Last week, I wrote about building an irrigation system for our garden. In it, I went over the process of designing the system, purchasing the supplies, and putting everything together. I wrote that post before the irrigation tubing was attached to the PVC pipe. Since then, we’ve started to attach the tubing and have learned a lot of things about building an irrigation system, so I thought I’d share some of those lessons.
1.) Buy Extra Pieces
When you’ve designed your system and figured out the pieces you need, buy at least one extra of each joint, elbow, valve, and connection. Also, buy another full section of PVC pipe and an extra 100 feet of the irrigation tubing if you can. It’s similar to any woodworking project: buy at least another full board than you think you’ll need. That way, if something was measured or designed wrong or something was incorrectly cut, you have extras and may be able to avoid another trip to the hardware store or having to place another online order…which brings us to tip #2.
2.) Plan for Extra Trips to the Store
Like any project, it seemed like we never got everything we needed in a trip to the store. Before we began, we understood that we would likely need to make more than one trip since this was a project we had never attempted before, but even I underestimated how much running and how many online orders would be needed. Two Saturdays ago, we picked up the majority of our components, making two separate trips that day. The first trip included buying all the PVC pipe and some of the joints. The second trip was to a different store to buy components that the first store didn’t stock. A third trip was needed to pick up something that needed to be special ordered (and because I forgot a couple of things). That doesn’t even include the multiple Amazon orders we’ve made to buy shutoff valves and irrigation tubing. I thought that 200 feet of tubing would be plenty. It was enough for two beds. We ultimately ordered 600 more feet.
3.) Gravity Is Both an Enemy & a Friend
The plan for our irrigation system was to connect it to our rain barrel and use that water as much as possible. It’s a couple of feet higher than the majority of our garden. This is a good thing. You don’t need a lot of water pressure to move it throughout the irrigation system, and each foot of elevation is roughly equal to 1 psi of pressure. When working properly, we can water our garden without spending any money on water or electricity. That’s the good part of gravity.
That negative part of gravity is that our garden isn’t level, and two of our beds go up in elevation from where the rain barrel sits. I knew this when I designed the system but thought that the pressure would still be enough to overcome the elevation gain. That hasn’t been reality. When using our hose hookup and city water, it’s enough pressure, though, so there’s a solution. We ended up moving the PVC pipe in this section of the garden so that where we connect the hose to the PVC pipe is positioned at the highest point of elevation in the garden. This will help us overcome the elevation problem, but if we still feel like we aren’t getting adequate pressure from the rain barrel, we’ll either elevate the barrel higher by building a stand for it or buy an RV water pump that can be powered via an extension cord or with a simple solar panel setup. If you’re planning to build an irrigation system, never underestimate the elevation changes in your garden relative to your rain barrel if you have one.
4.) Lay Everything Out First
This one may seem obvious, but it’s wise to leave everything disconnected until it’s all laid out and you’re confident in the positioning of everything. It’s tempting to connect components before everything is positioned so that you can see progress, but it’s best to wait. I didn’t do this and have run into some problems as a result. Because the main hookup and PVC section needed to be moved (gravity!), the direction of angles and valves needs to be changed. They started out left and should be flipped to face right. Thankfully, because I didn’t use cement on the joints, it isn’t the end of the world; just a minor annoyance. It still could have been avoided, though.
5.) Have Patience
That dreaded ‘P’ word again. Patience is such a big deal for me (I’m still learning) that I wrote an entire blog post about it last year. In the garden, it seems to be a requirement every step of the way. The same is true with building an irrigation system. Anytime you’re doing something for the first time, you’re going to run into issues. It’s inevitable. In the case of our irrigation system, issues included multiple trips to the store and placing multiple online orders, not accounting enough for gravity, and not having enough time to prep everything before we needed to install the system. Those are frustrations in the moment, but they can be overcome.
6.) Drill Drip Holes Before It’s in the Garden
This was probably the most frustrating aspect of building our irrigation system. I intended to drill all the drip holes on my drill press before the tube was ready to be installed in the garden. That didn’t happen. I ran out of time, and the tubing got tangled, causing a big mess. The result was needing to use my battery-powered drill to add the holes while the tubing was on the ground. It was hot, sweaty, dirty, and difficult to evenly space the holes. I made sure that I drilled the holes ahead of time for the tube in the second bed. It went much easier. The drill press makes it easy to have consistent spacing between the holes, drill the holes in the center of the tubing, and ensure the holes are vertical instead of at an angle. Even without a drill press, drilling the holes anywhere that isn’t the garden or yard is wise. You can get out of the sun or rain, and in general, it makes for a more relaxing experience.
If you’re thinking of building your own irrigation system, I hope these tips help.
One Rabbit Riot 
Leave a comment