100-200 plants, blocks of 25. Electric fence for deer and insect netting in case of super grasshoppers.
I would do low tech. Bury X” deep. Filled up. Seep away. I’ll just grid. Manifold maybe to mix necessary fertilizer. Grid pattern.
Total sq. Footage ?
6 rows. 4 plants per 30’ rows. So appx 2000 sqft each x 25 plots.
Some plots fed by well to 1500 gallon water tank.
Others from spring creeks pumped into cattle troughs. That land is flat. Delta area like.
Marsh feeds it’s self.
Oops around 10 plots.
Be careful laying subsurface tape with heterogeneous soils. If you’re not careful you’ll end up with all sorts of different depths on a given line and make it next to impossible to water that row effectively. Especially early, some plants will be inundated while others will effectively go unwatered.
I’ve used an oxy/acetylene torch to do this… you don’t need fancy equipment. Make sure you shut the valves on your torch after you’ve gassed up the hole lol.
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Tape is like a drinking straw to gophers.
Blowing the shit out of them is great . I’m looking forward to that.
PVC lateral lines wrapped protectively as reasonable will give be the best way in my vision to deliver deep water to the roots and cool a bit of the soil.
Gophers can but don’t usually eat pvc.
I need to purchase a trash pump and tote to pump water from pond. No utilities for two more months.
Scoured the Internet for different ssi ideas. One cool idea was drip irrigation top and dig vertical 2’ deep 4’ hole and pvc pipe. Drip on the surface and also water deep. Control emitters accordingly. Kinda like having fun with the blond and brunette!
I’ll try to post that drawing in a bit. Only the irrigation pics.
The plan is three different types of ssi on different plots and document the growing results.
Work in progress on the custom pvc lateral line irrigation system.
The sand is over 6 feet deep in some areas! I saw @frozencaveman and @anon16547145 outdoor grows. Same cream colored sand. They looked great! Beautiful sun grown plants.
I can’t wait.
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I don’t have any sand at my grow
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I’m mostly sand, drainage is amazing, only tip would be if using underground pipes to give yourself a vent to pressurize it with air after use to clear out remaining water, or you’ll be like me and have to dump first bucket that comes out.
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I use amended soil
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My holes I dig out the sand and add 1.5 bags of roots organic original, some dairy doo mixed with premixed dairy doo, and my miscellaneous powders. Realized you can grow monsters with little dirt, but i grow clones mostly always so no worry of a taproot
Jack Russells and dauchshunds for all things rodent…
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Hahaha, I bit on your style, dogs win at killing gophers right after me with a garden hose and a shovel, flood those rodents in a biblical way.
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When I build out for clients I always install ball valves at the end of the lines to be able to flush the system.
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Sounds dumb saying it but how does the ball valves help you flush the remaining water out? I have ball valves on all my ends, but everything’s gravity fed
But on the issue of subsurface irrigation, I’ve seen some cool osmosis systems that maintain a specific moisture content in substrates. I’ll try and dig up some links. No idea on cost.
This garden is for what? I like raised beds with hardware cloth below, I also like top watering as it draws fresh atmosphere into the substrate.
The easiest way to deal with gophers is too line your holes with 1/2 metal hardware cloth, those little bastards can borrow 6 get down so suggest lining the bottom as well. Your best bet for this is to make cage that you can set into the hole. Make sure it also comes up a foot out of the ground or they’ll still get in. This doesn’t help the subsurface irrigation project ideas of long runs of perf pipe, but you could dig trenches and line them with hardware cloth. Initial material cost goes up but you have a lot less obstacles to irrigation plans.
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If the valves are at the low point, gravity will drain the lines for you
Ya you will need a pump to flush with them in that location
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