Easy DIY Automatic Irrigation System for any Garden!

The easiest way to kill the plants in your garden is by just not giving them enough water. But you can also kill your plants by giving them too much water. And in order for your plants to really thrive, they need the right amount of water on a consistent schedule. And while you can achieve that just by hand watering on a regular basis, it's not as effective and it's certainly not as convenient. I'm Kyle from Urban Farmstead and in this video, I'm going to show you how to set up a very simple automatic irrigation system right from your faucet. The materials you need for your project might be a little bit different than mine and the main factor is going to be the distance from your faucet to your garden. But they should be pretty similar. Now I was able to find all of these at my local nursery and I always recommend you check your local nursery or your local hardware store to source materials before starting any project. If you can't find these items or similar items at your local nursery or hardware store, have them all listed in the description below to where you can find similar items online. Now the most important one is going to be the automatic irrigation controller and there's a lot of different brands that make similar items. So just use whichever one's available and makes the most sense to you. This should be able to hook up right to your faucet and usually takes batteries. Now there are some that wire in, there are some that are solar powered. The battery ones will last a long time. If you check your batteries or change your batteries just once a season, that should do. So battery powered controller that hooks to your faucet and soaker hose. Now this is a 50 foot soaker hose. The length of your soaker hose is going to depend on the area that you're irrigating. So there's a lot of different options for lengths. Maybe you need a couple of them. For me, I just need one 50 foot length and then I've got some half inch flex tubing. And this is the tubing that I'll connect from my faucet to my garden. I only have about four or five feet to go. You might have a longer span or if your faucet is right next to the garden, you won't need this at all. You can go right to your soaker hose and that would be very convenient. Other than that, I just have a few fittings to get from this half inch flex tubing to my soaker hose. These are just some general adapters. You're going to probably find different ones at your hardware store or your nursery. So I won't talk about the brand of these, but these are what I found and they're going to work great. So let's get to it. Outdoor garden faucets like this are commonly referred to as hose bibs or spigots. And anytime I tap into one for an irrigation system, I always like to add one of these gated Y's. So I always have access to fill a water can or use a garden hose. Irrigation components with hose threads like this rely on a rubber gasket to create their watertight seal. So there's no need for Teflon tape. Just tighten it down hand tight. This is my first time using this controller and I'm not reviewing or promoting any brands. So just use whatever's available in your area. I'm using this half inch flex tubing, also known as poly hose to span the gap from my controller to my garden. So I'll need this hose thread adapter to make the connection. And I'm using a T fitting so that I have two connection points for maximum flow. There are a lot of different options for poly hose fittings, but I prefer ones like this that press in then thread to tighten. You might also choose to span this gap from your controller to your garden with PVC pipe, a regular garden hose or a different material. But I feel like this half inch poly hose is the most versatile, affordable and effective option for a wide range of scenarios. So that's why I'm choosing to use it for this video. But use whatever you think is going to work best for your garden. Now I'll attach my poly hose to my soaker hose. Unlike hose threads, pipe threads don't have a rubber gasket to create their watertight seal. Instead, they rely on slightly beveled edges within their thread pattern. So it's always important to use Teflon tape to create that watertight seal. If you've ever had the pleasure or more commonly displeasure of navigating the plumbing section in your local hardware store, you've surely noticed that there's no shortage of options for different materials that you can use for any irrigation system. So chances are the materials you find for your system will be at least slightly different than what I'm using for mine. So just think of this as a general guide. Anytime I'm using a soaker hose, I like to tap into it from both ends so that I have consistent circular flow, which usually means creating connection points for male and female fittings. Now I'll just string out the soaker hose and anchor it in place with a landscaping staple. This flower bed is about two feet wide and 25 feet long. So a simple up and back with a 50-foot soaker hose will provide excellent coverage. But this simple and effective irrigation system can be adapted to pretty much any other garden scenario. So I'll show you one other example of how I've used it in our raised garden beds. It runs into this gated Y, and from the gated Y, it connects to a soaker hose. So I have it connected at both ends of the soaker hose so that it gets equal irrigation on this side of the bed and on that side of the bed. I just have the soaker hose kind of laid out to get really good coverage. So this soaker hose, I can just leave this on and irrigate about once or twice a week. The coverage does appear patchy on the surface, but just below, this bed is completely saturated. All right, let's wrap up today's project. I love that modern irrigation controllers have the option to hook up to Bluetooth and Wi-Fi. And while that's all convenient, it's not exactly necessary because three of the most important factors in any irrigation system are frequency, duration, and consistency. And that can be programmed into any irrigation controller. I'll run this irrigation system for about 30 minutes twice a week. But your irrigation schedule might be completely different than mine. It really depends on the plants that you're growing and the composition of your soil. The main reason I like to use soaker hose rather than establishing individual emitters for each plant is that this allows me to saturate the entire bed so that I can plant whatever I want without having to change out the system between crops. And I'll know that the roots of those plants will reach out to fill the bed. And that's it for this very basic but effective automatic irrigation system. But for the main vegetable garden, I have a completely different automatic irrigation system and I created an entire video for that. So if you want to see that, I'll add a link to it here. Otherwise, if you have any questions about this irrigation system or any other general irrigation questions, ask them in the comments below. If you want to see more videos like this or any other upcoming videos on how I'm creating our new urban farmstead, hit subscribe. If you like this video, give it a thumbs up. And otherwise, I'll see you all next time.