Hey there! I live in SW Oregon, from July to mid-Sept it is bone dry, hot sun, no rain. I am forced to either place my plants in naturaly moist places(rare), or return once or twice a week to hand water the plants.
Watering by hand is fun, hiking out in the woods, checking out your babies, but when Sept rolls around, its HOT, and the first deer seasons start up. Now my chances of running into a person, or a person running into my weed multiplies, when the Rifle season starts in Oct, they will multiply again. I don't have the option of letting them ride through the driest time of the year, but I have to reduce visits to lower my chances of getting seen. What to do?
Last summer I tested a low pressure irrigation system in my vegtable garden, it uses a eletronic timer to open and close the valve on a schedule. I feel it was a sucess! Now I can essentialy stop going at all until harvest if I like!
I will cover more of this in a future thread, and will also have a grow thread showing it use in 2 of my plots this year.
In the location I have chosen, I have determined I need to have water storage on site, no creek or spring to tap into directly.
In my brainstorming, I tried to figure a way to build the rez on site, hauling a 200 gallon tank a mile in the woods is not a option. The first thing I thought of was to just dig a hole, and line it with sheet plastic. The problem is borrowing animals, and what if the hole colapsed?
So I have landed on the answer, basicly it is a hole dug in the ground, lined with 1/4" Hardware cloth(fencing) for the digging animals.
Next a wall of small logs lines each side of the hole, and pinned together with long spikes ment for heavy framing(the first set of logs is under the wire, and stapled to it). These walls are to reinforce the hole.
Next I lined the hole with a standard 12'x10' blue tarp, this is more for protecting the plastic sheeting that will hold the water than anything else.
Next I put two layers of the plastic sheeting in the hole, this will be the liner of the tank. It is very important not to let debris get into it, it will be in there with the water, and may plug up the system down the road.
Once that is all in, I put 1"x2" lumber on the rim of the hole, and put spikes through it. This will hole the edges of the tarp and the sheeting.
Now I put a sheet of heavy flashing on the 1"x2", and tack it down with nails.
Next part is the in and out pipes for the rez, made of PVC, and addapted to attach to garden hoses. One pipe is short, and will be used to fill the tank, the other is long, and will be used to draw water out of the tank. I stuck them through the pre-cut holes in the flashing, and sealed them in with Plumbers goop.
On the next trip I will fill the rez with garden hoses stung 150' around the hill side from the seasonal creek(being careful to keep sediment from entering the system).
I'll also tidy up the place and camoflage the rez.
A few weeks after that I will be back to prepare the plot, add manure, lime etc. And to clear any excessive cover from the surrounding trees and shrubs, to let the light in.
I intend to get a thread up soon outlining my automatic irrigation system as well.
Watering by hand is fun, hiking out in the woods, checking out your babies, but when Sept rolls around, its HOT, and the first deer seasons start up. Now my chances of running into a person, or a person running into my weed multiplies, when the Rifle season starts in Oct, they will multiply again. I don't have the option of letting them ride through the driest time of the year, but I have to reduce visits to lower my chances of getting seen. What to do?
Last summer I tested a low pressure irrigation system in my vegtable garden, it uses a eletronic timer to open and close the valve on a schedule. I feel it was a sucess! Now I can essentialy stop going at all until harvest if I like!
I will cover more of this in a future thread, and will also have a grow thread showing it use in 2 of my plots this year.
In the location I have chosen, I have determined I need to have water storage on site, no creek or spring to tap into directly.
In my brainstorming, I tried to figure a way to build the rez on site, hauling a 200 gallon tank a mile in the woods is not a option. The first thing I thought of was to just dig a hole, and line it with sheet plastic. The problem is borrowing animals, and what if the hole colapsed?
So I have landed on the answer, basicly it is a hole dug in the ground, lined with 1/4" Hardware cloth(fencing) for the digging animals.
Next a wall of small logs lines each side of the hole, and pinned together with long spikes ment for heavy framing(the first set of logs is under the wire, and stapled to it). These walls are to reinforce the hole.
Next I lined the hole with a standard 12'x10' blue tarp, this is more for protecting the plastic sheeting that will hold the water than anything else.
Next I put two layers of the plastic sheeting in the hole, this will be the liner of the tank. It is very important not to let debris get into it, it will be in there with the water, and may plug up the system down the road.
Once that is all in, I put 1"x2" lumber on the rim of the hole, and put spikes through it. This will hole the edges of the tarp and the sheeting.
Now I put a sheet of heavy flashing on the 1"x2", and tack it down with nails.
Next part is the in and out pipes for the rez, made of PVC, and addapted to attach to garden hoses. One pipe is short, and will be used to fill the tank, the other is long, and will be used to draw water out of the tank. I stuck them through the pre-cut holes in the flashing, and sealed them in with Plumbers goop.
On the next trip I will fill the rez with garden hoses stung 150' around the hill side from the seasonal creek(being careful to keep sediment from entering the system).
I'll also tidy up the place and camoflage the rez.
A few weeks after that I will be back to prepare the plot, add manure, lime etc. And to clear any excessive cover from the surrounding trees and shrubs, to let the light in.
I intend to get a thread up soon outlining my automatic irrigation system as well.
Last edited:
, but we get hit with a bit more rain then you in pacific northwest 
)
