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Best Irrigation Systems for a Home Garden

Are you tired of dragging hoses and sprinklers around in your garden? Sprinklers are labor intensive and the least efficient way to water any garden. Besides their inconvenience, broadcast sprinklers are not watering only the veggies but the weeds too. To save time, effort and water, consider installing a more hands-free and water efficient system.

Best Irrigation Systems

Back to Basics

One of the oldest systems of watering is the use of furrows. Shallow furrows along plant rows allow you to apply water directly to the plant roots. Use a circular furrow for individual plants. There are no materials to buy, but you still must haul a hose or buckets to fill the furrows. Another drawback is that water is lost via evaporation until it soaks into the soil.

Soaker Hoses

Soaker hoses that seep water work in a manner similar to furrows. They can be chained together to reach all the plants in the garden or separate hoses with quick connect fittings are used to water different areas with one hose. There is still some hose wrestling to do, but most of the water goes directly to the plants with minimal evaporation loss.

Above Ground Drip Systems

Kits for building your own custom drip system are found in any home improvement store. The black tubing and fittings in these kits do not require any tools other than a sharp utility knife. Tubing is sealed off by bending and clamping it. Drip fittings are directly screwed into the tubing by hand. Such a system is very water thrifty.

Below Ground Drip Systems

Other drip irrigation kits, similar to the above ground kits, are installed below the soil level. Especially if you have raised beds, this type of irrigation system is very handy. A main tube is installed through the center of the bed frame with a quick connect on one end that protrudes from the frame. Smaller feeder tubes branch off the main tube. Small holes punched through the feeders apply water directly to the plant roots. Tool less barbed tees and unions let you create a pattern customized to the placement of plants in the bed.

Fully Automated Irrigation Systems

Drip systems can be augmented with check valves, filters, timers, and moisture meters and so on in order to build a completely automated system. The trade-off between the simplest and hand-free systems is upfront cost. The cost is paid back by less work for the gardener and a lower water bill.

What’s the Best Time of Day for Drip Irrigation?

When you are using drip irrigation for your irrigation system, such as sprinklers or manually controlled options, you are going to be able to slowly place more water into your system. A manual drip irrigation system allows you to take advantage of the rainfall that takes place before having to do everything on your own.

There are a few varying opinions when it comes to the best time schedule for this kind of irrigation system, and you really have to pay attention to the rain forecast before you decide to set up everything to run automatically. How often you decide to run the irrigation system will really depend on the amount of water that your plants or garden needs on a regular basis.

Start in the Morning

The best start to water your plants is the morning in most cases because that is when there will be the lowest amount of evaporation. This means that the water will be able to set on the plants and in the soil without being removed by the sunlight. The sun is another important factor to look at when making sure that you are giving your plants enough water during the day.

Avoid Watering in the Evening

You will want to avoid watering your plants with your drip irrigation system at night because this kind of schedule will actually increase the probability that some kind of disease will infect your plants. There are mixed opinions when it comes to watering plants around nightfall, but it is usually just better to keep things safe by sticking to an earlier water irrigation schedule whenever possible.

Follow the Directions

When you are dealing with drip irrigation system that was provided by a specific manufacturer or supplier, you may be able to get some tips from the information that came with that particular system. Different irrigation systems are going to have different settings for water pressure and other factors, so it is important to make sure that you actually understand your irrigation system before you begin to water everything on a drip system for the first time. In most cases, you will be able to find some maintenance and proper usage guidelines that come with the materials that you used to create your own drip irrigation system.

Can’t decide which irrigation systems is best for your garden? Contact us For a Free Consultation or call 805-773-5395.

1 Comments By Evergreen Landscaping Archive california drought, Drip Irrigation, efficient sprinkler system, using rain barrels to live droughts, Using Rain Barrels to Survive Droughts, water conservation, water saving tips

Water Saving Tips on California Drought

Water saving tips has always been essential to Californians, and now it’s more important than ever. California is currently facing one of the worst droughts in history. In fact, for several areas in California, 2013 was the driest year in recorded history. Governor Brown has been calling for all Californians to cut their water use by at least 20-percent. That is why, here are a few smart water saving tips you’ll need to know.

3 Ways for Water Conservation

drip irrigation (utilizing a pipe or hose with small holes to progressively seep to the roots in the plant);
the career of plants in types of equal watering needs (to save lots of water on plants that do not require it); and
utilizing compost or mulch to insulate water and prevent drainage.

Water Saving Tips during the California Drought

Mulch Your Gardens Well

Most people think of mulch as a great way to keep weeds down while making a garden bed look more attractive. However, mulch is also a valuable resource when it comes to saving water. Because it prevents evaporation from the soil, a well-mulched bed will use far less water than one with no mulch or only a thin covering.

Choose Drought Tolerant Grasses, Trees and Shrubs

If you want to reduce or eliminate the need for sprinklers, choose a drought-tolerant grass that doesn’t need to be watered. You can also invest in a wide variety of drought-tolerant trees and shrubs that won’t need watering except in the very driest of conditions. Redesigning your landscape is a small investment that will help you conserve water and save money on your water bills.

Reconsider Your Sprinklers

Watering your lawn regularly uses up a huge amount of water, which means that during this time, you should severely limit your sprinkler use. In fact, some areas have made sprinklers illegal, except for on certain days of the week and at certain times of the day. Check with your local Department of Water and Power to see which sprinkler regulations apply to your neighborhood.

If you must water your lawn, make sure that you’re using an efficient sprinkler system. Check routinely for leaks, and keep your sprinklers adjusted so that the water is falling where you need it most – not on the sidewalk or the side of your house.

Using Rain Barrels for California Drough

But one of the better ways and also hard-wearing garden alive throughout a drought is always to take preventative measures. From time to time a drought is going to be predicted far in advanced, or individuals already dealing with a drought will be provided a few days of heavy rain. Should this happen, you need to make chance to setup several rain barrels. Many individuals think this is a period consuming, silly factor to complete. However it could save you many gallons water, and hardly requires any work.

Choosing the barrels will in all probability function as toughest part. You should use your own garbage cans, or mind to your residence improvement store to acquire a handful of 55 gallon plastic drums. These may be expensive and hard to move, so remember that before you go for the store. You’ll most likely desire to cover the very best barrel having a screen of some type to get rid of any undesirable leaves or debris that may cover the rooftop of your dwelling.

After you have your barrels ready, you’re confronted with your decision of where you can place them. Usually throughout rain, there’s the corner or segment of the home that rain tends to pour from. If you’re while using simple method of barrel positioning, just put the barrel under all the places in which you see huge amounts of drainage. However, although this can be the simplest approach to place them, you will not see high volumes of rain inside the barrels.

In order to possess a harder approach to placing the barrels, you should look at fine-tuning your gutter system a little. Should you remove every individual segment and set it in an exceedingly slight slant to make sure that all the water is diverted for the nearest corner of the home, you can put a rain barrel each and every corner. Basically your whole house functions just like a catcher for that rain, rather than a couple of ft price of shingles. This is the way to increase the amount of water your rain barrel will catch.

Following a heavy rain, every individual barrel most likely won’t see greatly rain. Whether it seems like it will not be pouring down rain more soon, it’s smart to empty each barrel into one primary central barrel. Seal it and save it taken care of, for if you might need it. Then next time it starts to rain, you’ll have the ability to rapidly invest your catching barrels into position without needing to take with you all the water you’ve gathered up to now.

Using water barrels might seem as an old idea. However, when you’re at the time of the drought and you’re in a position to spare that extra number of gallons for that garden additionally the town allotment, you’ll be thankful just for of cash and time you invested in collecting everything rain. It just takes a couple of outings out outside every time it starts to sprinkle, and you’ll be a really happy garden enthusiast when water isn’t so abundant.

If you are a novel reader which has a limitless method to obtain water, consider yourself lucky. You will find a lot of us who reside in drought zones where the garden and lawn watering rules are incredibly constrictive towards the healthy growth and development of gardens and plants. Lots of people just quit once they discover how handful of gallons water they’re permitted to utilize, but some individuals have just found methods to handle less water.

There are many more water saving tips to practice inside and outdoors. Check with your local water department or utility company for even more great ideas. With California facing a severe water shortage, saving water during the drought is the socially responsible thing to do.

Looking for more water saving tips for your garden during drought season? Call 805-773-5395 or

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Tag: Drip Irrigation