How to make drip irrigation with your own hands + video

There are several types of irrigation that you can independently organize at your dacha: sprinkling, subsoil and drip irrigation. The most popular and effective for vegetable crops is the last type of irrigation. It can be used in gardens and greenhouses. How to make drip irrigation with your own hands, and what materials are needed for this, will be discussed further.

How the system works and what is its advantage

Equipping your plot with irrigation is within the power of every person. To make a drip irrigation system for a summer house, you will need a plastic or stainless water tank, perforated tapes, a PVC pipe, connecting fittings, ball valves and a filter. The barrel is mounted at a height of at least 1 m. The higher the container is located, the greater the water pressure in the pipeline system.

Drip irrigation works according to the following principle: water flowing by gravity from the tank through the pipe, passing through the filter, is directed through all the branches of the system, and through the holes in the drip tapes flows out in portions under the root of the plants.

Drip irrigation has several advantages:

• the system can be used to water the entire country garden and crops growing in the greenhouse;
• thanks to the ability to adjust the flow of water from the drippers, the system is suitable for the simultaneous irrigation of small garden crops, as well as large garden trees and shrubs;
•  portioned watering saves water consumption, the strength and time of the grower;
• an additional tank for filling fertilizers made on the pipeline allows you to automatically apply top dressing to plants during irrigation.

The main advantage of drip irrigation is the benefits for plants. Water regularly gets under the root, while a certain portion of moisture does not allow the soil to dry out and does not swamp it.

Step by step instructions for making drip irrigation

So, with the principle of irrigation, and what materials are needed for it, we figured it out. It’s time to learn how to make a drip irrigation system with your own hands from purchased materials. It is better to start work with the outline of a plan, which will display a diagram of the entire area allotted for drip irrigation.

The structure of drip irrigation in a greenhouse is no different from its installation in an open area, so we carry out all further work, following the instructions:

• To develop a drawing, you need to take a clean paper, a pencil and a ruler. A diagram of the entire land plot allocated for drip irrigation is applied to the paper. The width and length of the rows are measured with a tape measure and displayed on a diagram on a certain scale. This also includes all trees, shrubs and other plantings growing on the site. When the site plan is ready, they draw a diagram of the passage of all communications. This includes everything: the central pipe, branches with perforated tapes, the location of the tank and the source of water intake. The drawing must be taken seriously. It will help to calculate the required amount of materials that will need to be purchased. The diagram must display all the connecting nodes with taps, fittings and a filter.

  

• The manufacture of a drip system begins with the installation of a water tank. The tank is best taken from stainless steel or plastic. Under the container, you will have to weld a metal cabinet with a height of 1 to 2,5 m. Such dimensions depend on the topography of the site. A tank with a pedestal is placed so that all branches of the drip system are located approximately at the same distance from it. This achieves the same water pressure in the pipeline. Plus, it is necessary to take into account a convenient supply to the tank of the pipeline for pumping water. If drip irrigation is done in a greenhouse, the barrel can be installed both outside and inside. The second method is more commonly used for heated greenhouses where vegetables are grown in the winter.

   

  ​Attention! When using a PVC tank for a drip system, it must be taken into account that its walls must be opaque, preferably black. If the plastic transmits the sun’s rays, the water in the container will quickly bloom, and the filter and droppers will become clogged with these algae during irrigation.

  

• After installing the barrel, proceed to the installation of the pipeline. For the central branches, a plastic pipe is taken thicker than for branches. Usually a diameter of 32–50 mm will suffice. HDPE pipe as a hose is sold by the bay. To make it easier to work with it, the pipe is rolled out on the site, and they give it time to lie down. Plastic softened in the sun will become more pliable. The leveled pipe is cut into pieces of the required size according to the drawing, and laid along the beds, but across the rows with growing plants. Opposite each row, fittings are cut in to connect perforated tapes.

  

• Having connected one end of the perforated tape to the mortise fitting, they begin to lay it out in a row as close as possible to the growing plant. It is necessary to pay attention that the drip holes are directed to the stem of the plant, that is, to the side. If you lay the tape with the holes down, over time they will become clogged with damp soil. At the end of the row, the tape is cut off, and its hole is closed with a plug. If the rows in the garden are located close to each other, you can not cut the tape, but immediately wrap it on the second row. Then the second end of the tape, spanning two rows, is connected to an adjacent fitting on the central pipe. The resulting drip tape ring does not require the installation of plugs, plus it allows for a more rational use of the material.

  

• It is quick and convenient to make an irrigation system from drip hoses, but they have a short service life, up to a maximum of 5 years. Some summer residents prefer to replace PVC tapes with pipes with self-embedded droppers. Now we will look at how to make drip irrigation yourself without perforated tapes. For work, a bay of pipe with a diameter of 20 mm is required. Any thin wall hose will work. It is easily cut with a hacksaw or special scissors.

  

• It is not very convenient to bend the pipe in a ring into two rows, as was done with a drip tape, so it is cut into pieces. Each piece of pipe must correspond to the length of the row. Pieces of pipes are laid out in their place in rows and points are marked on them for drilling holes for droppers. Typically, crops are planted at a distance of 50 cm from each other, so you can mark up with a tape measure, adhering to this step. So that the holes on the pipe do not turn out to be zigzag, it is convenient to use a black hose with a longitudinal blue stripe. It will help to make holes strictly in one line.

  

• For drilling, you can use a screwdriver or an electric drill. When all the holes are ready, the pipes are laid out in rows in their permanent place.

  

• The connection of drip lines with the central pipe is carried out with tee fittings. The other end of the perforated pipe is closed with a plug. A simple version of the plug is a small wooden peg, rounded and fitted to the diameter of the pipe.

  

• In order for water to be supplied in portions, medical droppers are screwed into the holes. Thanks to the adjusting wheel on its body, the supply of a certain amount of water is individually set for each crop.

  

• Now it’s time to return to the tank. The bottom of the container is drilled using an electric drill with a crown. The diameter of the cutting nozzle must match the cross section of the adapter fitting. Further, from the cut hole, a chain is assembled from the adapter fitting, ball valve and filter. If the system has a fertilizer tank, a tee is cut under it. The entire assembled chain of fittings is connected to the central pipe and they begin to supply a feed water supply. From the central water supply system, you can simply stretch the pipe into the tank. From a well or well, water will have to be supplied by a deep or surface pump. Alternatively, you can install a pumping station.

   

  Council! To control the pumping of water, it is necessary to install a float with a valve used in plumbing in the tank.

  

• When everything is ready, you can turn on the pump, pump a full tank of water and check the system for performance.

  

Drip irrigation can be improved by adding soil moisture sensors and an electric water shut-off valve. Their work is controlled by a special electronic device – the controller. Such drip irrigation becomes fully automated, requiring rare human participation in its maintenance.

To help the gardener, a video of drip irrigation in the country with his own hands is presented:

Drip irrigation from PET bottles

If the summer resident does not have the opportunity to build a pipe irrigation system, ordinary two-liter PET bottles will be the way out of the situation. These containers will help ensure that a small garden bed is watered for a couple of days during the absence of the owner. Let’s look at two examples of how to make drip irrigation in the country from old PET bottles.

The essence of the first method is to bury a bottle of honey in the roots of plants. But before that, it is necessary to make holes in the side walls. Their number depends on the composition of the soil. For sandstone, 2 holes are enough, and for clay soil, 4 or more need to be made. You can dig the bottle upside down. Then the water will have to be filled with a watering can. The second option is to screw the bottle with a cork and dig it upside down, and cut off the bottom. It is more convenient to pour water into a wide hole.

The second variant of primitive drip irrigation involves hanging bottles upside down over each plant. One hole is drilled in the cork, and the bottom is cut off to fill the water.

The video shows an example of using PET bottles for irrigation:

Having made drip irrigation in the country with his own hands, the owner may not worry about garden crops during his absence. Plus, the plants will receive high-quality irrigation, which saves the summer resident from everyday troubles.