Creating A Gorgeous Garden

2 Tips To Help You Install An Efficient Drip Irrigation System In Your Vegetable Garden

27 February 2017 by Tiffany Gonzales

Watering your vegetable garden with an irrigation system is a good way to save on water, improve the health of your plants, and save you time working in your garden. Here are two tips to consider when you install a drip irrigation system in your garden so you can make it an efficient watering system.

Plan Your Hose and Emitter Usage

As you are planning your drip irrigation system, you can install lengths of one-half inch main irrigation tubing, then connect smaller one-fourth-inch delivery tubes onto the main line. From each of the smaller tubes, you can connect several different types of watering devices. There are drippers, which deliver water by dripping; bubblers, which deliver water at a slightly faster rate than drippers; and sprinklers, which can spray the water out in a small area. You can also install a soaker drip line, which is a length of one-quarter-inch line that is perforated to allow water to seep out along its length. 

Depending upon the type of plants you are watering, you can install your watering devices equally spaced down the tubing's length for each device to correspond to the placement of a plant. If you have a row of plants, such as sweet peas or string beans, you can install a length of soaker drip line to soak the roots of all the closely-spaced plants.

Set the Proper Irrigation Timing

After you have set up your drip irrigation system, it is important to know the duration to use it for watering your plants. It is important to know a drip irrigation system delivers water at a much slower rate than a sprinkler system does, as a drip system delivers water by water droplets and not a steady spray. For this reason, it is necessary to run your system for a longer period of time. A longer watering time helps deliver water to a depth appropriate for your plants' roots to grow healthy.

Plants that receive water that only reaches, for example, one to two inches down into the soil from short watering sessions will grow shallow roots and cause problems to the plants. Shallow roots can become scorched from the sun and also cause the plant to not be stable as it grows larger and mature. Longer watering sessions of one to two hours each, two to three times each week, will deliver water to allow each of your plants to soak deep into the soil and promote healthy root growth of your plants.

Use these tips to help make the most of your drip system installation, and talk with professional landscapers, such as those at Boehm Landscape Inc, for more information and assistance.

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