Quoted By:
Repostan from /an/
I have mostly finished my pocket orchard other than some mulching. I got about 2-3 weeks later start than I intended, but the majority of this has been in the ground a month now. Everything has left dormancy and seems to be doing well.
The trees are not a major concern for irrigation, but I would like to implement a drip system for everything else.
The rear two wood framed beds are black berries; the closer wood bed is blueberries. The further brick edged bed is various junebearer strawberries, the close one is grapes (those timbers will be the frame of a trellis one day) with strawberries around them (they were just planted). The leftmost brick bed is raspberries. I have been watering most of it manually with a hose, but using a sprinkler for the strawberries.
I would like to change everything over to drip irrigation systems. Is it tenable to run a single hose hookup to a "hub" and then have it branch off 1/2" lines to each bed? I would like to run the distribution lines underground through pvc or conduit. Once at the bed I could split that 1/2 " line to 1/4" with emitters. Is this doable or am I hoping for too much off one hose system?
My closest water source is about 300 feet from the furthest blackberry plants. I only have 175 feet of hose I've actually been dragging the hose as far as I can then filling a watering can for the furthest plants.
Do you think this is a venture worth pursuing? I'm concerned it may essentially be wasted effort for most of it- I'm in NC and most berries grow very vigorously with essentially no particular care needed after a year or two, so spending a couple hundred bucks on an irrigation system might be stupid instead of just watering by hand this year. I'm also worried about the potential damage from frost or clogs making this more of a time and effort sink than would be worthwhile.
Tldr please post your drip setups and tell me about what you would do again, wouldnt do, what you wish you did.
