packyderms_wife
Neither here nor there.
I see there are many choices out there, I'd like a set up soaker hoses for our three raised beds. Suggestions on which one to buy and which ones to avoid?
I don't know where you are, but I avoid soaker hoses after the heat made them ineffective one year.
I used sprinklers last year. I would go out in the morning and turn them on and control the water level so they only watered the plant area. If I get the chance this year, I'll be making watering hoses and setting them under the mulch layers.
You will probably be fine with soaker hoses. I'm in the deep south.I'm in central Iowa, we've been in an extended drought for at least three summers now. I need to do something to improve our yields.
You will probably be fine with soaker hoses. I'm in the deep south.
Which Juan are you going to choose?
Generally, you have 3 selections depending on the area needed watering. Big Juan, Little Juan and his other brother Middle Juan. Forget about Jose, last he was seen was shimming up a flag pole to watch a baseball game, kept climbing and climbing till everyone exclaimed…. Jose, can you see..Well I was thinking of going with this greek sounding one, I hope Juan isn't offended!
I can't help you on the automatic waterer. There are so many and so many are absolutely crud. I'm not focusing on that part of the search until I have the hoses made and in place.
I have been using this for four years now. It feeds a four-way manifold that the soaker hoses are connected to. till on the original batteries, too.
Orbit 1-Outlet Hose Faucet Timer 56619 - The Home Depot
The Orbit 1-Outlet Electronic Watering Timer will turn your hose faucet into a programmed sprinkler system in minutes. No more dead plants because you forgot to water them. No more soggy lawns becausewww.homedepot.com
Best of luck with your garden!
Haha...we did the same thing a couple years ago as a supplement during a scorcher of a summer. Still deal with them regularly as they have varieties that we don't usually grow. Figured being a regular customer might turn out to be a good thing.
The heat and insects have been our biggest issues, but this year is going to better!!!
....right??? LOL
This weekend we're sitting down to figure what this year's veggie priorities shall be.
It's probably gotten stupid expensive, but a few years back I found some copper tape. Stuck it to the tops of all the raised bed boards, and as long as I didn't let plants grow over it to the ground, no slugs got into the beds.I need about two bushels of green beans, and one bushel of yellow wax beans to put up for the coming years meals! That's going to be my main priority this year, that and figuring out how to keep the slugs out of my raised beds.
I also wanted to say that there are other choices than soaker hoses, which I'm not fond of. (I've had them clog, and I suspect the food safety of them.)
Ignoring potted plants, our garden is irrigated using either sprinkler heads or netafim drip, depending on the situation. If you don't want to go whole hawg on an irrigation system, but just want something that you can hook up to a hose, then consider using netafim vs a soaker hose. The netafim tubing can be connected to something that you can connect a hose to:
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bv1D6ULKqdM
These guys trying to install it in a raised bed, as fed from a hose.
I suspect that there needs to be a water pressure reducer somewhere between the faucet (or hose) and the input into the netafim, which may be part of the reason for their leakage. How to Install your Netafim Drip Irrigation System
Our netafim was installed by our hydrologist and garden helper, so it is connected ultimately to the irrigation system, not to a faucet or hose. I'm sure there's a pressure reducer in there somewhere.
All that said, it IS water efficient, and it DOES do the job. One of the places where we use the netafim is in/on top of my raised bed iris/daylily seedling beds. I irrigate them for maybe 7 minutes, twice a day, two days a week, and the plants grow well. (The "maybe" is because we sometimes tweak things seasonally. These beds are well composted so that helps with retaining moisture, AND they are mulched with redwood mulch.)
I should point out that in my seedling beds, the netafim is laid out in a grid pattern, with one plant inside each of the grid squares of about 6" x 6". The netafim is cut such that each of those 6" sides has a drip hole in it. (So basically the entire setup is pieces of netafim connected together into a grid using their connectors, all run from one line which attaches to the irrigation system.) Your setup/layout and irrigation timing for your raised bed will necessarily vary, depending on what you are growing, and also on your climate. While we irrigate those beds in a grid pattern, we use the netafmin elsewhere in straight lines to irrigate property line hedges. The irrigation there is run for 2.5 hrs, twice a week, so you see that you will have some trial and error figuring out what is right for your situation.
Some may want to kill their slugs, but I choose to catch them and bring them over to my chickens for a treat. Great protein there. I put boards down on the edge of the garden bed, and after a few days, will usually find a few slugs.Sluggo is your friend. Rated safe for organic gardens. Sluggo plus also deals with sowbugs and earwigs.