Installing Drip Irrigation in Our Garden ⭐️ Part Two, the Spring Edition

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Last Fall we began the process of adding drip irrigation to our patio garden. We published a detailed video of each component and how we laid out a very basic grid. In this video we return to the patio to add additional targeted watering using 1/4” tubing. Once everything is properly placed we take the time to cover the drip with the existing mulch. This will lead to a seamless look in a few weeks when the new mulch is laid.

Drip Irrigation Part One

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hi everyone I’m Eric and I’m Christopher and we’re grow Forme gardening today we’re doing drip irrigation part two the spring edition Welcome to our garage this is where we keep all of our drip irrigation stuff we have a nice little table set up of the different components and parts that we use in our drip irrigation you may remember in the fall we installed our main drip line so we’re going to walk around back kind of review what we did and then come back and go through all the pieces and parts that we’re going to need now we are in the backyard next to this lovely exposed half inch drip line what we did in the fall is run from the hose over there the hose bib behind the actual hose reel our half inch poly underneath the stone some’s kind of exposed underneath this piece of edging zip it right here across the grass and that’s where we began our basic drip system and this is a kind of grid that’s going to get us the most coverage without too much fuss initially today we’re going to do some fussing um each one of these shrubs has either a half gallon one gallon or two gallon emitter based on the water needs that each plant wants and as we travel along here of course you can see it’s not buried yet that’s part of the goal for today since the compost is coming in two weeks two weeks two weeks awesome things like the roses don’t have any drip to them yet that we show you in just a minute how we’re going to tackle that here you’ll notice the black poly tubing turns brown that brown has drip holes already installed in it and the reason I chose to go with the brown in that area is it covers all of the Foxwoods the fox gloves and the prairie fire crab apple as it’s getting established cuz it’s a little bit of a slope so this whole area is going to be taken care of really well oo trip over boxwood it travels along here goes back underground again in front of this piece of edging and covers this whole section of the patio Garden as well so today we’ll make sure that everything has an emitter and show you some interesting ways you can get water to the areas that you want without having to use half inch before we get started in the backyard let’s do a little bit of review we have our big roll of the halfin poly tubing this does not have any emitters in it at all we have a roll of the brown drip tubing this particular one has holes every 18 in and each hole is a half gallon a m worth of water the other things we’re going to need for today are our Cor quart in drip tubing this is how we’re going to Target water some things of course you’re going to need your oh gosh what did we call these last year it’s a filter it’s a stops back flow preventor and something else but this is how you connect to the hose bib with uh by putting the poly drip up to this um the best tool in the world this has a little punch tool on it it also has a tube cutter tool depending on which part you squeeze Lifesaver Lifesaver Lifesaver some cutting tools are in here we have our couplers couplers are the thing you’re never going to have enough of so I try to order at least like bags of 25 or more at a time I have tried many different kinds you can see I have all these different ones I haven’t found any better or worse than any other ones as long as they fit and they lock tight this is a straight one they also come in elbows and then and these are T’s so this will split in different directions which is great I always find that I need more of these than I thought landscape staples again I mean I run out of these all the time so we need to find a way to buy these in bulk um now we get to the actual emitters black tends to be the one gallon from all the brands I’ve tried red is two gallon blue is a half gallon and you use these different each IND individual emitter based on the water needs of the plant so and when you say the gallons it’s per hour right per per hour or per minute per hour no per minute per yeah that’d be gushing so if you run your drip for an hour and you have a two gallon emitter on a plant it’ll receive two gallons two gallons of water in that hour of running your drip So In the Heat of the summer we for a long time found that our hydranges were just unhappy and so they were all getting two gallons and sometimes four gallons at a time I like to give the Roses each a two gallon emitter I do have four gallons I think on one of the climbers and then most of your smaller shrubs your Vilas and spas and your all the the other smaller shrubs that um aren’t as water hungry the half gallon seems to be perfectly fine so to get four gallons sorry to interrupt again but to get four gallons on a row or a hydr you would use two two gallon emitters about a foot apart yeah okay that’s all um and then when we’re going to start using the um quarter inch tube then I’m going to move into these little couplers which will punch into the poly and then I can attach my/ quarter inch tubing to them so those are very important as well so that we can get our spot watering taken care of these little loopy dupes these are for ending the poly tubing you slide it through and you bend it so it really just crimps the end there oh gosh what else this is a valve you could put in the line of your black tubing so if there’s an area that you don’t want to get water you could simply turn it and shut that valve off for the time being um this will be very helpful if you had say a cutting garden and some of your cutting Garden doesn’t need the water all the time or maybe it needs more water than something else in your garden what else do I have oh goof plugs goof plugs this is a lifesaver if you put your emitter in the wrong spot you pop it out and you stick a goof plug in or you’ve moved a plant if you’ve moved the plant or if something has you know passed itself away then you’re going to want to put a goof plug there so you’re not wasting any water I have found this very helpful more than you know that’s a that’s a really good one so that’s the basics of everything we’re going to need um since this is going to do our cut cting for us I will also bring a pair of felos just in case I if this is on the ground or out of the way and that’s it so I think we can go get started so here we are at a hedge of Let’s Dance Sky View hydrangeas that are all tucked into drip right now they’ve all got emitters behind them but we need to get these three one two three toing by gently roses taken care of so Christopher is going to walk us through the steps there are so many different ways to approach this I could run another black poly half inch behind here and just use teac couplers to make that happen and run my little mits close to here but because I’m not sure what’s going to happen back here just yet this is not going to be tackled today this will be tackled once we know it’s being planted here I’m simply going to take my/ qu inch drip tubing and I’m going to make it an extender for our standard emitters and what I mean by that is I’m going to go over here so here’s this two gallon that’s becoming friends with this Sky View let me put a little pin in that I’m going to take a little tool I’m going to punch my whole kind of shooting in the direction I want to go put in my emitter that’s a two gallon emitter two gallon emitter that’s what we like to do for the roses and I can actually slide this drip tubing right over it and I can cut it right here where I want it to end and it’s as simple as that and so that’s one of the many many ways to use the/ quter inch tubing and the couplers and emitters and all of that I’ve seen little black stands that’ll hold hold the water just above the surface I don’t know how necessary all of that is for our purposes but once this is covered by compost we’ll be getting water here and this will extend the emitter and put it right here in front of this tottering by gently I do think we should preface our drip irrigation method by saying that we are in the Northeast we are going to have rain we will likely in a season run this I’d say sometimes weekly but sometimes we might go a month without running this drip so if it seems like it’s not a comprehensive coverage it’s because it’s really not if we were in a warmer Zone in some of these desert areas that literally couldn’t have a garden without drip irrigation yes this probably looks a little sparse for you guys but here in the Northeast this is this is like a helper I guess what would you call it Eric I mean we can say this Garden survived 2 years with out drip absolutely so this is going to give us that enhancing the enhancing it’s once in a while in August we might get three weeks without any rain and we don’t want our beautiful roses or hydranges not looking their best so it’s really just an extra so if you keep that in mind while we’re doing this it will probably make it much more clear while we’re while why I’m not making a ring around yeah I mean the thing is if we don’t have this irrigation the plants Will Survive and but they just won’t flourish as much they’ll just yeah this irrigation being added is just going to really enhance their growth this season [Music] now it’s time to attempt to hide the drip yes we are going to cover everything with a fresh layer of compost in the coming weeks but you want to get it as close to the ground touching the ground maybe even a little bit in the ground so that it doesn’t show or wiggle free and pop up so what I like to do is go through and put my hand underneath where the drip would naturally lay and just create a channel for that drip to lay in thankfully this is really a onetime kind of process because once in a while something Wiggles free and pops up to the surface but most of the time we won’t see it again so then once I do that I have to go through push the emitter against the root ball of the plant I like to staple on both sides of the emitter really get it in this emitters right here really get it in I’m sure everyone can guess which one of us likes the Perfection of the drip burying I mean Could It Be Me bury this down I mean it’s a lot of Staples so you know if you’re like me get those Staples handy and then all you do is cover it up I will say the compost didn’t break down terribly this year it still looks pretty good well don’t forget we did put a bunch over everything in the fall oh you’re right you’re right okay so I’m just going to keep going through working on this newly installed things and then I’m sure Christopher will take you with him on his next step the other kind of drip that we do use I don’t have a ton of it on hand at the moment cuz we only really use it in containers for the most part is this/ quarter inch drip tubing that has emitters already put into it and these are still half gallon emitters what I’m going to do is employ this drip tube through this area That’s Heavy with perennials the reason I’m going to choose this instead of the quarter inch with brown is the emitter holes on ours is a little closer it’s about 12 in and what I’m looking for here is more of a broadcast coverage of water as opposed to Target watering all the 1 two three many purple illusion salvas that we divided in the fall so let me make sure I cut this end clean it’s had a little goof plug on it love a goof plug and I just need my Straight coupler so I’ll go in over here where these purple Illusions begin I’m seeing seedlings and I think those seedlings are verbina are verbina great also I just use the wrong part of the tool I use the cutter instead of the puncher Eric could you hand I don’t think an oops plug is going to take care of that no we’re going to need a new Straight coupler see my head is thinking I’m putting Brown drip tubing through here which one is that that I think is still in the uh is it this no that’s for um that’s for sprinklers what you’re looking for is in the wheelbarrow this no in the wheelbarrow in the wheelbarrow over there yeah where is it here is the straight coupler that I need and this is literally just going to connect the two back together so we’re doing a quick repair job this yeah look at us quick repair so there you go straight coupler barbs on both ends sometimes I do this without gloves on but it’s usually not what 40 degrees today yeah it’s 40 today also why does the hoodie pull on the one side and make my hat go so crooked I don’t know let’s see push this in here again I will say this kind of work does happen to be a little easier in warmer weather because the tubes are a little more malleable and then you don’t have to push so hard there we go now I’m going to use the correct part of the tool the punch tool ooh and I’m going to put in my coupler which is just this itty bitty tiny little thing and slide on my/ qu inch drip situation maybe I just remembered it’s easier to put this on the coupler first then push the whole thing into drip yeah I mean we don’t do this often so e thankfully it’s this is one of those very I don’t want to say thankless chores but this is one of those chores that in the moment you just wish you weren’t doing it and then when it’s over you’re so happy that you did kind of like planting bulbs in the fall yes that is a very good way to put it so here I’m just going to figure out where where’s my coupler I want to weave this through a little bit I’ll weave this through these beautiful Lion King Iris look at that this is going to be perfect lots of water here I think we could play a little bit more with it though because there’s a one Salvia up front that’s totally neglected I’m not so worried about that only because this whole area gets hit with a sprinkler oh yeah that’s right so this is definitely just bonus water for the Salvia also I lost my coupler can you grab me a a straight coupler from the bin okay let’s see if we remember which one the coupler is a quarter it is it this yes one of those look at you see we’re all learning together here here you go thank you so I’ll cut this to size put my coupler in the drip first cuz I’m learning also why is there grass growing up at the base of that Iris it is so bizarre this was a very strange year for the grass and the places it chose to grow like this one this is fine this one’s good here the thing about drip irrigation I think everyone does it a little bit differently but ultimately you are just plugging some tubes into some emitters that are plugged into some other tubes and wherever that water ends up and there’s no clear answer as to how long you need to run it or how much you need to put because it’s so specific to your garden and what your soil is like how hot your days are how humid is your garden how dry is your garden there’s no one answer like if someone asks us how long do how much how much water do I give a hydrin jip we would have no idea because I couldn’t even tell you how much water we give our hydranges it’s really just so dependent on the weather we just know that you know hydranges like a little bit more so they get a two gallon emitter next to a plant that doesn’t need as much water and we know we’re not going to put drip on the Catman because the cment doesn’t want to be wet look at that that looks so much better yeah and now now one of the things I like about drip is this part with the stapling and the burying and everything that’s his Forte not mine another spot that we’re going to be using the quarter inch tubing with the emitters is right here at the standby me Claus is this lavender or blue Eric Eric can’t hear me this I believe is standby me lavender Claus and it’s a bush Claus which doesn’t need a tall trellis but it needs a little bit of of support and it’s kind of odd spacing cuz they’re in a bit of a circle so what I’m going to do is just train this in a circle just like I would in a container actually and that’ll give that nice kind of blanket coverage of water that’ll help keep these looking great for the season here’s an example of another use for the Goof plug you can use it as the Ender for a piece of quarter in tubing which is great so I can make this little ring of drip around the bush catus it ends right here and then I’ll just put in two Staples to hold it in place until Eric comes through and makes them look perfect we have our very heavy gold winter berries here and it looks like in the fall we put a one gallon on each one Christopher yes I think that’s what we chose all right let’s well Berry Heavies winterberries in general like it kind of moist and I noticed these were struggling so how does this Tool Work Christopher I think you’ve already got the hole in there don’t make a second oh there we go I did it I heard the pop that’s what you’re listening for that little pop I’m just adding in the other gallon I think two gallons is perfect for these yeah and these get pretty big and we wanted them here for the berries obviously oo I haven’t seen how much he had gotten done with the burying while we’re talking about the berry heavy we’re burying the drip tube very well Eric thanks well tedious but it pays off in the end and again I must thank these amazing pants that have the knee pads embedded in them we got to call someone at duth and thank them for having knee pads in these pants for you Eric let’s create our basic connection through here we’ll use the black poly we yeah this is great it’s kind of hearkening back to what we did in the fall it is this is basically how we created the first grid that we just did all our little teeing off of I’m going to do one that connects all the way around the front edge and then I’m going to do another one that’s almost going to make this look like a mouth this area with the idea being that when we plant the dollas we can take a qu inch or any drip tube that we really need with the perfect spacing and make it look like teeth and then all of the plants will be perfectly spaced on their emitter perfect I love sound like a good idea I’m going to go over here just because of the bend of the tube in between these two Fox Woods let me find my of course newly buried that’s why I wanted to do this now before everything got covered in compost yes so then actually now I get to really use the cutter for the right purpose and I will snip do you have to be careful with brown drip tube that you don’t snip where the emitters are or becomes a whole thing so you just have to just double check before you nip I’ll take my teac coupler and I will press it here Brown drip tube is always harder that other side so they’re nice and tucked on their barbs then I’m going to take my black that I’m connecting and connect it there really not a glamorous process to watch but you get the point landscape staple okay so we’ll unroll this unroll this oh I see verbina seedlings I think I love verbina bonariensis and it will love you back as long as you let it roam free [Laughter] okay it’s I mean I could be helping but some have to hold the camera why be helpful take your tool and your thing here you’ve got this we believe in you let me know how I can help but also film at the same time I got it don’t worry I know you [Applause] do I think you can probably give that a sniff soon I’m assuming you’re going to teac couple somewhere in here between these daffodils I’m actually going to go in right behind this Spa oh the thing about curvy tubing is if you kind of go with the Curve it means you don’t have to fight as hard another teac coupler I can’t wait to see where these tiny quick fers do this season they’re going to be adorable that and that and that’ll do it for the first outer let’s call it I guess the bottom lip of our big smile yeah wait it’s going through H we’ll figure it out did you just say oh you’ll figure it out are you seeing the vision I see the vision and then when the doll is get planted we can add drip this way well we don’t have to bury the front edge that’s for sure I don’t think we should bury the back Edge either because I’m going to have to pull it all up to put all these emitters in so it won’t bury the back Edge either but I am going to tidy that little spot up right there that’s for sure um and then continue on into the other half of the new bed and get all of this buried after many hours of work on our hands and knees we have successfully buried 99% of the drip and I know the bed still needs some topping up and stuff but I think it looks so much better it does I mean you can see little bits of it I mean it’ll get covered but everything in here now has drip and it also what was really good about it was getting down on your hands and knees and really inspecting each plant pulling up any extra weeds that we saw it just kind of it gave us a chance to see the status of how everything was doing we added new uh black chicken wire to these aonia this is lows scape aronia right oh wait hold on you can’t even see it till I get pretty close there it is that’s good that that seems to be a wildlife favorite I had ordered 18 ft High by 150 ft long roll of this black kind of silicone covered chicken wire and that with some tin snips that we picked up is making very easy work of making them or these making these sort of cages and they are invisible really cool they look great we didn’t cover this drip as we discussed because this is going to be filled with compost and then the Doos will be planted in it and we will do a grid system so that’s that’s not covered but everything else is going to do much better this season not that I was suffering or struggling but it’ll be much happier this season if we have a drier summer it just looks so much better look at these daffodils that are starting to open what are those I don’t know but I love oh those are Tahiti I think those are Tahiti how exotic part three of our irrigation Adventure will be coming soon that’s when we’ll be bringing out all of the connectors that’ll get us to the hose bib we actually have some new hose timers that are in the garage waiting to go out we have a couple more frosts and that equipment really shouldn’t be out in a full Frost also we have some irrigation for the raised beds that are really really cool we’re very excited about that definitely um if you want give a little subscribe and maybe a little notification Bell so you know when all of those videos come out but here we are we’re almost uh almost done with irrigating the garden part two of hopefully only three parts yeah thank you for joining us today for part two of installing drip irrigation we look forward to seeing you in the next one again I’m Eric and I’m Christopher and we’re grow for me gardening thanks for growing with us [Music]