Watering the plants-- you gotta do it, no matter what. No water, no garden. It would be nice if rainfall was predictable and regular enough to let nature handle things, but it just ain't always so. Garden irrigation can be a real pain-- if you water manually, you can't forget to do it, especially during the heat of summer. You don't want to under or over-water, and different plants have different requirements in order to do their best. One solution is to set up a low-volume or "drip" irrigation system. Using low-pressure tubing and dripper or sprayer heads, you can tailor your system to serve a variety of plants. Plants that need more can be supplied by adjustable drippers or spray heads; plants that need less can be supplied by fixed drippers that supply as little as one gallon per hour.
I found a lot of cool stuff by a manufacturer called Mr. Landscaper© that covers so many bases in low-volume irrigation, it's hard to fathom what else you could possibly need to handle your garden and plant watering needs.
I did find one thing, however, and it really completes the whole setup. It's the Orbit Sunmate Automatic Yard Watering System©. Although it's aimed at high-volume lawn use, it's wide range of operating pressures-- from 10 to 80psi-- allows its adaptation to low-volume irrigation quite nicely. ...continue reading "Where My Hose At?"