While you’re checking the boxes to set yourself up for a successful garden, you should consider installing an automatic drip irrigation system kit that saves time and self-waters your home garden without needing a sprinkler.
The Best Automatic Watering System
We lead busy lives, so we always look for tools that save us time and energy on our homesteading projects. We’re so happy we installed an automatic drip irrigation system. It has been an enormous TIME SAVER making gardening easier.
In addition to efficiency and ease, our plants grew much bigger and produced more fruit. It was well worth the cost of supplies and minimal installation effort.
We recommend buying your drip irrigation kit from dripworks.com. Dripworks sells a ready-to-install kit that includes all the necessary supplies. You can also buy an automatic irrigation kit at your local store or check out these drip irrigation supplies on Amazon.
How Does Automatic Drip Irrigation Work?
Automatic drip irrigation is a system of tubing that connects to a water supply set up with an automatic timer. This timer allows water to pass through your hose to your main lines to the drip tape and delivers water to your flower bed or garden.
Drip tape is a polyethylene microtubing installed to sit on top of the dirt. It has holes evenly spaced along the tubing, allowing water to seep into the soil, watering your plants evenly.
Once you have it all installed and working correctly, your garden watering is hands-free. You don’t have to mess with rotating sprinkler heads or hoses, and you can better control how much water you’re using.
You can install your dripline running longways down your raised beds. Drip tape has holes in the tubing every 6 to 8 inches. That means you plant your seeds next to each hole every 6 to 8 inches.
We planted a fall vegetable garden of fancy lettuce mix, radishes, spinach, and beets next to our rows of drip tape. We nestled each seed into the soil next to each hole. The holes in the drip tape allow water to drip from the line, soaking the soil around it and watering each seed.
The Benefits of an Automatic Drip Irrigation System
- Seed Protection – A lot of seeds that are tiny can easily get moved around or washed away with heavy sprinklers. Drip irrigation is a much gentler approach allowing the seeds to remain where you planted them.
- Healthy Plants – After installing our drip irrigation, our plants grew heartier. Drip irrigation waters the plants right on the top of the soil and allows for the water to get deep to the roots. This is better for a lot of plants than overhead watering, which can cause disease for certain plants.
- Less Weeding – Drip irrigation cuts down on weeds. We’re only watering the plants we want to water. You can even install shut-off valves and plugs to water only the garden beds and plants that need it. We can eliminate watering areas of the walkway or between garden rows that would grow unwanted weeds.
- Improved Harvest – Our plant quality and production increased once we installed drip tape. Drip tape has holes evenly spaced along the line, allowing water to flow evenly into the garden bed. With drip irrigation, each plant receives even watering.
- Less Work – Automatic drip irrigation systems save labor by allowing us to be less hands-on. We set our drip irrigation up with a timer to water our plants twice daily. We don’t even have to turn on a faucet and are not taking the time to rotate sprinklers around the garden.
- Saves Water and Money – Drip irrigation cuts down on water waste. We can better control the amount of water used and which plants receive water, which saves us money!
Supplies
- ½ Inch Mainline – It’s durable and easy to cut with a pipe cutter tool. This is what we run from bed to bed. You can attach a water hose to it.
- ¼ Inch Drip Tape – This polyethylene micro tubing has little holes every 6 or 8 inches. Run the dripline along your rows of plants. Every place where there is a hole will emit water at a trickle.
- Automatic Waterer Timer – Attach the timer to the head of your outdoor faucet. We set it for 7 AM and 7 PM, so all our plants automatically get watered twice a day, and we never have to remember to turn the water off, running up our water bill. We bought this Orbit watering timer from Amazon.
- Punch Tool – Punch holes in the mainline to add another hose with your punch tool.
- Female Hose Start – This piece attaches the hose to the mainline.
- Plugs/Transfer Barbs – Place in the hole you punched to attach new lines. It is a low-pressure line. Pro-Tip: Check your water flow rates. High water pressure will cause the barbs to leak. Your water pressure should range from 15-20 psi. If the water pressure is too high, attach a pressure regulator to your spigot.
- End Plugs – This is also called a dummy plug or a goof plug. Install it at the very end of the line to plug up the water.
- Shut-Off Valves – We install easy-loc coupler valves on the mainline at each garden bed. This allows us to shut off water to that specific garden valve.
- Inline Emitters – Emitters are optional but work great when planting large plants. You can also use pressure-compensating drippers to water the large plants in your garden.
- Garden Staples – Place the staples over your dripline, spaced every few feet to keep the line straight and in place right on top of the soil.
- Pliers – A standard pair of pliers will come in handy.
- Cutters – Use poly cutters or another cutting tool to cut the mainline and drip tape.
How to Install an Automatic Drip Irrigation System
- Prepare your water faucet. We use an adapter to split our water faucet spigot in two with a Y valve. We have one hose to our flower beds and one to our garden mainline. Depending on your faucet’s water pressure, you may also need to attach a pressure regulator to your spigot. If you don’t know your water pressure levels, err on the side of caution and use a pressure regulator.
- Attach your automatic timer to your faucet, and then attach the hose that leads to your garden.
- Install the mainline to run from garden bed to garden bed along the tops of your raised bed frames. Run your hose to your mainline and secure them together with a ½ inch easy loc female hose start.
- At each bed, install a shut-off valve so that if you’re not using a bed during the growing season, you can turn off the water to that bed. Pro-tip: Garden soil can become hydrophobic, meaning it won’t hold onto water and will actually repel water if it goes unwatered for too long. So even if you haven’t planted anything in your garden bed, be sure to give it a good watering about once a week.
- Attach the drip tape to the mainline. Use a hole-punching tool to punch holes in the mainline. Place the holes lined up with your garden row so your drip line can run along your furrows. Start about 6 inches from the side of the raised bed frame.
- Place a transfer barb fitting into each hole. Sometimes it’s helpful to use pliers to click your barbs in place.
- Hook one end of the drip line onto the barb. Run the dripline the length of the garden row and cut it at the end. Pro-Tip: A straight cut will help the end plugs fit snuggly to prevent leaking.
- Place the end goof plug into the dripline to keep the water from leaking.
- Try to keep your dripline straight. Use garden staples to stake down the dripline and keep it taut.
- If you’re going to plant large plants like tomato plants or pepper plants, install inline emitters on the drip tape next to the large plants that may need more water. These emitters spray water instead of just soaking the soil.
- Lastly, test your automatic drip irrigation system. Set your timer to water and check all your lines to see that they’re working correctly. If any barb transfers, shut-off valves, or end plugs are leaking, tighten them with pliers.
And that’s it! Now you can sit back and watch your garden grow without the daily chore of lugging hoses and sprinklers all over the yard.
