A gushing water hose—nothing more normal and mundane wherever electricity for pressurized pumping, and of course WATER, are in plentiful supply. This tiny farm is in such a place, yet the gushing hose signals something much happier, an elevated event, because it’s proof positive that the dug well that irrigates the field is back in action once again after another frozen winter.
Priming the pump is usually a mid-May thing, when freezing is over. The operation is simple enough: slowly pour a couple of gallons of water into the pump so it backfills the pipe that goes into the well, turn on the pump, and wait for it to catch. It may take two or three top-ups and retries. When water gushes, the pump is primed for the season! It’s not foolproof, though, the pipe could’ve gotten hopeless clogged, or the well-used and dilapidated pump and tank could decide to give up a seal or conk out entirely. Then the simple would likely become costly repairs or replacement. But not this time!
Details! If the irrigation fittings look small, they are indeed. I’ve seen photos of irrigation set-ups on big farms that are full scale waterworks, orderly grids of giant pipes. Here, the setup is a 1″ plastic pipe that snakes above-ground out into the field—it’s the disconnected part on the left. The pipe can be this small because it’s only meant for low-pressure drip irrigation, hand watering by hose, or a few sprinklers at a time: not every day, all crops, all the time. Also, a dug well like the one here doesn’t have an endless water supply, you don’t want to get ahead of its reservoir size and replenishment rate. Finally, the longer the pipe, the lower the pressure the closer you get to the end. Here there’s about 400′ of it, and you can notice the pressure difference at each of the taps spaced along it. It’s not geared to intense large-scale production, instead, a low cost way to connect a fairly distant water source to a thirsty veggie plot when there’s the need!
