Did you look at his site? OMG that's a lot of planters. I can't imagine
watering it all by hand.

rancher
"simy1" wrote in message
s.com...

Mark Anderson wrote:


So I did a google search on drip irrigation for container gardens and
was kind of overwhelmed with information. Does anyone know of a good
source of material (book or web site) that will explain this to a novice
like me? My garden consists of containers from 20 gallon tubs for
tomatoes, cucumbers, strawberries, etc. to 8'x2'x2'(high) large planters
to lots and lots of 5 gallon buckets. I'm quite confused about what to
use for what like soaker hoses, or sprayers, or drip emitters, or drip
tape, etc. I'll probably skip timers with the initial installation and
will just turn the system on and off manually at first.


There was a website from Mary Tiefert, which is no longer online. I
used that and I was able to put together a good system. Her book can be
found online, so you may consider buying it.

I used the vendor she listed in her website, it was based in Oregon and
they gave me superior material and good service, however the last
fittings and connectors you may have to buy locally, simply because you
will need extra trips to the store to see that things really fit
together.

You are right that timers are not important. One problem that you will
have is that if your tape or drip line lays across the top of a 5
gallon bucket, the drop may run all the way to the edge and drip out of
the bucket. Then your expensive system will fail. One way to avoid that
is to slightly overfill the buckets, so that the emitter is in contact
with the soil. Then the drip will not run. Also, for 5 gallon buckets
you may prefer the dripline with one emitter every 18 inches, but for
thristier plants a line with one every 12 (also commonly available)
will be preferrable. I am shocked that you need that much water on a
rooftop garden. One inch for a 25X25 feet garden is about 350 gallons,
and that is a large garden, and one inch is good for a week.


Also if anyone has experience with a good vendor that would be great
too. If anyone wants to see pics of my garden goto:

http://www.brandylion.com/gallery/Garden_2006?page=1