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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