Irrigation is a wonderful thing once it is in, but running it can be irritating, so we have taken to calling it irritation lately. I am sure that we will be calling it irrigation now that it is all in and working properly, but getting to this point is always irritating. You think it will be easier each year, which to a certain point it is, but if you rotate your crops, then the irrigation also needs to be adjusted from year to year. Here are some of our irrigations with irrigation for this year, and how we are going to try to avoid them in the future…yes, I will provide solutions. Or at least I hope they are solutions.

Irritation #1 – Finding supplies

When we first started with our irrigation, every home building store sold all sorts of items for the do-it-yourself-er. We have found that the availability has been steadily dwindling, and this year got to the point that most stored might as well not carry any irrigation items because what they did carry was only small parts of a greater piece or were pieces that are rarely used.

Trying to find some new in-line stakes has been all but impossible. I can find our drippers easily enough on Amazon, but I would really like the stakes that have a hose attachment on each side so that you can chain a bunch of plants together on one line. To alleviate this problem this year, I ended up using a lot of barbed crosses and running extra line to each plant off the main line. I don’t love this because it seems like there is greater chance of leaks or errors, but for now it is working for us.

Our 4-line distribution cap blew one of the line attachments in our front garden area. I thought that would be easy enough to find, but not so. We even checked with 2 of the irrigation places in town and all they had were 6-line caps with odd placement for the lines to run. On top of that, we also needed an adaptor on them to fit the pipe that comes out of the ground. It looked so hokey that there was no way I was going with that. Instead, I found what I needed online, and ordered it. It meant watering our front planters by hand for a week and a half, but it was the best option to avoid further issues in my opinion. We actually ended up ordering 6 of them since we have quite a few of them throughout the front and back. This way we have spares when we need them, and will order more when we get down to 1 or 2 left.

So how are we going to avoid this irritation in the future? PLAN AHEAD! For someone who is a planner for a living (event planning), this concept shouldn’t be a difficult one for me. When I am mapping out the garden in February, I will also go online and order all the pieces I think I will need, also accounting for what we already have. Then it won’t matter if it takes a month or two to get the pieces, we will have them in time for planting season. I like having a good stock of parts in the shop anyways. Though we always seem to be out of the ones we need, probably because they are the most used parts.

Irritation #2 – Fitting the lines

I am not sure if the reason we were having issues finding items is because a bunch of companies are changing things, but I swear that fitting the lines onto some of the parts has become knuckle bending torture. It’s always been tough. You want it to be so that the line has a tight hold on the barbed end of whatever you are attaching to. But this year was ridiculous. We had to get some new line and I swear that it was near impossible to get the line onto some of the corner pieces or PVC to distribution line adaptors we were using.

At one point, I truly didn’t think we were going to get the line on to one of the parts and I started wracking my brain on how we would be able to get the line run how we want it. Luckily, after a short break, and Kurt and I taking turns, we finally got the line onto the corner piece. Let me tell you though, using my fingers, especially my thumbs, in the coming days was painful. The pads all seemed bruised and I am sure I strained some muscles in my hands.

Next time I have to run some distribution hose, I am going to make sure I have boiling water in a cup and see if that helps. I know I tip about this back when we were running all the distribution line for the first side of the yard we finished. I did consider doing this with the line we were running, but there were only 2 corners that we needed to add. It seemed like a lot of work for what should have been a couple seconds work. Ha! Next time I am going to take the time to boil the water.

Irritation #3 – Leakage

Irrigation companies have come up with solutions for finishing off the distribution lines. Let me tell you…most don’t work the way they say they will. I of course needed a friendly reminder of this when finishing off the new sides distribution line. As I started testing, the end piece that has a nice little cap on it started spraying water backwards. The piece says you should be able to slip the piece onto the end of the distribution line, and the metal tines inside lock it on. Technically that is true, but it doesn’t stop the leakage.

I remember trying a few different things to cap the ends off on the line, and this was the best option. What I had forgotten to do was add some distribution line/PVC glue to the line before putting the cap on the end. This ensures that it has a nice seal and will definitely not be going anywhere. That grey glue is so handy in so many applications with irrigation. We always make sure to have a stock of it in the shop for moments like this.

Irrigation #4 – Running lines – thumbs, fingers & back

As noted above, the fingers and thumbs do take a beating when doing irrigation. I have double jointed thumbs, which seems like it would be helpful, but what really happens is that they end up bending too far backwards, straining muscles in my hands. We do find wearing gloves with the rubber palm and fingers does really help with this irritation. It ensures that your fingers don’t slip and allows you to keep the pressure on the line and the barbed end that you are putting it on.

I also don’t like to admit it, but my back just isn’t what it was. Maybe years of hauling rocks and building rock walls has caught up with us, or maybe the beds are just at a weird height, but my lower back likes to remind me that I really should take more breaks when doing irrigation. Hunching over the garden beds and forcing small line onto small PVC bits can really push your back to complain.

This irritation might be more of a “I’m getting older” irritation rather than an irrigation irritation. But for now, I am going to blame the irrigation.

Irritation #5 – Sprayers

We tend to drip feed our plants as much as possible so that there is very little water waste and we aren’t feeding the weeds. Sometimes though, a sprayer is the only option. For example the beets, radishes, carrots, onions, potatoes and corn all have sprayers in them. I could have drip fed the corn, but I planted 43 plants and really didn’t want to run that many drippers.

Theoretically, the micro-sprayers should be wonderful things, especially paired with our landscaping fabric this year, reducing the possibility of weedy beds. However, that is not so. Regardless of what sprayers I buy, they all are such finicky little things. I alway thought it was because we were buying the “cheaper” do-it-yourself brands from building supply stores. Not the case. This year, I bought a few from an irrigation store, for quite a lot more money than the ones that I usually would have purchased (couldn’t find them anywhere else), and they do the same thing. The 180* sprayers only spray 180* when on full blast. If you have to reduce the flow in any way, you are left with a patchy spray, generally only spraying the one place you don’t need the water to go to. The 360* ones are just as bad.

Solution? Well, I am still working on that! Hahaha. We got ours fine tuned after a lot of mini adjustments and a few bad words being muttered. Luckily, the way we have run the distribution lines on the one side of the yard helps because if it over-sprays a bit, it just hits the rock wall rather than a path where the wild things grow.

Conclusion?

Well the conclusion is that irrigation will always be irritating to setup. With a little more pre-planning, I can alleviate some of that, and the rest I will learn to deal with. Despite all that, I will ALWAYS do irrigation. It allows the garden to self sustain other than harvesting. Once setup, I get to just watch my plants grow and produce delicious food. I cannot imagine having the yard we do, without irrigation. In our early years when we decided to just plunk some plants in, before we had the irrigation, it was awful. It took forever to water, and if we wanted to go away for a few days in the heat of summer, someone had to come water for us. And that was with about 1/8 the amount of plants we have now. With irrigation, we have someone come by every few days just to make sure that it is running properly and hasn’t sprung a leak anywhere. A quick 5 minute walk through the garden is all it takes for that person.

Irrigation also allows us to ensure that the plants that need lots of water get it, and the plants that don’t, only get the little bit they need. Big garden or small garden, if you haven’t considered irrigation, I highly recommend it! Once you have all the supplies (which you may now have to work harder for), the setup is pretty easy…if just a bit irritating.