Inside Our Market Garden Irrigation Setup 🌱 Efficient & Simple.

Hello friends, welcome to the farm. Today we're going to answer some questions a lot of you have asked. We're going to talk about our irrigation system. Okay so we bought the farm six years ago and I remember we had a big vision but not really a plan. Yeah we had a vision but weren't sure what we were doing so we just kind of winged it. Yeah we started off, got the tractor out here making the big garden and I remember how exciting it was when we first put the plants in the ground and then what? We had to water. Then I'm standing there watering all the plants. Took a long time. We knew that wasn't going to work. I think after two or three days of that we figured... Well we've got to figure out this irrigation system. We knew there was a system out there something that would work but we had no idea how to do it. Yeah and to be honest it was a little intimidating. Irrigation system, all these lines and parts and hydraulics and water control how much water. I mean it was confusing and I didn't really want to tear into it but absolutely necessary we did. Yeah. Okay so we have an irrigation system in our market garden outside here and in the tunnel behind us and I think you have some for your willow. The willow beds I'm starting have irrigation out there too. Yeah so this is really an agricultural system. It's kind of an entry level system. We'll go into a lot more detail on that but if you're at home and you're wondering if an irrigation system is for you yeah absolutely and they make very simple systems and kits that you can buy. If you just go to your favorite hardware store or even a big box store they have a kit of all of the supplies and it is a drip line system. Smaller gauge system with less parts and it's less flow. It's designed for smaller gardens so if you have a couple raised beds or even like a 15 by 20 or 25 bed then you probably just need a drip line system. And it's actually better for your plants because I mean you can stand under water overhead but your plants are constantly getting wet and some things like tomatoes that's how you can get some fungus. It's better if the plant if the water is going right into the roots and you don't have to water as much because it's not evaporating it's going right to the roots. So it's worth looking into even if you have a small garden. Yeah it uses less water and it's actually better for the plants so whether it's small garden or big garden or agricultural you know I think the irrigation system is the way to go. They make your life easier and it's better. Well we just talked about all the benefits of irrigation system but just a quick warning. Systems are designed to be safe but if you don't follow the directions then it can be a hazard and one area is you know you have water flowing out into your garden in the sun and then when you stop there's water laying in all the tubing and if you don't have your system set up correctly the water that's in the tubing another has a potential to siphon back in to your house particularly if you're on a residential setup. Now all these kits come with what they call a backflow preventer or it's a check valve and it just makes sure that the water that goes out in your garden and the piping doesn't go back in your house so then you're completely safe. But just be sure to follow the directions. Now if you're doing a commercial system you have to buy a separate check valve so that's one thing to be aware of and then we learned the hard way a couple times early on didn't we where I know I did anyway where I left the system on and then I forgot about it and it went on and on. Yeah I did that several times then I learned there were timers. Yes yeah timers can help save you a lot of money and or maybe potentially save your crops. Yeah because some things don't want that much water. Yeah luckily I never killed any plants but I did waste some water in the beginning. Yeah so simple systems like we're talking about here you can buy a timer for $15 at the hardware store and it can save you a lot of aggravation and give you peace of mind if you wake up in the middle of the night did I turn that off or not? Speaking from experience. For our garden all the water for the garden comes in through the hydrant right outside the front of the garden so I turn that on and it comes right in to a system right here it's like the hub where all the water splits. So it comes in from a garden hose doesn't it? Yeah that's what feeds it a water hose from the hydrant to the hub and then there's a bunch of equipment at the hub that Donnie can tell you more about but it splits it into four zones we have our garden split into four quadrants two in the front two in the back and I water them not at the same time like I'll have one on for a half hour 45 minutes then the next one and again I have timers I set the timers for roughly 45 minutes now if it rains of course out here I don't have to do anything the rain takes care of it but if it doesn't rain I have to decide you know how hot is it how much do you think the plants really want are they growing well you kind of have to gauge how much water they need. So what happens if you get like one inch of rain from a thunderstorm you don't do it that day what about the next day or the next day? Feel the soil I would feel down feel the soil see how wet it is but if it's really hot like today's in the 90s I'd still do it the next day just because the plants it cools them down a little bit too having the irrigation running so and I have things set up in such a way I some of the beds have three lines going out some have two lines going out some only have one it depends what plants and how they're set up how much I need going out each row. So what do you do later in the season if you've harvested all of them in that bed how do you keep or do you just water? Each bed has each irrigation line has these handy little spigots you can turn off and on so in the spring before I'm growing anything there I have it off but once everything's going almost every single line is open then as it's harvested I can turn each line off individually so it's great it's really control you know what you want to water and how much you want to water. For instance this garden right here is celery and celery needs a lot of water so I have a line on each row and I have three rows of celery so in this row there are three separate drip lines going out and I'm actually probably going to be giving the celery even extra water from time to time because it needs a lot of water I've never excelled at celery and I think it's because I didn't water enough so this year it's going to be getting even hand watered extra but then right next to this is a row of lavender and I only have one line lavender doesn't like to be very wet so I only have one irrigation line on all my lavender rows. When I have a real high tech system how I keep the drip lines where I want them you can buy handy little metal stakes that go down into the ground hold them in place but I'm afraid well first of all I get rusty and yucky but I'm going to leave them in the garden I'm going to have metal in the garden so I end up just using wood sticks we always have wood chips in the garden there's always sticks around so I just find sticks stick it in and hold the drip plate where I want and Donnie on his raised bed cut notches in them so the drip tapes will stay in the notch so it works I keep the drip tape on the plant where I want it. Okay so what happens if you have it all laid out and it's functioning and then you change what uh what you're growing in there and you decide you need more lines how do you handle that? Then you add more of those handy little spigots and you have more lines you can do as many as you want on each row now they're hard for me to poke I'll have Donnie say oh he pokes one in because they're kind of hard to poke in he pokes them in and then I can take it from there. Yeah it's really convenient you don't have to cut the line and put in like a tee or some kind of fitting it's just a matter of poking the hole putting the faucet in and then I come along and hook the drip tape up see how long I need it to be tap off the end with a special little method and then make sure it's not leaking anywhere. Okay so what happens when you have a leak well first of all how do you know and then how bad is it? That's what I do first thing in the spring we're unusual in that we don't take everything in the winter some people roll up all their irrigation and take it in we don't that just seems like too much work plus we've had great success a lot of things they do fine they don't get hurt now the drip tape that is what I do in the spring I go through line by line I start with all of them closed and one by one I turn them on see if there's a leak if there's a leak I have to replace it. How do you know there's a leak? You'll see water flying out okay or you'll hear it you can actually hear when they're like how much well I don't understand how much water you'll see it and it makes a puddle I mean it's going to be too much water and you're not getting enough to the rest of the plants okay now I started this year experimenting with taping if they're just little little geysers I'm taping them shut and it's working but if it's a big full-out tear in the hose okay but it's not like a hydrant and a street balloon and water running everywhere the whole system still works yeah and you have to make sure once in a while the end comes off and you have water running out the end of the hose at the end of the drip line so I have to like in the spring I'm checking and listening and watching every line to make sure there are no leaks that's doing what I wanted to do and replacing what I need to replace but I'd say we only have to replace maybe 25 maybe 30 percent of the lines every spring so this saves a lot of time and a lot of money. So are there any disadvantages you can think of of an irrigation system? One is just when you're working around the plants if you're cutting something or weeding or digging you got to be careful the drip tape you don't want to dig right through the drip tape or it's going to leak so you just have to be a little bit cautious where it is and remember that it's there. But it's not real fragile is it? No it's pretty tough but if you take a spade and drive right down through it you'll cut it. I've done just about everything I know when I cut my asparagus I cut through the drip tape so you just have to be careful. Okay so what if you have some plants or even bush or something that needs more attention how do you handle that? Well in here we don't have any what are they called drip emitters? Yes. There's special things you can get? Describe those. Yeah yeah there's many other options other than drip tape but they make individual like quarter inch lines with a single emitter that you can plant right at the root of a larger you know some kind of a bush or something that needs like pumpkins if you want to just water the hill where it is you can direct it right to the root of pumpkin plants. We have all drip tape and if I have something that needs watered extra like my celery I'm just going to take the hose and we have a hose set up in the front of the garden and in the back so I have a hose everywhere I need to reach and I do the celery and then things like seeds when you're putting seeds in you can try to line the drip tape up where the seed is but sometimes I can't always remember where I planted exactly so I water the seeds with the hose until they're up then I use my fancy technique to keep the drip tape on the plant but for seeds I do have to water them every morning until they come up. Okay some people ask since all the drip tape and the lines are black is the water really hot that comes out because you know like if your garden hose in the backyard and it's laying there it's full of water and it gets steamy hot is it going to burn your plants? No it comes out a little bit warm but when you're empty when you turn the water off they empty out completely so it's just the empty hose there's no water laying and they're heating up and a lot of the lines in my garden the main line going through is buried and a lot of my gardens end up buried under mulch so they're not heating up that much so I don't have any problem with it now. Okay hey what's that plant right there in front of you? This is baptistia it's a native plant of Pennsylvania also called false indigo I started with some seeds like six years ago and now I'm starting a whole bunch more because it's amazing it's beautiful. Wow okay some people look at the drip tape when it's empty and it looks like it's kinked all over how does the water get through is it okay? Sometimes there's little bends in it but as soon as the water starts to fill this up it straightens out and I didn't mention at the end of every row I have rocks big heavy rocks or sandbags and I pull the lines tight once I get them where I want and they stay where I want them to be once in a while I have to go through there's a really big kink and I'll go through and just pull it tight again but for the most part the water will push it straight when it opens up. Cool okay so you have drip tape between each one of these the fruit bushes do you put the emitters up or down? I think they're supposed to be up and I'd say 99% of mine are up once in a while it'll flip and I do try to cover as much as possible you see the wood chips are completely over it and even the plants where it's up now you see it as I mulch it throughout the season and it's going to be covered a lot by the end of the season pretty much all the drip tape is covered it just goes under everything and hits the plants it needs to hit. So you can be assured that it's still continuing to you know feed water to the plants even though you can't see it it's under the mulch? It will if you see a plant start to die you might want to look into it but for the most part if it stays covered and nothing's hurting it it works the whole season and beyond so I have no problem all my honey berries are doing great I actually see a little honey berry I think. Cool okay now that we showed you the operation of the irrigation system in the garden we talked about the difference between a residential system now this is the kind of an entry-level agricultural system and we don't have time to do a proper you know how-to so I'm going to just cover a few of the elements of it to give you a flavor what is all involved. Well we moved to the farm we knew we needed an irrigation system we put in the irrigation system we're all excited about that and then boom the system used so much water that our well. We had it hooked up to the same well as the house because it was the only well on the property. Yeah so soon we ran out of water with the house which is not good we realized we needed to drill a second well just for all of our agricultural operations so we drilled a well and ended up at what 800 feet and we got a water supply that we needed but beyond that then we needed to get the water distributed all around the property through the market garden and the high tunnel and then we have several like three patches where we grow sweet corn and others when we needed hydrants there and like right here too behind us we have a hydrant that is a redundancy for the pasture behind us if the other system runs out. So the cheapest way to get the pipe around and here's it's a one and a quarter well pipe and we had to run it about 650 700 feet all around the property and it had to go down below 30 inches to be below the frost line. We're in Pennsylvania, South Central Pennsylvania. The cheapest way to do that is to rent a trencher or ditch which and to run it on a skid steer. We don't have a skid steer but we had a retired farmer down the road that did so we enlisted his help and we were able to do about 90 or 95 percent of it and the last five percent was pretty tough because we ran into some huge limestone rocks. We're in limestone territory almost always happens. Yeah so again we wanted to put seven frostry hydrants around and that's really the key the frost trees you can keep them on all year round. The key element to it is is when you know you open it the water comes out but when you shut it off there's a drain down under the frost line and you can see in the photographs here there's a bed of stone below the hydrant so all the water goes down out of the riser pipe goes into the ground so it's frost free. You can use them all winter long. Yeah and that's essential because you know with animals and sometimes you do need to water. I have a little bit of lavender in the tunnel and you can't hook a hose up to it because the hose the water and hose will freeze you just keep the hydrant open fill up buckets and water you can water all winter long. Yep so we did the well we put the distribution liner all around the property and then with the well beside it we did a well pit and where we put all the equipment and uh to operate the well and while we had that we built a butterfly hut on top of it. Had to put some on top of the well pit right. Yeah so okay so now we have water all around the property and it's up to us to connect into our irrigation system and fortunately it's easy the connection you just hook a hose on to the frost free hydrant and then it runs into the head of the irrigation system and that essentially is a timer and uh just a simple on off valve and then there's a pressure reducer because you can't have 50 60 70 psi water running through your irrigation system everything would blow so you have a pressure reducer and then you also have a check valve. We're fortunate we live near a produce supplier that you know sells everything and they were able to talk us through some of this and help us out a lot. Yeah and they supply produce uh farmers in the three state area here so they helped us design the whole system. So just to give you a flavor of what is involved um coming out of the hydrant you have a hose that goes through the head which we just explained and then you have your distribution line which is a five-eighths poly and this stuff is very light it's uh you know but it's pretty sturdy and it's hard this is what distributes the water to each one of the drip lines that you uh put in the drip tape I should say. Now when it comes to drip tape there are several different options um and it's best to buy these in five and six thousand foot spools like this much cheaper per linear foot. So we have two types here they look the same when you initially look at them but they're not they're very different um the one here on the left is a much heavier gauge it's designed to last for three years this one is a lighter gauge and we primarily use this one as designed for one year however as Brenda said earlier we get more than one year we get two three years out of it. Now if you look at the uh drip tape you'll see that there's the engineering specs on each one of them what your uh gpm flow is per hundred feet gallons per minute yep and where the emitters are now this one has a little slit emitter every 24 inches so it's not as dense of a water supply as this one which has emitters every six inches so typically with the veg that we grow we uh use this one every six inches and it seems to put pretty much a straight line of um of water the whole way through. It does everything we grow. Yep so to connect these two though you buy you know in groups of a hundred here uh it's just a simple valve here with a little knob and it punctures into the side of your distribution line before you push it in there's a little tool that will pop and make a hole or you have a drill with the proper size bit for your valve and you just slide it in and the friction and a little knob on here keeps it from popping out. Now the advantage of these is not only it gets the water from this line to the drip tape but it also comes with a quarter turn shutoff valve. Yeah like I said I can turn off any line I want and turn on any line I want separately. So your custom system and then at the end of the drip tape it's really a very simple matter of uh just folding up the drip tape and in two or three ways and then this right here you just cut it into little pieces and you slide it in like we have one right here and it and it just slides right in you don't need any other high-tech equipment it just boom slides in and because it's only operating at 15 pounds per square foot it won't pop the end off at least most of the time. Yeah I just have to be careful when I have the rocks on it sometimes if I pull on it the rocks pull that off so it can come off if you pull hard enough but most of the time it's fine. So a very simple system that's very efficient and then just briefly we have one other area here where we can do overhead irrigation. This screws on to the male end of our hydrants around the property and we connect it to inch and a half this is a lay flat hose and it provides a good supply and you can see on the bottom here the connectors and the water goes straight through and some of it will go up and up top here we have a sprinkler provides overhead and we have three of these and this will do about a half an acre. And we'll be using our sweet corn. Yeah so this is just two simple areas there's many other options out there but it just gives you an idea of how we set it up and it was intimidating at first but once you get into it it's really very simple isn't it? And then once you get it set up it's a breeze. I actually have one row here my asparagus row where I only have one drip tape and I'd like to have two so I'm going to have Donny add one he'll show you how we do this. He's going to poke the hole in the main line and then put in the what do you call it? I call it a faucet. Turns the water off and on and it's in. One thing I don't recommend is planting these wild crazy day lilies at the end of your beds because it makes it hard. So I fed the line through the thing and now I just have to stick it on the end of the faucet. It's a valve for those. As far as it goes the thing opens up so it screws back you stick it on as far as you can go and then you screw it tight again so it locks it in hopefully. If it's not locked in you know it it pops right off. Now just see how long I need the line to be to the end and I'll have a drip tape ready. And usually when I'm doing a bunch of these I have a setup on my golf cart where the tube is on it and I just pull the irrigation line off but I only have one line to do so. So you have a broomstick or a shovel that goes through the center and then you make a roll. Yep works a lot better than this. See how long I need it I'll cut it off put the end on and I'll be in business. So you just cut that with regular scissors? Anything just cut it and I usually loop it three times and then a fancy end piece. And that's just the tube of the 5 8 supply tube. And then I'll put a heavy rock here to hold it in place and we're going to turn it on make sure it works. Well thank you for joining us on our irrigation story. We'll see you in our next video. Right now we got to go bale some hay.