Drip Irrigation System

This afternoon, in beautiful 80-degree weather, I installed my gravity-fed drip irrigation system. The "sample system" is shown above. It actually went much more smoothly than I expected. Because gravity-fed systems has such low PSI, there are limits to how far a mainline and dripline can run. In this picture, you can see me four primary bed driplines and a couple of my strawberry bed lines. In total, I have 7 lines, each with drip emitters every 12". 

Here is where some of the driplines connect to the mainline:

Connecting them was so simple! Using the provided punch, you make a hole in the mainline where you want the dripline to come off, then use a two-way barb to connect the mainline to the dripline. Add a plug at the other end of the dripline, and you're done. The system works perfectly, and gets equal flow on all seven lines. It's magic.

Becausee the drip emitters are so small, clogging could be an issue, so there's a filter between the rain barrel and the lines. Here's a photo that shows the filter and shutoff valve hooked to the barrel:

So, the plan is to keep the rain barrel on the garden cart, above, and mostly keep it hooked to the downspout. When it's time to water, I just pull the cart over to the garden, connect up the hose, and turn it on! This system waters about half of my garden. I have leftover mainline and driplines that I will probably set up for the other half, though I'll probably have to buy a couple more pieces to make the second system operational. But, for a net cost of $35, this will save a lot of time!