UberlootsGardening with a Gaming Perspective

The soaker hose irrigation I decided to install in my garden is giving me some problems. Even though we have tried two different pressure regulators it seems the pressure is still too high. We have large streams of water spurting from the hose going off in whatever direction they feel like, often landing on the yard and not putting the water where I need it, in my garden. As a result some plants are not getting any water at all.

I went ahead and paid out extra for the nicer brass water pressure regulator. We just could not get it to work right, but that was during tax season and we were trying to set up the system in the dark holding flashlights to see so we grabbed the cheaper, non-adjustable plastic version and threw it on. The important thing was that we start getting some water to the plants since we were unable to take the time to water them. Now, in these last two weeks we have received more than enough rain so I have been putting off the task of fixing the irrigation system. After doing some research online though it looks like an underground irrigation system would have been a better idea.

I have to point out though that the underground irrigation system I have been looking at may require a lot more talent than I have to install. It seems though that the extra set-up time and cost would be worth it in the long run. An underground system loses almost no water to evaporation, where as the soaker hose will lose a fair amount of moisture to evaporation on hot, sunny, or windy days. Before making any final judgments though I think I am going to try the underground irrigation system on the next couple of garden beds and compare with the results from the first couple planting beds which currently have the soaker hose system. This is all assuming I can get them both set-up and working properly. Once I have some results I will post a follow up to this. Also any suggestions on better irrigation would be more than welcome.