we all know that drip irrigation is one of the most efficient ways of watering
your plants in today's episode we answer some of the questions our viewers have
asked in the three episodes of drip irrigation our first question comes from
Becky and the question is that I have some plants in very large containers and
some plants in smaller containers how do I make sure that the plants get enough
water now you can use a variety of emitters to limit the amount of water
that's going into your container or to your plants and by using a adjustable
emitter like the ones you see here you can actually control how much water
goes around your plants you can even use micro sprinklers like these which can
emit a lot of water or even just trickle down a little bit of water as you see
here and for very large plants you can also
use a combination of emitters like we are using the stream bubbler as well as
a soaker hose here the next question comes from manohar
and the question is whether I can use the riser kit on one spray head for the
drip irrigation and leave the others for watering the lawn or should I cap them
off well you do need to cap off all the other emitters for your sprinklers the
other sprinkler lines just cap them off you have to do this you cannot just use
some for your sprinklers and some for your drip irrigation because as you can
see here the drip irrigation line is actually pressure controlled and you
need to make sure that everything else is capped off otherwise the system will
not work our next question comes from Manisha and
the question is whether to use a backflow preventor to prevent the water
from getting back into the system and also about the runoff at the end of the
pipe now I definitely recommend that you use a backflow preventer
and as far as the runoff goes at the end of the line you can see that I have this
runoff at the end I just open up the cap let the water out and this creates a
really nice flush system for my whole line now if you can't get to the main
line you can also use a quarter-inch line and plug it with a goof plug but I
definitely recommend using a backflow preventer if you can and also having the
runoff located in the main line instead of the quarter-inch line
our next question comes from T Abbs and the question is whether I use a pressure
regulator in the drip irrigation system now it's highly recommended that you do
use a pressure regulator in your drip irrigation system
it just helps maintain and provide adequate pressure that's needed for the
emitters now that being said I have tested the system without using pressure
regulators as well as you can see here and it does work I don't see any
problems with that however I definitely recommend that you use a pressure
regulator and here you can see how the pressure regulator attaches to the main
line and to the filter system so here you can see the filter system you
can see that there's a lot of dirt and lime deposits in the filter system so
the filter system is definitely a must to filter out any debris or any other
contaminants that might enter the water and this is the pressure regulator that
reduces the pressure coming out of your outlet and makes it just good enough for
your drip irrigation system so yes it's very cheap to get a pressure regulator
and I highly recommend that you use one in your system
our next question comes from sudsport s and the question is how many hours to
enable the irrigation system and how many times a day now depending on your
emitter for example micro sprinklers spray a lot of water compared to
something like the fan bubblers that you see here
or if you're using the adjustable fan bubblers like you see here for
containers the answer might vary but a general rule of thumb is to run your
system for about four minutes four containers and about seven minutes for
in-ground or raised bed plants and I also recommend that you do some trial
and error just set a particular time and see how that goes on hot sunny days you
need to water your plants at least once a day and on cool days cloudy days or
winter days you can do every two to three times a week
our next question comes from Francis and the question is to change to soaker hose
for some larger pots for drip irrigation and yes soaker hoses are very versatile
drip emitters as you can see here you can change the size of the soaker hose
to the size of your container or of your pots and they become a very versatile
tool in your drip irrigation system I have used all sizes of soaker hoses and
as you can see here they do a great job and for larger plants you can even
combine soaker hoses with other kinds of emitters to get more even watering and
this works like a charm
our next question comes from DarkFalz and the question or the statement is
about the BER going away in tomatoes after using drip irrigation and that is
absolutely right you can see here blossom and brought this is caused by a
regular watering and leaving the plant dry for a few days
drip irrigation systems take care of this problem by constantly watering the
plants on a regular basis and a lot of my viewers have told me that problems
like blossom and rot go away when using a good rep irrigation system
our next question comes from Umar and the question is about the drip
irrigation system getting blocked because of not installing the filter and
also about the soaker hoses yes a filter is definitely recommended in your drip
irrigation system to block out any debris or dirt and soaker hoses are very
good emitters however they do need cleaning once in a while maybe at least
every year where you take your soaker hoses you clean them very thoroughly and
then rinse them I have provided a detailed video on how to do this for
your soaker hoses in the maintenance section
and it's just generally easier to use new sucker Hills tubing if you can if
you don't want to spend time in cleaning your soaker hoses our next question
comes from mark and the question is about various fittings for the main half
line setup yes we can go with that there are different kinds of fittings
that you can see there's a tee fitting there's a coupler that connects
different pipes there's also an elbow that you can see here just make sure
that you are buying all products from the same company because there are some
slight differences between how these products fit here you can see a lot more
of these fittings in action you do not need glue to attach these they just
attach right away with you're just using your bare hands no glue needed and
similarly there are fittings for the quarter inch line as well you can see
bobbed tee here some stakes that you can use to hold your drip irrigation lines
here's a coupler that can connect the quarter-inch line so yes these are very
easy to attach all of these can be attached using the hands the only tool
you will really need is a hole punch to punch holes in your main line and this
is what it looks like and it just makes it very easy to attach quarter inch
tubing lines to your main line and all you do is just take the punch and make a
hole in your 1/2 inch line you can see here this is
another connector for the quarter inch tubing as you can see here this is the
barbed connector which can be easily pushed into the mainline or the quarter inch
tubing line and then back into the mainline as you can see here so no glue
is needed there are a very few tools needed for you to set up your drip
irrigation line our final question comes from Esther and
her question is whether you can find all the parts for the drip irrigation system
and Lowes or Home Depot yes you can find almost all the parts at your local
gardening stores however I have made a list of all the parts available in the
video description and you can easily buy them from Amazon they are a lot cheaper
and you would be doing a great help to California gardening by buying these
products or any other products for that matter from amazon by clicking on these
links so there we have it folks that was our episode on the Q&A for the drip
irrigation system you can watch these two videos to get more information on
how to set up your drip irrigation systems we'll see you again soon
happy gardening