Growing School Food Gardens

Hi Pamela, 19 beds, that's awesome!! We have 8, 8x4 raised beds at our middle school in which I set up a fully custom irrigation system from scratch. I definitely support your inclination to go with adding extra emitter tubing. Soaker hoses are more trouble than they're worth IMO and anything that sprays could end up causing issues later on. We had 4 lines in each 8X4 bed, with the emitters at 6 inches apart, and that worked great for seedlings and established plants and I plan to repeat it this year. We just had to keep a regular misting schedule until the seeds were mostly sprouted and then turned on the irrigation. The emitter tubing is a little more expensive than blank tubing, but the internal pressure regulation and is well worth the cost versus the potential watering inconsistency of creating manual holes for emitters. The photo is a bit tough to see - what kind of line is carrying the water, how are the drip lines connected, and how far apart are the emitters? All things that I imagine would impact how you plan to tackle this project. Good luck!

Original Message:
Sent: 03-20-2024 05:38:01 PM
From: Pamela Bond
Subject: Irrigation question - drip tubing for low maintenance garden

Can anyone share their irrigation advice on this project? We have about 19 beds that were installed by a landscaper as part of school campus project but the drip lines are useless for school gardening. They were buried underground and had faulty flush valves, etc.  So now we have unearthed them but the lines are too far apart.   We need to add more lines somehow.

Questions - knowing that grounds keepers are unlikely to maintain this so we need to keep it simple and fairly trustworthy or at least not the worse thing if we get a leak.

Idea #1 is to just add two more drip lines between the 3 laid already.  So it's netafim type tubing with holes in it.

Idea #2 is to pop thin tubing (1/4") lines into the existing lines and attach emitters - possibly spray in order to get better coverage for when kids plant seeds willy nilly.

Idea #3  Cut this all out and attach soaker hose in similar layout.

I don't like the last one but I felt I had to ask.  A garden parent who used to work at the hardware store really liked that idea and has it in her garden but she said the water has to run for a longer time. It makes me nervous with the amount of pressure we have to plan for water running for too long there if something breaks.

I am leaning toward just adding 2 more lines of tubing.  And then we can get classes to plant seeds close to the tubing in order to make sure the plants get enough water.   I guess we might have to hand water when seeds are freshly planted?  I hate to do this because I am trying to reduce volunteer load and the classes are all planting at different times/weeks.

In the future I am thinking we should have a set schedule to plant within a week all of the classes so that we have less issue with watering fresh starts or fresh seeds.

I appreciate your thoughts!

Pam

Los Gatos, CA (near San Jose, zone 9)

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Pamela Bond
Los Gatos
16507933844
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Hi Pamela,  We have 23 raised beds at our elementary school.  I find drip irrigation a bit to tedious and  high maintenance.  We prefer micro misting irrigation...it works well for seeds and plants alike.  You use less spray heads that you would drip nozzles. I am not a fan of soaker hoses either, but in some situations like just an cleared narrow area for growing.  We made a bed about 12 inches deep and 20 feet long, it was in front of our 6 foot chain link fence.  We planted sunflowers and beans there, the soaker hose worked great for that situation.  Just a note.....students and staff loved the sunflowers so much I ended up planting them everywhere!  Good luck!

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JOANNE ROBERTS
Grandma's Florida Garden
Lakeland FL
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Original Message:
Sent: 03-20-2024 05:38:01 PM
From: Pamela Bond
Subject: Irrigation question - drip tubing for low maintenance garden

Can anyone share their irrigation advice on this project? We have about 19 beds that were installed by a landscaper as part of school campus project but the drip lines are useless for school gardening. They were buried underground and had faulty flush valves, etc.  So now we have unearthed them but the lines are too far apart.   We need to add more lines somehow.

Questions - knowing that grounds keepers are unlikely to maintain this so we need to keep it simple and fairly trustworthy or at least not the worse thing if we get a leak.

Idea #1 is to just add two more drip lines between the 3 laid already.  So it's netafim type tubing with holes in it.

Idea #2 is to pop thin tubing (1/4") lines into the existing lines and attach emitters - possibly spray in order to get better coverage for when kids plant seeds willy nilly.

Idea #3  Cut this all out and attach soaker hose in similar layout.

I don't like the last one but I felt I had to ask.  A garden parent who used to work at the hardware store really liked that idea and has it in her garden but she said the water has to run for a longer time. It makes me nervous with the amount of pressure we have to plan for water running for too long there if something breaks.

I am leaning toward just adding 2 more lines of tubing.  And then we can get classes to plant seeds close to the tubing in order to make sure the plants get enough water.   I guess we might have to hand water when seeds are freshly planted?  I hate to do this because I am trying to reduce volunteer load and the classes are all planting at different times/weeks.

In the future I am thinking we should have a set schedule to plant within a week all of the classes so that we have less issue with watering fresh starts or fresh seeds.

I appreciate your thoughts!

Pam

Los Gatos, CA (near San Jose, zone 9)

------------------------------
Pamela Bond
Los Gatos
16507933844
------------------------------