Drip Irrigation Systems: Improving Your Garden and Saving Money, One Drop at a Time

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Water is essential for life and a key ingredient in your garden. Unfortunately these days, it’s becoming a scarce commodity that is more expensive every day. When watering their gardens many people tend to over water, which in addition to being wasteful, is harmful to the plants and suffocates the soil, opening the door for mold and fungus to grow. In an effort to properly regulate how much water they use, some people put a can in the area where they are watering to measure how much water is delivered. But even if you are using the proper amount of water, when using regular sprinkler heads it is difficult to control what the water covers. Drip irrigation is a helpful and efficient alternative to this situation. Instead of fire hosing your garden, drip irrigation provides the right amount of water to exactly where you specify and where it is needed most.

Drip irrigation, also known as trickle irrigation or micro irrigation (the term preferred by the American Society of Agricultural Engineers) is a system of flexible tubing and assorted components that slowly deliver water to the roots of your plants. It can deliver water both above and below the surface of the soil through several options, including emitters and soaker hoses for lower flows, and bubblers and micro sprays that deliver higher flows. Each device delivers the right amount of water for each plant or area of the garden. The amount and location of the components to be used depends on several factors, including the soil type (water tends to run horizontally in clay soil and soak down through sandy soil), the type of plants, and the size of the plants. Just be sure to cover the proper amount of area for healthy growth of your plants’ roots. Too small an area or too few delivery components can restrict your plants’ growth.

A drip irrigation system also requires backflow prevention devices, pressure regulators, and filters to reduce the possibility of clogging the water delivery components. You’ll need to know the flow rate of your water source, the length of lines and number of components your source flow can support, how to run the lines, and how often to water with the system. Talk to a sprinkler and irrigation contractor to make sure you comply with your local city requirements.

One of the most important advantages to using drip irrigation is that your plants will be more healthy, which is a main point in watering them. Because they receive only the water they need, large fluctuations in the moisture content of the soil, which stresses the plant, is eliminated. When water goes only where it’s needed, it doesn’t indiscriminately cover everything, which is wasteful and can cause problems such as mold on buildings near your gardens, damaged concrete, and erosion of your garden’s soil.

Drip irrigation is efficient for slopes, since the slow flow of water has a chance to sink in rather than run off, and odd-shaped or narrow areas, because you can effectively target what gets watered rather than blasting a whole area to be sure everything is covered. Instances of disease are reduced because the whole plant isn’t soaked and water loss from evaporation is minimized. Also, as your garden changes and evolves, your drip system is easily adapted to fit your current needs. Just move the tubing and realign the water delivery components.

Drip irrigation systems are more expensive to initially install than conventional sprinklers systems but you will more than make that up over time from using less water. Drip systems require periodic maintenance (monitoring leaks and clogging) and winterization, but the amount of maintenance is no more than with regular sprinkler systems and the effort is well worth the savings to the environment and your pocketbook. For help in deciding if a drip irrigation system would benefit your garden, visit the sprinkler installation and irrigation repair services at EnhanceScape.