Rain Barrel

Irrigation manifold

Back in February I wrote a post about my goals for irrigation. It was dry here last week and the transplants desperately needed water so irrigation is at the top of my chore list every night. I decided to put in a main line and a series of manifolds for my low pressure water system. The rows in the garden are 50 to 80 feet long and I will water 5 rows with each manifold. The water source is 300 gallons of collected rain water and the system is gravity fed from the holding tanks. My initial calculations are roughly 120 gallons of water per row when the plants are full size, that is two full tanks of water per manifold (zone) each week. I will need to find a way to fill those tanks with a shallow well to assist the little rain we get in July and August.

Collecting rain water from the shed roof