Project: watering system

timbim_2

So, we all know the score, having an automated watering system using timers and soaker hoses is an enormous time-saver, especially for when you're away, on holiday and so on. Problem is, it can cost a fortune to set up such a system. Much of this cost can some from the connections between two hoses, costing maybe as much as £10-£12 for a simple connection, and far more for a three way join.

My project is to set up a permanent and more suitable watering system for our decidedly permanent raspberry cage. The cage consists of three rows of canes, which we've replaced this year following extensive levelling and de-stoning process. Previously we've had a single length of soaker hose looping out and back. The problem with this is that the area of walkway between the canes ends up getting watered and muddy. Here's a picture of the cage before the start of this project:


Now the other aim is to keep costs down, which rules out using standard hozelock connectors, due to their prohibitive cost. So the plan is to run a length of hose across the back of the cage, with a soaker running down each row. This is obviously going to require some 3-way connectors, and here's how we did it.

Materials

• 2x Equal Tee 10mm...........£2.99...£5.98
• 9x Jubilee Clips............£0.45...£4.05
• 1x Repair Connector.........£2.40...£2.40
• 1x Female Connector.........£1.99...£1.99
• 1x Pack of tent pegs........£1.75...£1.75
• 1x 12mm hardwood dowel......£4.09...£0.20 - use very little, £4 for a 3m length
  
• Total..............................£16.37

Enough normal hose, thinner is best, and soaker hose to complete the required runs. The soaker should be all of the same type otherwise you'll get uneven watering in each row.

All these parts can be got from any decent DIY shop, I ended up buying bits from a local independent, Focus and Homebase. I have to say, of all the jubilee clips (I bought some at each, exhausting supplies at Focus and the local independent), the Homebase ones were probably the best, and also the cheapest. You could also get them online, either a major retailer or ebay.

Tools

• Secateurs
• Large flat-head screwdriver
• Pliers
• Hot water
• PVA glue and paintbrush
• Duck tape/Elephant tape
• Saw and sandpaper

Method

1. Take your hose and run out the lengths required, running the supply hose and the soakers downhill if you're on a slope. Trim the ends of the hoses if they've been connected to any sort of connector previously, as this distorts the shape and may result in a poor seal. To trim, use secateurs and cut directly across the hose, not at an angle.
2. Cut the sections to the required lengths, leaving enough space for the join. If your supply hose is running along the straight section, the length of the join is approximately the width of the soaker hose you're using.
3. Now we need to assemble the T-connections. Take one of the copper connectors, a jubilee clip and a section of the soaker hose. Open up the clip with the screwdriver and slip it over the end of the hose. Now push the soaker all the way onto the connector, on the side arm of the T, work the jubilee clip up to the end and tighten it up. make sure that the tightening section isn't in the way of where the other hoses will attach. Repeat the procedure with the two sections of supply hose. If you're struggling to fit the hose to the joint, heating the end of the hose in hot water for a bit will soften it up and make it easier. Below are some photos of how it all goes together:
4. 
5. Repeat this for all but the last soaker run. With each further T that you fit to the run of supply hose, before you start tightening the jubilee clip, check the orientation, so that you don't end up with the a soaker hose trying to run vertically upwards or in the opposite direction. For the first piece of supply hose, you might want to fit a quick fit connector, I used the one I scavenged off the end of the soaker hose I used for the project.
6. For the final run of soaker hose, it's cheaper just to use a hose repair coupler to attach the supply to the soaker.
7. 
8. To hold the hose in place along the line you want it to run, use the tent pegs. You might need to bend them around with the pliers to make it fit properly. The thinnest wire pegs are best for this, as they're the easiest to bend. I used some very old pegs that we've been using for this for years.
9. 
10. Finally, we need to terminate the soaker hoses to stop water pouring out the ends. Take the dowel and cut enough 1.5in sections to terminate all the hoses you need to. Clean up all the rough edges with some sandpaper. Any sections that have massive splinters missing from both ends need to be discarded, they'll never form a suitable join.
11. The decent sections need to be painted with PVA glue to make them waterproof. You could use varnish, but I've always found PVA nicer to work with and quicker to dry. Paint most of the length of a side and the better end of each section, and stand them on the other end to dry. They have a habit of falling over, so do this on a sheet of old newspaper. Once they're dry, paint another coat exactly the same, and let them dry again before moving on. If you've used a suitably thin layer it should dry clear. I did plenty, because I'll almost certainly want more in the near future.
12. 
13. Almost there now, we need to pad the pegs out to fit the inside of the pipe better. This is best achieved with duck tape. What I did was to rip off a section of tape the length of most of the dowel from the roll, and then wrap that around, so that it comes back and overlaps slightly. Leave a little hanging over the painted end, and fold that down so it sticks to the end. I then took a very small piece and stuck that to the end, so that no wood is visible and the corners stick to the length of the wood rather than the end, and the wrap a second piece of tape around the outside in a similar fashion to the first, but so that the top is level with the end of the wood.
14. 
15. The last step is to stuff these pegs into the hose, but leave enough protruding to be able to grip with mole grips/pliers should you ever want to remove it. Stick a jubilee clip around the outside, tighten it up, and you're done. Turn on the tap, let the hoses fill up and check that it's not leaking anywhere. If it is, tightening up the jubilee clip might help, if not, a bit of araldite will plug it permanently.
16. 

Comments

Sealing the ends of the soaker hoses turned out to be the biggest challenge. First of all, I tried short sections of 12mm dowel smeared with vaseline. That really didn't work and leaked everywhere. I then tried dowel sections wrapped with Elephant tape, which worked much better, but water got out down the length of the dowel through the grain. Getting the dowel out after that was a challenge, and if I hadn't left a long enough tail, I doubt I could have done it, even with the help of the mole grips. The final solution of sealing the wood with PVA and even more tape felt like a bit of overkill, but should make the entire affair last a bit longer.

Finally we got to a system that didn't leak, and now it all looks a bit like this:


The first photo was taken a while back, so the canes have taken and grown out quite a bit since then, as shown in the more recent photos. I got all the stuff and put it all together over the course of yesterday and today (Friday and Saturday), and I'm pretty happy with how it's turned out.

More pictures that I took in the process of doing this can be found here, and I'll update the photo descriptions with details of what I was doing at that point.

Lotus-eater

Well it looks very nice, but a soaking with a hose in very dry conditions and then a mulch would probably do on raspberries. Other than that, raspberries don't need watering.

Peckedhen

Thank you for taking the time to post this. I am needing a way of watering my new square foot gardening raised beds and this, with a timer for when we're away, will do the job admirably.:j

Joly_Roger

Great, I love posts like this, where someone has gone to a lot of effort to show other people how to create something useful, practical, yet cheap.

I don't grow raspberries, but I was thinking of setting up a gravity fed drip irrigation system from a hard to access elevated waterbutt, this technique would work fine.

timbim_2

Joly_Roger wrote: »

Great, I love posts like this, where someone has gone to a lot of effort to show other people how to create something useful, practical, yet cheap.

Thanks.

Joly_Roger wrote: »

I don't grow raspberries, but I was thinking of setting up a gravity fed drip irrigation system from a hard to access elevated waterbutt, this technique would work fine.

I've never tried gravity feeding a soaker hose, but it seems like a good idea. From my experience, there are a few tests you might want to do first.

The pressure supplied from the butt may be a problem, it'll certainly vary massively as the water level falls, and when it's highest, the hose might run at quite a fast rate, running the but down quite quickly. I'd rig up something simple with a decent size water container and some hose, to see what the watering rate will be like for varying heights. It's possible that it will run at a very low rate, thus meaning that it waters enough if left on all day, you might need to fit a section of very narrow pipe to lower the pressure for that.

One thing is that you'll need a very big water butt to contain enough water! Although I am planning on rigging up some massive tanks on our flat roof, on both sides of the house to catch all the water from the entire roof. Going to need some major guttering alterations, and some sizeable timbers before we can get that working though!

Lotus-eater

I've done gravity fed leaky hose watering systems. It works very well, but I've always had a 1000 litre container connected up to it.
Remember to use a filter (very important, I found out the hard way )
I used to leave it on for about an hour when the tank was fullish, after that, you just leave it on for a bit longer, digging down into the soil is a very good indication of how much you are watering.

Primrose

I certainly agree that an automatic watering system can be useful for holidays, etc. but there's one problem that ours suffers from because we're in a high limescale area, and that is that by the end of each season the tiny nozzles in the little watering sprays get thoroughly crusted up with limescale, and the water sprays are reduced to a tiny dribble. They have to be removed every year and soaked in vinegar to clear them out.

timbim_2

We're in a fairly hard water area (South Downs), but we've never had that problem with soaker hoses. Never tried the micro irrigation systems though.