Hi, this is Tim from Organic Backyard Gardening. Welcome to this quick video
where I'll guide you through adding a water spigot or outdoor faucet anywhere in your
yard and how to set up drip irrigation for your garden beds. I'll walk you
through all the necessary components and make this process easy to follow.
Recently, I constructed a new garden area on the opposite side of my yard, and in this fresh space,
I want to add a spigot that's under pressure for a garden hose and drip irrigation,
all without the hassle of having to run a large hose across my lawn. Now, before we dive in,
a quick note: I'm in a freezing location, so at the end of each season, I'll be blowing out
these lines before the cool weather hits. If you're aiming for a frost-proof line,
you'll need to dig a trench below the frost line, employ a self-draining yard faucet,
and you'll want to drill a hole into your foundation to access the water line inside your
home. For a tutorial on blowing out your lines, you can check out my other video down below.
So, let's get into it. The first step involved digging a trench. I found that removing the
existing sod, placing it on a tarp, followed by the soil, made the process really easy. Next,
I used PEX-B 3/4 inch tubing. I used a 100 ft, and it tended to recoil after I uncoiled it,
so I used clamps to secure it from start to finish. After laying down the PEX,
I covered it with soil and then replaced the sod.
In a quick note, I'm not digging very deep. While I do have some foot traffic in this area,
I don't have any heavy machinery or excessive weight on the ground. Depending on your situation,
you may need to dig deeper if you anticipate heavier traffic or machinery. Exercise caution
when digging, and remember, I'm not digging below the frost line
because I'm going to blow the lines out before the freezing temperatures.
For the faucet, I'm using a 3/4 inch SharkBite faucet that easily snaps
into a 3/4 inch copper pipe. This pipe is then attached with SharkBite elbows.
I'll cover how I attach the PEX to the house spigot shortly. Now,
these SharkBite brass fittings have a 25-year warranty, and you can bury them. However,
SharkBite says you must wrap them in silicone tape to keep that warranty, to keep the contaminants
out, and to prevent corrosion. I'll put a link where you can find this down below.
Now, for cutting the PEX, it's important to note that you want to make sure that the cut is very
straight. When cutting PEX, it's best to use a special cutter, which I didn't have. Then you
can use a depth gauge and pipe deburring tool. This allows you to mark the pipe or tubing so
you know how far to properly push it into the SharkBite. It also deburs the outside
pipe and puts a slight angle on it to allow for a snug fit into that SharkBite fitting.
Alright, so I marked where I want my faucet to be, so I'm just going to
cut the copper right there. Okay, here we go. Looks like a clean cut. Another thing,
these SharkBite fittings are fairly expensive. If you have one of those crimping tools,
the crimp fasteners are much more economical.
If you're finding this video helpful, don't forget to give it a thumbs up and subscribe.
We have a lot more gardening videos. Next, I'm fastening onto the inside of the fence post,
about waist-high, and I'm also using some copper clips to secure the copper piping.
Moving on to the attachment to the house spigot. Since this will be constantly under pressure,
a garden hose wouldn't be the best idea. So, I picked up this SharkBite
braided hot water heater connector. This fits perfectly onto the 3/4 inch PEX to
connect the braided hose to the house spigot. You'll need a thread adapter;
this adapter converts it to NPT thread to hose thread. I'll provide a link below on where to
find this. It took me a little bit to figure this out, so I hope these links are helpful.
Also, to prevent backflow, a backflow preventer should be added at your home spigot. All in all,
this portion of the project cost about $110, and I'll put links to all the items down below.
Next up is the drip irrigation. I've been using DripWorks.com for years on my existing beds. They
reached out to me and asked to test out their new raised bed garden kit, and I must say, DripWorks
is the easiest to work with. Their documentation is superb, and I was particularly excited about
this kit because it came with a new timer that can be programmed via Bluetooth. And I've been
using it all summer, and I'm making this video right now in the fall, and it worked perfectly.
The raised bed kit is perfect for my new install because it includes
everything you need to get started, with the 1/4 inch micro tubing,
1/2 inch soaker drip line, 1/2 inch mainline, barbs, elbow fittings, goof plugs. Here,
you can see I'm attaching it to the filter, to the pressure regulator, and then the mainline
adapter. This is everything you need to connect drip irrigation to your spigot.
I also purchased a lot of additional parts because I like to add headers and shut-off
valves on each of my beds. I also needed more mainline and midline and other parts
because I have eight large beds to install lines on. I'll be following this exact plan
from DripWorks. I'll put a link down to the website to this plan and other plans,
and the only difference is I'll be using shut-off valves on each bed, which I like
because if I don't have something growing in that bed, I don't have to waste water on it.
Now, if you have any questions about drip irrigation, post them down below,
and I'll help you out. Also, if you decide to buy from DripWorks,
use code OBGARDENING with my links down below, and you'll get 5% off your order,
and I'll get a small commission, which will help out the channel.
So here I am attaching the mainline to the pressure regulator. From there,
I'm adding all the T valves and elbows to each bed and digging trenches to bury the mainline.
For smoother assembly, consider warming up your irrigation parts. On cooler days,
lay them out in the sun or use a lighter. This makes them a little more flexible and ensures
the connections are snug. Exercise caution when using a lighter. Just hit the mainline quickly
with heat, and that'll soften it up, and it will go into the connector much more easily.
And there you have it, this is what the beds look like once everything's installed. This
is a straightforward project that you can do in about a weekend. This portion of the
project probably cost about $300. The reason is, I had a lot of beds, and I needed a lot
of elbows and tees, a lot of different parts that added up. But if you have a few beds,
you can get away with this garden bed small irrigation kit that I showed you
previously. And without the timer, it's $90, with the timer it's about $160.
I really like how this project turned out, and I hope these details can help
you on your gardening journey. And if you have questions, post them in the comments below,
I'll respond as quickly as I can. But before you go, let me introduce you to an invaluable
tool for garden planning, Plan My Garden. It's a service that streamlines the entire process,
providing you custom plans tailored to your needs. Enter your ZIP code, draw your garden layout,
select what vegetables you want to grow, and how much space you want to allocate to each.
Check out, and then we'll send you an email with a PDF that has a visual schedule for
each vegetable you selected, a getting started guide, a grow guide for each vegetable selected,
and your garden layout updated with optimal plant placements for maximum yields.
Thanks for watching, don't forget to give it a thumbs up,
subscribe if you haven't already, and we'll see you in the next video. Check out other
high-quality videos on gardening like the one on the left, how to build a raised bed,
and the one on the right, which YouTube thinks you might find the most interesting.