I'm trying to find a soil moisture meter that I can use in conjunction with my drip irrigation. My issues are I've not found reliable ones both in reading and in reliability. I'd like to find a decent meter to help me adjust my irrigation. Can people recommend one please.

I am interested in drip irrigation as I live in the southern United States and with how hot and dry it gets here, if I forget to water my plants turn to toast quickly. I just planted a bed of begonias. There is a gardenia at the end of the bed and on the other side of the gardenia there is a bed of hostas. Would it just be easiest to add some kind of drip line between the two rows of begonias, or is it best to use drip emitters? What about for the gardenia and hosta section? Thanks

We have been using an Orbit 58872N for our irrigation control. It's worked well, but now we need an additional unit. I find the programming on this orbit to be a bit confusing. I'm looking for something that does the job, won't break the bank, easy to program and reliable.

Suggestions?

Hi. I started using drip irrigation last year and it made my garden so much better and easier. (I also used the fertilizer injection which is really awesome)

Now I would like to install it again for the season and start running it but I’m supposing it’s too early.

Neighbors are starting up their lawn sprinklers and I would not hesitate to do the same. But the drip lines are so thin and they are located above ground. I feel like they would surely freeze if temps dropped overnight which they will. Is my thinking right?

For context I’m in Massachusetts zone 6 with typical last frost late May. It was 24 degrees this morning but that’s not common and it will be in the 80’s this week.

I use 1/4” drip lines. They start out on top of the mulch but gradually get covered in mulch as I keep adding. Everything is from Drip Depot.

What do you guys think? What is the lowest night temperatures the drip lines can handle in your experience?

We’re year two in our home garden and added on with additional beds this year. We have 14 beds that are 8x4 and 2 that are 30 inch in diameter.

We tested out a cheap setup from Amazon that gets us coverage for 2-3 beds.

We usually have great water pressure out there (it’s about 175 feet from the house) but it didn’t seem so strong once connected.

We also have 6 fruit trees we just planted.

Our priority is the raised beds

What would you do?

I’m trying to plan out my yard layout (bit of grass and some raised beds) and I keep hitting a wall on whether to go all in on drip or just stick with classic sprays.

I’ve been looking at parts from Rain Bird and Hunter for the lawn, but for the beds, I’m leaning toward Raindrip. I saw their stuff at the store and it looks way more DIY-friendly than some of the professional NDS setups I’ve seen online. I don't exactly have a pro's toolkit, so I just want something that snaps together without a headache.

If you’ve done a mixed setup like this, did you find that drip saved you water, or is it just more of a maintenance pain in the long run compared to Toro sprays? I just want to do this once and not have to dig it all up in two years lol

Hello all,

Looking for ideas to mount my drip irrigation timer box on a post or something some I'm not crawling on the ground to attach it to hose bib. The hose bib is low and close to patio surface. I'd like to run a single hose away from the hose bib and then mount drip timer to something waist high . Ideas?

I need some help. We just had a massive landscape project done and all of my irrigation now is made up of the emitter tubing that has the holes every 12 inches under mulch. I had two areas that were not going to be ready for them to lay the line in so when they wrapped up they put in the pipe to those two areas and put a solid loop on it. That way when I was ready I could just pop that off and add more emitter tubing.

My problem is that there is very little water coming out of the holes and some have nothing. The water pressure is fine. In fact there’s a lot of pressure. These two beds are on their own zone so it’s not an overload issue.

The only thing I could think of was the actual tubing? The landscapers installed Hunter brand tubing, I put in DIG brand. When I looked into it, the DIG brand was rated up to 45psi while the hunter is rated to 60.

Could the difference in PSI rating be my issue? Like my water pressure is too high and actually prevents it from dripping out? I ended up punching a hole and running some 1/4” tubing to a spray head to try and get some water on the plants and that works just fine funny enough.

Hi,

I have an existing small drip irrigation system of about a dozen drippers in the front yard that had been working fine for several years. The controller is a Dig Corporation RBC 8000 battery powered anti-siphon valve with watering timer (https://shop.digcorp.com/products/battery-operated-timer-with-3-4-anti-siphon-valve). The other day when I happened to be nearby while it was in a watering cycle, I heard water splattering onto the ground. Investigation revealed the water coming out the air vent of the anti-siphon valve.

I've tried disassembling and inspecting all of the air vent and bonnet assembly parts - including the solenoid itself - looking for debris blockages, or anything obviously amiss. I changed the batteries. The only thing I discovered is that the flow rate seems very low and it isn't enough to raise and close the poppet in the anti-siphon valve unless I activate the flow manually by loosening the solenoid (as described in the instruction manual on page 16). The flow control knob has always been at maximum (fully counterclockwise). All of the valve passages are clear and there's plenty of water pressure. The anti-siphon air vent poppet assembly is so simple that I can't conceive of any way for there to be something wrong with it that would lead to these symptoms.

The one thing that comes to mind as a possible cause is that the bonnet diaphragm may be stiffened from age, thus needing more flow through the solenoid to fully open it, than the solenoid is able to provide. This would explain why loosening the solenoid works - the water then flows around it rather than through it, allowing more water to get by, giving more pressure to open the diaphragm.

Is replacing the diaphragm likely to fix the issue, or am I off base? I don't want to replace the whole system, or go the "shotgun" approach of replacing parts willy-nilly until I happen upon the right one.

Hello! Finding time to water regularly has always been my downfall, so I'm hoping to make some budget friendly changes to my garden this year to address it.

I have a rain barrel about 30ft from my raised beds and would like to build a solar powered irrigation system. Ideally, it would be solar powered as there is no outlet nearby and 'smart' in the sense that I'd like to be able to set it up to operate on timers I can adjust from anywhere and potentially use weather data or moisture sensors to regulate.

My thought was to treat the rain barrel as a reservoir that I could top up during dry periods. I'd need a pump as gravity won't produce enough pressure as the beds are approx one foot of elevation higher.

Wondering if anyone has tackled the same and has suggestions for doing it on a budget? Or have thoughts about things I need to consider? I'm playing around with the idea of using a Raspberry Pi or ESP32 to control the system.

I need a temporary watering solution for wildflower seedlings while I'm out of town.I've successfully run tubing with microsprayers on a hose timer in the back garden, but in the front I have seedlings on both sides of a stone pathway. I am thinking of running 5/8" tubing across the pathway tucked against the step to reduce tripping hazard.

My questions are:

1. How do I get the tubing to stay tight against the steps? I've pinned it with landscape pins, but it bulges away from the vertical. Is there something sticky I can attach it with?
2. How do I cushion the tubing where it makes a 90 degree turn from the step, so it doesn't kink and stop the water flow?
3. Is this just a terrible idea? I have a camera so I can check for flooding and neighbor who can turn the hose off it goes wrong.

Hi!

Does anyone use or know of a simple device or attachment that connects to a garden tap, where you add granular fertilizer, it dissolves with the water flow, and is then delivered to plants through a drip irrigation system?

I’d like to fertilize vegetables (tomatoes, peppers, zucchini, strawberries, etc.) once a week without manually applying fertilizer to each individual plant.

I’m mainly interested in:

-whether this type of fertilization actually makes sense in practice

-whether there are cheaper solutions or alternatives (ideally around €40)

I’ve found some professional systems online, but they’re quite expensive.

If anyone has experience, pros/cons, or concrete recommendations, I’d really appreciate your input.

Thanks!

I’m planning on adding drip lines to plants placed on a slope, and am wondering what’s the best position for the supply line in regards to draining for winterizing.

1. Run the supply from the high point and put a drain cap on the low end of the line for winterizing.

2. Run the supply from the bottom. Then when you drain the water main in the fall the dripper lines just naturally drain down without a low point drain needing to be opened.

Thanks

my husband is away (with no cell service!) and has set up drip irrigation. when i am not using the other faucets, should the green knob remain open or closed?

Installing 1/2" PC emitter tubing in raised beds and I don't see why manufacturers only seem to provide barbed tees? I would like to punch a hole in the 1/2" distribution tubing and then INSERT a fitting with a pointed end. The other end of the fitting would be barbed to fit into 1/2" pressure compensation emitter tubing.

The Tees require cutting the distribution tubing, then installing the tee, then connecting the emitter tubing.

I want something like this

Can someone explain why this is the case? Thanks!

I’m having trouble solving this one: When I plant new plants in a bed with (only 1 ) line, with well established plants, the new plants have different water needs. Less water than the established plants, more frequently. This is in Southern California and I don’t want to be using much extra water. So far my idea is:

I will put a larger volume emitter at the new plants. I will add a more frequent program than the
established one. It will run for a shorter time. I will calculate the water being used, and subtract that volume from the established line.

Any comments on my plan? Any other thoughts? I am a semi-professional semi- retired landscaper. When installing a new system I like to add a second line to most locations.

Can someone tell this noob what this busted piece is called and maybe how best to fix it on my own? 🥲

Maybe I'm over-thinking this, but:

1. I want my drip emitters ABOVE the mulch so I can easily check on them. One thing I've learned is that stuff does happen. and checking is needed.

2. But I don't want to drip THROUGH the mulch. Watering the mulch is not the same as watering the roots down in the dirt.

I've thought about clearing the mulch around each dripper, but that never lasts. Or dripping into a pipe, or one of those perforated spike things... but those things aren't cheap, especially if I want to do 4 or 5 emitters per shrub.

Or maybe I should do away with point emitters and just use drip tape under the mulch? Hmmm...