Water, water, everywhere…

Irrigation: setting up water pipe in the field

It’s getting dry! A few parts of the field are still wet below the surface, but most of it has gone from pretty well waterlogged a month ago, to dry a couple of inches down, and there’s no rain in sight. The forecast is for heat and sun for the next week at least, with a 60% chance of “showers” on just one day—no holding breath for that. So it’s time to think about spot irrigation.

Step 1, finished this afternoon, is to run a water pipe from the well right through the L-shaped garden. Our watering methods are quite slow and labor-intensive, by hand and with soaker hoses, but on the upside, there’s no huge volume requirement , so the 1″ black plastic pipe already on hand will do fine.  Part of the line was already set up, and I added the last 200′ today, for a total of length of about 800′. Taps with quick release connectors are spaced along the line:  just  plug in a hose as close as possible to where you want to go, drag it out, and there you have it, a little water…everywhere.

3 thoughts on “Water, water, everywhere…”

  1. You have a well?  I’m so jealous!  It hasn’t rained since March down here, so I have to pay for every drop of water I put on plants.
    I’m not a hippie like you guys are, but now I’m curious.  How can hippies afford to power a well?

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  2. Kevin: (How can I put it: I AM NOT A HIPPIE! :) A non-card-carrying neo-hippie by actions, maybe, a little… I’m not even sure what a hippie is. And electricity here in Ontario is for now pretty cheap.) Don’t bother being jealous, this is a new field for me this year, with a dug well, and when we actually started using it, it turned out to have a replenish rate of maybe 40 gallons a day. Basically, for the garden, that’s about the same as having no well at all… Luckily, there has been rain. :)

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