A few years ago we installed our own irrigation to the back 3/4 of our yard, where all of our food grows. We have many hobbies that take us away from our yard for days at a time, so we always wanted to make sure that it would be watered regularly, so we spent the time to setup a solid irrigation system that we can expand upon.

We decided to add a few areas to the irrigation system this summer. We started with our barrels in the top part of our yard. Those are run through the main lawn irrigation. Before putting the barrels back in the garden after filling it with rock, we drilled holes in the bottom of the barrel and I added an elbow piece of irrigation to help protect the distribution line from being pinched under the barrel.

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We ran the line up through the middle of the barrel prior to filling them with rock and soil. We made sure to leave excess line so that we had some options with where we put the irrigation in the barrel. Each one was topped with a dripper. We are still playing with the level that we open the dripper. Ideally, we would like it to literally drip into the barrel, however due to the diameter of the barrel and the location of the plants, we may need to open them up so that they spray a little further.

When we built the new planters by the air conditioning unit, we ran irrigation to each of those planters as well. I may revise these and drill a small hole in the back of each planter to run the irrigation through so that it does not go over the edge of the planter. We will see what it looks like once the flowers fully come in.

The new herb planter also has irrigation run through it. I had divided it so that there is a bit of a break between each of my herbs. In order to make sure each herb is properly watered, I put a dripper in each section. Now, I just need to replace the herbs that died while waiting for me to build the box! There will be a future post with the step by step instructions on this little planter that I made using scraps.

Last, but certainly not least, our Potato towers. Last year, we hand watered these towers each night, skipping the watering when we were out of town. This year, we wanted a more consistent watering routine, so we decided to run irrigation. The only problem was that we have to weed-whack the back yard regularly and didn’t want to be fiddling with going around lines. So, while I was off last week, I dug out a channel between the raised bed and the potato tower and buried the lines so that K can weed-whack without too much worry of hitting the line. There is a small area that he could hit it, along the back of the raised bed, he will just have to be careful.

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Hopefully, this irrigation will all make our lives easier, and help us produce beautiful flowers and an abundance of potatoes!