Beautify Your* Landscape AND Conserve* Water Drip by Drip!
Drip irrigation -- also known as low-volume or micro-irrigation -- is not currently restricted by the most cities' watering laws, so this technique allows you a way to efficiently irrigate landscape beds, gardens, and specimen plants. (With global warming well entrenched, water both precious and costly, it behooves us to order a bunch of these fittings, which even a ten year old could put together.) http://www.dripirrigation.com/drip_irrigation.php?cPath=38They're easy to pick up and re-arrange so that really, in the case of a new planting, consider using micro-irrigation as a temporary, "nurse" system to establish new plantings. Pull them up when the perennials are well rooted, your artichokes, berries, your orchard...move em!
I happen to have a professor at an Agricultural College of note, Pierce, living a few houses down and I've seen the miracle of drip emitter systems. You're freed from pulling around a hose, getting drenched, sunburned and getting a huge water bill. If a City Employee passes, sees you watering between 9 am and 4 pm, you get a fat ticket, too. Nobody sees your drip emitters. So if you have to run to work early and leave the kids to water the gardens, they won't get tickets, either.
Traditional landscape sprayers and sprinklers throw water (in gallons per minute) into the air and onto plants where much is lost to evaporation. In contrast, micro-irrigation emitters apply water slowly -- in gallons per hour ---; close to the soil and roots of plants. This application efficiency can result in a 50 - 70% comparative saving in water.
Actually drip irrigation -- where water seeps from tubing or drip emitters -- is only one type of micro-irrigation. Other forms include bubblers, micro-sprinklers (which rotate), and micro-sprayers (which are stationary). Israeli agriculture developed this technology over 20 years ago and has used it to vastly stretch its limited water resources. Today, micro-irrigation can be found on farms throughout Florida and the U.S. and it’s now available, off-the-shelf, in most home and garden supply stores.
Micro-irrigation components or starter kits are inexpensive and easy to install. They connect to outside faucets or the end of a hose. Simply lay out the flexible tubing and use the punch tool (furnished in the kit) to install the drippers or micro-sprayers where you want them. Drip tubing also exists. Unlike traditional soaker hoses, this product has emitters within the tubing which apply the water uniformly along the entire length of the tubing. Existing in-ground, automatic irrigation systems can be retrofitted to use micro-irrigation as well. Shrub sprays can be replaced with micro-sprayers or the riser pipe can be outfitted with devices which allow drip tubing to be installed. Micro-irrigated zones can be wired into time clocks. Last there can be watering systems buried deep beneath a bed, (See drawing below.) A qualified irrigation contractor, is likely your best bet with such a project. The local civic water resources organization maintains a list of such qualified professionals.
FROM GEOFLOW CORPORATION.
Micro-irrigation isn’t the best choice for all situations. Consider these facts:
It is not appropriate for lawns. Yes, drip tubing could be laid beneath the grass, but the spacing of the tubes would need to be extremely close -- about 6-8 inches apart. In Florida’s sandy soil, water is pulled rapidly downward by gravity and little seepage occurs across the soil. Couple this problem with the limited root system of a lawngrass, and you can understand why micro-irrigation really isn’t feasible for this use.
Clogging may occur in certain conditions. The small holes in micro-irrigation systems are easily clogged. Municipal water and the small screen filters that come with most micro kits will keep the systems operational. However, water from wells, ponds or lakes must be filtered and chemically treated to remove debris and algae-forming bacteria.
The system must be carefully monitored. It’s easy to waste water with micro-irrigation systems if they are not frequently checked for leaks and damaged emitters. The tubing also needs to be flushed occasionally. Most importantly, remember to turn them off! Purchase a simple, inexpensive dial-timer which can be installed and operated at the faucet.
Micro-irrigation systems, whether they are hose-end, connected to a faucet, or operated through a controller, should be calibrated once they are installed. Note how long it takes your system to apply enough water to wet the root zone (about 1/2 " to 1" of water) and operate the system AS-NEEDED for this length of time. Micro-irrigation can help you have a quality landscape, a productive vegetable garden, or just a lovely little flower bed. Conservation is still key, so use these systems wisely and save water DRIP by DRIP.
Have a son or nephew who has no career plans? Take the lad aside, discuss Earth CHANGES which are happening. THE DROUGHT is in many countries now, not just CALIFORNIA. That's GLOBAL WARMING and how he could make a lot of money learning a very simple trade, DRIP EMITTER TECH. More things than just recession are coming. I refer to global warming, drought. When I did the analysis of the RECESSION, I only looked at a six month period.. I didn't look at the period after OCTOBER 2009. Another stargazer pointed out cardinal squares involving malefics for years after that point. OH OH! I didn't look that far. That is a violent period. Saturn will enter LIBRA around Halloween 09 and squares PLUTO immediately and those two dance around in square at war for 9 mos and then other malefics enter in.....last few days of JULY 2010, along with a drought, heatwave, we've got social catalcysm for early cardinal signs, the movers, shakers: Mars. Pluto, Saturn Uranus all squared off, JUPITER caught in the fire, that's a lot of bad planets piling up on the luck bringer and it occurs last days JULY 2010. THAT is a really bad aspect. Uranus in ZERO ARIES by then, warlike. Fire sign, heat wave. Massive drought. Have your big trees surrounding the entire house by then, cool by hosing the leaves all midday. If they still let us have water. Most economic cooling system is misters in the tree tops. Emitters of fine spray. Evaporation. Principle of refrigeration. EVERYONE should have misters by summer 2010. Palm Springs is a city that uses them on city streets. In Business district. Price on them will triple when the INFLATION HITS and the DROUGHT, so acquire your equipment now and send your nephew off to study drip emitter tech. .
<------ BACK TO THE GARDEN EASY AND GARDEN FREE INDEX