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Installing a Drip Irrigation System for Raised Beds 馃挦 (Before & After) - YouTube
Channel: Epic Gardening
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What's up everyone, Kevin here.
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So today we are going to redo and perfect
the drip system in the front yard.
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As you can see all the beds
are ready for planting.
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I got to get irrigation
set up. So I've got
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a bunch of new fittings from Drip Depot
who actually did the donation for the
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last time we did this years and years ago.
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So we're going to update it for the
modern era for 2020 make some adjustments.
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I'll go over what went wrong or what I
didn't like so much about the way I did
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it last time and then how
I'm fixing it for this time.
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So here's an example bed of the
system that I have right now.
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You could see we have a little one by one
or two by two as the header row that I
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hammered in the main line in to.
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And then I've got quarter inch drip
coming out that I just secured at the end
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with a stake that just goes into the
ground. Now I think it's an okay setup,
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but what I prefer and what I'm changing
it to is it's going to have a header row
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and a footer row.
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So there'll be an end row of mainline
right over here with some end caps and I'm
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going to switch this out to drip tape
and not drip line because I like the flow
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rate a little bit better and I like
the performance a little bit better.
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Each of the beds also has an
on off. So if I wanted to,
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let's say cap this bed off because
it's got enough water but I needed to
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irrigate the rest, I could
go ahead and do that.
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What I don't like about how I did it
is I think this should be moved to down
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here so it doesn't take up any
of the space on the header row.
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So I'm going to have to cut new main
line and pop these off and move them down
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to here.
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So this is what it looks like when
you're pulling out of an old sprinkler
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system. You have to connect it to the
sprinkler itself, which is right there.
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It runs up vertically into a 90 degree
connector into a filter to make sure no
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particulate matter gets caught.
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It goes down into a pressure regulator
at 15 PSI and then it goes into the main
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line. And the main line is what
you're pulling out of over here,
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let's say to connect into a
bed. So that's the basic setup.
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That's the basic logic.
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Now what I need to do is go ahead and
take one of these beds as a test and
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construct the new header row
with four lines of drip tape.
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And then I need a footer row
with some end caps on it.
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And then I also need to take our on off
valves and move them lower so they're
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not taking up any of this
space on the header row.
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So we're going to go ahead and
construct one, see how it works,
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see if we can correct any inefficiencies
before we extend it out to all 14 beds
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in the front yard. Now before you
even buy any drip equipment at all,
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you have to calculate the total gallon
per hour output of the system to make
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sure that the parts and
pieces you're buying,
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especially the mainline tubing
will support that. So for example,
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my half inch mainline tubing can support
a system up to 200 gallons per hour of
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output.
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And what that means is I have to add
up every single length of drip tape,
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sum all of that up and then calculate
if that's going to put out more or less
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than 200 gallons per hour. So in my case,
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I think I had somewhere around 225
feet of drip tape and I have four inch
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emitters.
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And so I can say okay well then that's
going to be 225 times three because
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that's going to be four
four four adds up to a foot.
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So 225 times three 675 and the emitters
are are a quarter gallon an hour,
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right? So 0.25 gallon an hour.
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So 675 divided by four is less than 200
cause 800 divided by four would be 200
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and so I knew I was safe for this system.
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That's really one of the
most important pieces.
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After that you can mix and match and you
can do all sorts of 90 degree rotations
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and on and off valves and
T T splits and whatever.
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As long as you're under the total amount
of gallons per hour output that the
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whole system can support.
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,
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So I've got my on-off valve there,
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a 90 degree into our three lines of drip
connected over here to a footer row.
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And so just to show you that again,
on a more classically shaped bed,
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you're pulling out with a T connector,
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you've got your on-off if you so choose
to want to turn off the irrigation here
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I went 90 to 90 into a header piece of
wood to keep it nice and stable into four
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lines with a footer row. And
then we've replicated that here,
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here, here, over here,
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and then over here and here. And
then all the way over here too.
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And this is a really long one,
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so this is three lines of tape
all the way down to there.
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So the rest of the system is all set up.
It took a while to make sure that no,
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every end cap was properly tightened.
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All of the drip tape connectors were
properly tightened and I had a couple of
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leaks that I finally plugged up, but
the entire system works and oh my gosh,
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it's so insane how convenient it is to
turn one thing and have all of these beds
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here as well as the beds over here
and even the long bit over here,
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all set up on drip irrigation.
All right, so it turns out,
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I guess I didn't need to install the drip
irrigation anyways because we just had
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basically a flash flood here in
San Diego. But I'm just kidding.
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It's going to be nice to have this.
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What I wanted to do was answer some
of your frequently asked questions.
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So on Instagram I said, "Hey, if you
have any drip irrigation questions,
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drop them and I will do my best to answer
them." So as we're hanging out in our
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rainy front yard, let's go ahead
and roll through some of these.
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So @ameliabretzing, she says, is the
water pressure consistent in every bed?
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And it wouldn't be if you didn't do that
calculation that we mentioned earlier
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in the video.
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It sometimes can take a little bit of
time for water to permeate through the
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entire system,
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but as soon as you get to that end point
of the system and water starts coming
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out of all the emitters, the
water pressure is consistent.
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The only reason it wouldn't be is if you
actually didn't calculate correctly and
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you are under pressure
for the entire system.
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@giraffekari says feeling overwhelmed
where to start with drip irrigation?
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I actually was too. So what I did is I
went to Drip Depot, this is early on,
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like maybe three years ago and I just
emailed their customer support and I was
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like, "Hey, can you help me out? I don't,
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I've never done drip irrigation before."
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And surprisingly because the customer
service sometimes is like pretty bad.
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Surprisingly. They just helped
me design the whole system,
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which is pretty crazy.
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And actually Jack over at Drip Depot
helped me troubleshoot some of the
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calculations that I was doing for
this system that you see behind me.
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So that's where I started Drip Depot and
they are the people who donated all the
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fittings for this video. So first of
all I would have used them anyways,
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but second of all I just wanted
to give them a nice shout out.
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Oregon Dana on Instagram says curious
about the approximate cost of your setup.
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Yeah,
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so this one would have cost somewhere
around $200-$250 and what you're getting
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with that is all the fittings you need
to set it up, your 90 degrees, your Ts,
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your end caps,
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your takeoffs from the main line into
the drip tape connectors and the mainline
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tubing as well as the drip tape.
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And I actually have plenty leftover so
I can do any troubleshooting I need.
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I can replace something. If it
breaks, I can extend the system.
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And so for me that's a
pretty good deal. I mean,
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I know that's a little
expensive, but to do one action,
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just turn the nozzle on and I can even
put this on an automatic timer if I want
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to and have the entire garden
watered. It's well worth it for me,
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especially if I go on a vacation or
something like that. Shot by a girl says,
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I would love to know the drip
distances and drip rate for different
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applications. That's a
good question. So for me,
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I chose four inch distance between each
emitter on the drip tape and I chose a
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relatively low flow rate of
a quarter gallon an hour.
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So let's say you have four feet right
there and that's going to be roughly 12
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emitters. Yeah, 12
emitters. Yeah, 12 emitters.
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Mathematics. It's hard.
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So 12 times four because I
have four lines of four feet.
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That means you've got 48 emitters,
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which means you divide that again by
four cause it's a quarter gallon an hour
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and you're back to 12 gallons in an hour.
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So this bed will put out 12
gallons of water over an hour.
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If I run it, that's too
much. I don't need that.
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So let's say the bed needs a
roughly around three gallons.
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Every time I water it,
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well then I only need to water it for
about a quarter of an hour or 15 minutes.
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So I can turn this entire
system on for about 15 minutes.
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And I know I've put three gallons
of water into every single bed.
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Beth van Boxtel asks, when
you add compost or mulch,
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do you cover the lines or do you keep
them on top? So I'll be covering them.
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That's just buried drip. That's
a very common application.
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It actually helps preserve the drip tape
because it's not going to be exposed to
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the sun and there's no issues
with clogging or anything
like that provided you
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have no leaks in the system and no like
little tears or anything like that.
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So actually buried drip is probably
the better way to go if you can. Okay.
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Sow and Savor asks which is best soakers
for the whole bed or emitters focused
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more on the plant root?
Yeah, that's a good question.
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I almost think it's like a
personal style type of thing.
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As long as your plants are
well established in the bed,
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this style of application
will be completely fine
because then the roots will be
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out far enough to reach any sort of
pockets of water that the emitters are
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throwing out.
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If you really are worried about that or
you like to direct sow into your bed,
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sometimes you may want to do soaker
instead because that puts out a consistent
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stream of water across the whole soaker.
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So that's really just depending
on the way that you do it.
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I like to grow my plants over in my seed
starting area and then transplant them
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in. And so for me it makes a lot of sense
to go ahead and do this application,
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especially because if I feel that maybe
the drip isn't quite solving the job
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early on in the plant's life,
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I can just go ahead and hand water until
they're established and then I know
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they're good to go. Garden Socal
says, why do you need a filter?
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Where did you find the inline
filter? So again, the filter,
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I found at Drip Depot, it's part of
the standard sprinkler retrofit kit,
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but you need it because if there's any
particulate matter that's coming out
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somehow, like it gets in
the water line or whatever,
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you need it to be caught before it
goes into your main line of drip system
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because then you're just going to clog
it and you won't actually know where it
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is. So if it,
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it's better to get caught there rather
than to go into your mainline and get
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caught somewhere in the
potentially hundreds of feet
of mainline tubing that you
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don't know how to fix it cause
you don't know where it is.
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Beloved Hinata is the irrigation mainline
the same as a normal waterline? No,
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it's not.
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It's a separate type of tubing that's
used specifically for irrigation.
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You can buy it in different diameters.
I bought a half inch mainline,
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which has a 200 gallon per hour output.
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So the whole system has to be under
200 gallons per hour for good water
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pressure. Mad midget says,
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is there a way to do this for a handful
of 10 gallon pots? Yeah, totally.
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There is,
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what you would do is you would punch
into the main line and you'd pull like
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quarter inch drip line out
and you'd have a drip spike.
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So you would spike it into your, um,
into your grow bag or your fabric bag.
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And then it would just put a targeted
amount of water directly in the root zone.
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And so I actually might do that because
I might be putting some grow bags out
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here. In fact,
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I will be putting some grow bags out here
and I can punch into my main line and
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get a drip manifold. And like maybe
let's even, I have 10 grow bags.
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I could go one, two, three, four,
five, six, seven, eight, nine,
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10 and pull in and just spike in.
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And actually I have a whole video
on someone who did exactly this.
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If you look up on my channel
Growing in 35,000 Milk Crates,
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there's a guy in New York
City at Riverpark, New York.
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He grows for a professional chef and
he did this in thousands of milk carts.
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He did exactly that method.
So check that video out. Okay.
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Our final question is
from crispy crackling pop.
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Is it hard to set up for someone who
is maybe not so great with things like
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this? Yeah, I mean yes and no. Right,
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so the way I think about it is
like if you ever played with Legos,
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that's exactly what you're doing.
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The hardest part about this is figuring
out the math behind the system before
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you buy everything.
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Like we've talked about a couple
of times already in this video,
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once you know that the system is
going to support whatever you build,
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then it's really just
putting it all together.
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I mean this design is
not even that common.
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I don't think like you don't actually
need the footer rows that I have because
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really all the footer row is doing is
just acting as a way to keep everything
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nice and tidy.
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It's not helping the flow of anything
and the only reason I did that is because
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I didn't want to put a spike at the end
of each of the drip tape and just adhere
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it into the soil. I figured
that's four points of disorder,
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rather than just tying it all together
and having a nice grid sit down.
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So it's really not that hard. You just
kind of have to play around with it.
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And honestly when you get your drip you
can just kind of mix and match and like
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lay things out and put it all
together and see if it makes sense.
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Just like I did. I put this one
down and I said, oh, it makes sense,
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and I made some tweaks and then I just
applied it to the rest of the whole bed.
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Drip irrigation is super, super fun.
I don't know what it is. I just,
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I think it's very pleasing to look at.
Obviously it's handy in the garden,
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so I hope this was helpful. If it
was, feel free to shoot a like,
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feel free to shoot a follow.
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Feel free to shoot a question
down below and until next time,
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good luck in the garden
and keep on growing.
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