system install for a local charity and we used drip tape from these guys at dripdepot they make a kit for row crops I think would work great for you if you have trouble with the soaker hose. https://www.dripdepot.com/category/drip-irrigation-kits-row-crops
Hey thank you! That hadn’t crossed my mind yet. Ideally when the crops come in it will be fully covered but I may add some mulch to the top to help protect it. The drip tape looks interesting, I’m gonna have to check it out. 🙏
Hey, looks great! I need to figure something out aswell. If hubs does make Arduino and sensors system, let us know ;)