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  • 1.  Best Drip Irrigation System Raised Beds

    Posted 07-07-2024 12:24:00 PM

    What drip irrigation system do you all use for your raised beds? Do you use soaker hoses or drip system? Our system is on a timer and each bed has its own regulator.  



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    Ziva Santop
    School Garden Specialist
    LVUSD
    Agoura Hills, CA
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  • 2.  RE: Best Drip Irrigation System Raised Beds

    Posted 07-12-2024 07:16:00 AM

    We're still setting ours up at the school but in my home garden, I used microirrigation so that's what I'd like to set up at the school. Drip Depot is a great resource.  They have youtube videos to guide planning and customizeable kits. 



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    Nicole Dodds
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    Original Message


  • 3.  RE: Best Drip Irrigation System Raised Beds

    Posted 07-17-2024 01:18:00 AM

    Hello,

    we use a drip irrigation system with soaker hoses. Each bed is equipped with its own regulator and is connected to a timer for automated watering. This setup allows us to efficiently water our plants while ensuring each bed receives the right amount of water at the right time.



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    Lila Monroe
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    Original Message


  • 4.  RE: Best Drip Irrigation System Raised Beds

    Posted 07-17-2024 11:17:00 AM

    We currently partner with 16 schools to help maintain their school gardens (and provide related materials and supports for academic instruction for grades PK-5 in those beds).  Over the last 6 years, we have been migrating to Netafim drip irrigation, which delivers water evenly across the bed.  This is much easier to manage than micro-coil, especially since we practice crop rotation across beds.  We also have spray emitters installed that we use in spring for watering lettuce (under hoop covers), and again for watering seeds during germination in May.  We have valves in in the distribution lines that allow us to turn off the drip lines, which provides more pressure to the emitters when needed, then we turn off each individual emitter when spray is no longer appropriate.

    Have fun out there!



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    Lindsey LeCuyer
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    Original Message


  • 5.  RE: Best Drip Irrigation System Raised Beds

    Posted 02-28-2025 12:27:00 PM

    Hi Ziva,

    Couple questions - is there a pressure reducer on the main water supply going into all the beds? I don't mean a 'valve' - If not, each bed needs a separate reducer in order to use drip without the force of the city water in the line blowing out the tape.  I like the kits from the super friendly people at Rain-Flo. If you go to the drop-down menu on their 'irrigation' tab, you'll see the kits they offer, as well as a ton of handy sample layouts.  They can help you determine how much of what to purchase, and you can customize any kit.  At one of the gardens I work with, someone quite a long time ago buried pipes coming off one of the building's spigots with one going to each of 12 raised beds, with 4 beds being 'zoned' at the spigot. I put in a pressure reducer in each bed, ran a 3/4" 'main' along the short end of each 12 x 6' bed, and punched in three driptapes each with on/off valves. Year three i replaced the drip but the 3/4" is going strong.  We put in a RainBird remote timer so we can adjust any of the four zones, or all four at once, from my phone, which is a miracle.

    The drip is easy to work with.



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    sue salinger
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    Original Message


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