Sunday, May 5, 2013

Drip Irrigation!!!

We're excited!  We just purchased and installed our new drip irrigation system in the garden.  Our hope is that this system will save time, water, and energy as well as prevent the growth of unwanted weeds.  The system was really easy to put together and with the help of Trey and Ray at Berry Hill Drip Irrigation we got enough tubing, tape, and 
parts to set us up.

Below we have pics of the installation.  We will try to describe the process as you scroll through.

Step 1: The first thing we had to do was set up the hose and run it to the place we wanted to start.  Since we had to run the hose across the gate opening, we decided to dig a short trench and run the hose through some old pvc pipe.


Step 2:  We dragged the box with all the parts out to the garden and laid them all out on the table to make sure we had everything we needed.

















Step 3:  Aaron hooked up the regulator to the hose.  The regulator drops the pressure to 10 psi.  It's automatic and there are no adjustments necessary.

Step 4:  Since the tomato rows are at the back of the garden and run perpendicular to the other rows, we needed to splice in a 'T' on the 3/4 inch main line.











    Step 5: Then we ran the 3/4 inch main tubing across the rows we


wanted to run the tape down.  At the end of each main, we used the *figure 8" lock to simply pinch off the end of the tube.  This stops the water from flowing out.

Step 6: To get the valves (red) connected to the main we had to punch a hole in the 3/4 inch tubing using the wood tool that comes with the kit.  It's on its side in the first pic above, next to the pile of valves.











Step 7:  Then we took the drip tape and slid it on to the valve stem, pulling the coupling back up over the tape and tighten down.  All of these couplings work with a simple hand tightening.


Step 8: After we connected the tape to the valve and ran it along the row, the last thing we did was install a blue end-cap.  It goes on exactly like the valves.


Step 9: We repeated until all of our rows are set up with drip tape.  Then, we turned on the water and checked for any leaks.  We only found leaks where we were supposed to be; in the drip tape, every 12 inches.  Below is the tomato patch.


Wednesday, May 1, 2013

Spring Garden Pics


The spring garden was off to a late start this year but the weather has finally truly settled and now everything is looking great. We're trying a couple of new varieties this year, one that I'm super happy with is the bush snap peas, seems like they will mature a little earlier than the trellis type, which we planted too, so maybe we'll have a steady supply for a couple of weeks. I love snap peas and they are really easy to grow... 

Another new thing we're trying is growing clover between most of the rows in the garden, we're hoping it will be less work than the way we were mulching last year. 


Bush Snap Peas

Here are some pics of the different lettuces we're growing for our salad mix. Everything was chosen for its heat tolerance, so we can have lettuce a little later in the season. We'll see how that goes.



Lollo Rossa

Red Sails

Jericho Romaine

 One plant that seems to have loved the cold winter we had is the spinach, I've never had such good luck with spinach grown from seed. Look forward to seeing some of this at the market!





The flower garden is starting to fill out, too. I spent some time out there this week trying to combat crabgrass, a losing battle.

Iris


The hens we got earlier in the year have started laying! We mixed them in with the older hens, as you can see one isn't really a hen, we ended up with a couple of roosters by mistake.

Happy Chickens!

Here are a few more pictures I took over the last couple of weeks. The field next door has exploded with buttercups, so pretty.




Our cherry trees were covered in butterflies a couple of weeks ago, I was amazed at how many suddenly appeared just as the cherry trees were starting to bloom. There would literally be dozens on the trees at a time. They were so into feeding, I was able to get some really close-up shots without them flying away. The tree is covered in little green cherries now, hopefully it won't be long until they're ready.