# What Drip Irrigation Would You Do?



## JohnP (Oct 24, 2017)

Just sprayed glyphosate for a 2nd time along our soon to be garden along the back fence. I don't have in ground irrigation but do have a Melnor RainCloud on the way wife wants to put roses in the bed. It's about 80' straight, I was thinking some drip irrigation through it would be best rather than spraying leaves but thought I'd ask some smarter than me for advice.

It's fairly flat. Should I just use the stuff from Home Depot or should I buy something more serious? Eventually I will have a sprinkler system installed so maybe I could reuse it?

What would you recommend?


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## Ecks from Tex (Apr 26, 2018)

JohnP said:


> Just sprayed glyphosate for a 2nd time along our soon to be garden along the back fence. I don't have in ground irrigation but do have a Melnor RainCloud on the way wife wants to put roses in the bed. It's about 80' straight, I was thinking some drip irrigation through it would be best rather than spraying leaves but thought I'd ask some smarter than me for advice.
> 
> It's fairly flat. Should I just use the stuff from Home Depot or should I buy something more serious? Eventually I will have a sprinkler system installed so maybe I could reuse it?
> 
> What would you recommend?


you definitely want drip for roses.

I guess my first question is what is your water source? Do you have a hose spigot detached from the house out that direction or is whatever you run going to be coming off the house?

if you plan it correctly you can definitely re-use the drip system once you install sprinklers.


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## JohnP (Oct 24, 2017)

Hose spigot but will have a length running out to the far side on the left. I just realized I need to likely get a pressure reading from that point to determine what's possible.


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## Ecks from Tex (Apr 26, 2018)

JohnP said:


> Hose spigot but will have a length running out to the far side on the left. I just realized I need to likely get a pressure reading from that point to determine what's possible.


I would spend some time to think through your eventual irrigation plans. Then see if there is a way you can build something in your bed that will integrate right in.

As far as running off the hose, be creative; you could run it to underground pipe near the fence, for example.

I doubt you will have problems with pressure. In fact, a pressure regulator is going to be mandatory (probably a 30 psi regulator) coming off your hose spigot. You will also need a backflow preventer/adapter and a filter.

No matter how you do it, from the water source I would suggest something like this coming off the hose spigot (in this order):


Eley Garden Hose  Two-Way Valve at the spigot


Hose end/in-lineBackflow  preventer


 Rainbird  automatic in-line timer.


Hose-end drip filter


30 PSI in-line pressure regulator (alternatively if you determine certain psi will work you could do a 25 psi pressure regulating filter instead of buying separate filter/regulator)

From there, you could go to the hose and then joined to an underground drip poly tubing with emitters to each bed or you could run either holed drip tubing or soaker hose throughout bed.


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## massgrass (Aug 17, 2017)

I was in a different situation where I added drip irrigation for our raised beds to an existing irrigation system, but I've been very pleased with the Netafim Techline 17mm products (tubing I used has 0.6 gal/hour emitters built in every 12"). It is controlled via a Hunter drip zone kit.


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## JohnP (Oct 24, 2017)

I'm not super into the pre defined spacing, I'd rather punch holes manually and do the emitters right up to the plant it seems. Am I missing something? Doesn't this just reduce labor and make essentially a blanket of water in the area?


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## massgrass (Aug 17, 2017)

JohnP said:


> I'm not super into the pre defined spacing, I'd rather punch holes manually and do the emitters right up to the plant it seems. Am I missing something? Doesn't this just reduce labor and make essentially a blanket of water in the area?


That's what the well-regarded sprinkler company that installed my irrigation system was using on their installs as of a couple of years ago. We grow vegetables in our raised beds, so we simply grow them near the emitters. I've been very pleased with how well they've worked, and the parts were easy work work with and weren't terribly expensive.


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## JohnP (Oct 24, 2017)

Ah, okay. Makes sense. I might do all this and down the road my wife might have so much in the fence line I have to change it all out anyway to something more broad like that.


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