Posted by gotica on December 27, 2013 at 17:25
PermalinkI'm trying to figure out the best way to set up reticulation for my raised beds.
The area is about 3m wide by 7m long with four beds; one about 50cm wide and 7m long, the others about 1.2m wide and 1.8m long. I'm looking at using poly pipe, but not sure whether to have upright sprinklers that do more of an aerial dispersion or have something lower down similar to one of those perforated lawn soaker hoses running down the centre of each bed.
What have people found to work well with their setups? Have you seen any negative side effects from watering above or below the leaf line?
2 comments
I haven't had success with soaker hoses; they got clogged all the time as I wasn't running them with filtered water - they run on harvested rainwater, so it's not ultra-clean.
I'm having good results with the little upright sprinklers they sell at Home Depot that work with 1/2" hose. The stakes have hose fittings, and the sprinklers screw on top of each stake. They seem to work well even with little water pressure from the rainwater tank (which is essentially one floor above the planting beds). One sprinkler for a 45 cm radius seems to work well.
I haven't worried about the height of watering. The sprinklers get pretty close to the ground as you can bury the stakes pretty well.
Home Depot wants to sell you custom hose/pipe for those stakes/sprinklers that is pretty expensive, but I've found that normal 1/2" hose works well. I have a couple of old hoses that I'm just cutting up to the required lengths between sprinklers. The stakes and sprinklers are not expensive at all.
Thanks, we're lucky that the poly pipe for the fittings is rather cheap here. There is also a huge range of fittings to go with them; sprinklers, soakers, misters, mini sprinklers etc.