Weekly Gardening Thread – 2011 (Vol. 21) June 03

Free Republic | 06-03-2011 | Red_Devil 232

[Red_Devil 232]

Good morning gardeners. Here in East Central Mississippi the heat has arrived. It was 101 yesterday and is expected to be in the high 90s and pushing 100 for the next week. A heat advisory is effect. My garden is surviving these hot afternoons. Some of my younger plants have needed watering every afternoon. My established tomato, squash and pepper plants have been doing well with a deep soaking of water about every three days. Looks like it is going to be a hot summer.

If you are a gardener or you are just starting out and are in need of advice or just encouragement please feel free to join in and enjoy the friendly discussion. Our Freeper community is full of gardeners, each with varying interests and skill levels from Master Gardener to novice.

[Red_Devil 232]

It is great you got the panels! We all owe JustaDumbBlonde a lot of thanks for all the great gardening/farming knowledge she has shared with us. Same with many FReepers including tubebender, Diana in Wisconsin and many many others.

[tubebender]

A 46 Degree Swing??? You need to move to Seattle or Portland or Benderville where it is 54 day and night...

[afraidfortherepublic]

Yeah. I had to find a jacket to go to the big farm store tonight for my panel and my swing. I was dying from the heat yesterday — sweat running down my face so profusely that I kept losing my glasses when I bent over.

Heck, ladies don’t sweat. I guess it was just glow running down my face. This afternoon, I had the heat on in my office to keep my feet warm.

[greeneyes]

LOL. In Missouri, we always say, If you don’t like the weather, just hang around - it will soon change, but a 54 degree swing? In June? That would be a record around here I am sure!LOL

[rightly_dividing]

I have been thinking about your garden irrigation and fabric layout. I don't know if you have to buy water or not or how much water pressure you have, but, It occured to me that you could drill more holes in your PVC rather than just at each plant and create a wet line down each row, rather than a row of wet dots, so to speak. This would enable you to simply follow the PVC by feel and cut and plant after laying out the fabric. If water pressure or water cost come into play, you can get drill bits smaller than 1/16" if you look around or online.

My drip line has built-in pressure compensating emmitters every 6" and flow 1/2 gal per hour each. I run them 15 minutes, 3 times per day and have seen no signs of too much water. The pictures show the effect of 6" spacing, a wet line. I may expand my present set-up next year or go to a PVC set-up like yours, juss dont know yet. Ignor the shade in the pictures, as the sun moved in the sky, the shady areas became sunlit and will be include in next years expansion plan, If I get a harvest this year, that is.

[Red_Devil 232]

What are you using for the drip lines? And where did you get the emitters? I like your idea. Can the emitters be used with the PVC?

[Red_Devil 232]

Yes I have to pay for the water $4.04 per 1,000 gallons for the 1st 2,000 gallons & $4.38 per 1,000 over 2,000 gallons. I don’t know the specific water pressure but is good and strong.

[rightly_dividing]

The line is about 1/4” dia (OD) and the emmitters are built in every 6”, but I intended to order the 12” kind; comes in 100ft rolls, part # SDB252 06 101 at wbepage:

http://www.berryhilldrip.com/CategoryProductList.jsp?cat=Garden+and+Home+Irrigation:Drip-In+Drip+Tubing

I started out with a hanging basket drip kit like this, and expanded from there. I am still using the timer that came with the kit about 8-9 yrs ago.

http://www.berryhilldrip.com/SPD/kit-—basket-kits—80000C1F-1297118497.jsp

I use the main feeder line like in the kit and branch off with the drip line for each row in the veg garden. Its all in place and working in the pictures.

They have a raised bed kit that would ge a good starter for veg garden:

http://www.berryhilldrip.com/CategoryProductList.jsp?cat=Garden+and+Home+Irrigation:Garden+Drip+Kits++DIY

There may well be a better supplier of drip stuff at better prcies, I don’t know, but I am locked in due to having an extensive amount in use and a fair amount of stuff on hand. I place a large order every other year for more supply line and various fittings, basket drippers, and such. We put all baskets, containers, and beds on drip so that we may leave town for a few days and let the system work for us. Water is very expensive here in Conroe and it saves us a lot. In Mobile the system was saving us about $30-40 month over manual watering. Works for us, YMMV

[Red_Devil 232]

thanks

[rightly_dividing]

Sorry, I tend to ramble and chase rabbits when my meds are kicking!

[tillacum]

You’ll just have to learn to ask for help. It’s difficult, but friends are always happy to help.

[afraidfortherepublic]

My friends came through. Now it’s just the weater that doesn’t cooperate! Hopefully the rain holds off today. :)

[rightly_dividing]

The point that I was trying to convey before I digressed was perhaps if you drilled holes in the PVC every 12” or perhaps 6” each row would be universal as far a plant spacing goes. You would have the wet strip down each row watering each plant no matter the spacing, and be usable from year to year regardless of individual veg spacing requirements.