Installing Deep Pipe Irrigation

Sometimes Die Manchmal Gruene Weide isn't so green. However, I have an orchard and garden and need to keep it watered even in the hot East-Central Texas summers. I keep researching what ways work best and most efficiently because for the past few years I've trucked in water in 55 gallon drums from our city home to water the garden and orchard. Adding the 1550 gallon water tank and re-plumbing the 330 gallon tank gives us 1880 rain harvested gallons for the orchard and gardens, but I've learned over the years that it takes a lot of water to keep a healthy productive garden.

Spraying the water haphazardly isn't an option! I have to find the most efficient ways to apply the water given the scarcity and the fact we only visit once per week. This month my research found another way to irrigate which is cheap, simple to employ and should allow weekly watering to be sufficient. That method is deep pipe irrigation. This article: Deep Pipe Irrigation PDF was one of a several I found that explained how this method gets water down to the roots and is a highly effective way to irrigate trees, grapes and other deeper rooted plants. I decided to apply the method to our four grape vines, four blueberry bushes, and to the four watermelon and cantaloupe mounds I'll plant next weekend.

I had a bunch of 1 inch, 1-1/2 inch, and 2 inch PVC scraps from the well drilling project so I decided to re-purpose those to irrigate those plants in the garden. The following photos shows the very simple process.

PCV Irrigation tubes and install tool

I cut the 1 inch schedule 40 PVC to 17 inch lengths as that was close to getting all of a 10' section of pipe evenly divided. I think I had to trim off one inch off the last piece. These are going in the ground so precise cuts weren't required. I then drilled a series of holes on one side of the pipe. Stacked on the top is a 1 inch oak dowel and a spare 3 inch PVC piece. I used my reciprocating saw and file to carve a drive point, and drilled a hole close to the top to ease removal of the dowel.

 

PVC Deep Pipe ready to install.

Here the Deep Pipe tube is ready to install. The series of holes will face the targeted plant's root system and allow water to disperse vertically. The 1 inch dowel fits perfectly in the schedule 40 PVC which prevents dirt from clogging the irrigation pipe. The extra 3-inch piece of PVC allows the dowel to be longer than the system so I can easily remove the dowel after installation.

Installing the pipe with hammer & 2x4.

Removing the drive dowel with screwdriver.

Installed Deep Pipe Irrigation tube.

I planted these three grapes along the garden fence to use as vine supports. The 330 gallon tank can easily feed these tubes and I'm considering having a simple line to feed these with the tank directly. I will put caps on the ends to keep tiny critters out. I also installed these on the four blueberry bushes but for those I plan to create a simple funnel and use the hose to fill them weekly. One of the articles I read told how they watered desert trees with this method and they only required watering once every two weeks to improve the tree survival. So I'm guessing the once per week watering will suffice to have healthy, productive berry bushes. Also, several articles mentioned that pouring compost tea into the tube feeds the roots directly. Something to experiment with.

Four Watermelon/Cantaloupe deep irrigation pipes.

I have planted watermelons now for four years and have never harvested a single melon. I have harvested cantaloupe, but never watermelon. There has been two issues - once per week surface watering is just not enough water to grow decent size and quantity of watermelons. And, the few small fruits that actually grew were ravaged by wildlife before we could harvest them. This year I planted these deep irrigation pipes in each of the four melon mounds. I have holes on three sides because I'll plant the melons around the pipes. Also these are 1-1/2 inch and 2 inch pipes so there will be more volume of water applied in the mounds. For these I'm considering running a line to directly feed water from the 330 gallon tank with a battery powered timer to turn the water on to fill the tubes every 72 hours. And to defeat the melon raiding critters, I'm planning to create small melon cages to stake down over select ripening fruit. To be fair to nature I'll leave a few for the wildlife, but keep several protected for our enjoyment. I hope this strategy works to get our first Gruene Weide Melons!

I will install two additional irrigation systems in the next few weeks which will lead two future posts on efficient low water garden and orchard irrigation.