Patti Moreno: Have you ever thought about installing your own automatic drip irrigation system in your garden?

Well I have.

Drip irrigation system saves you time, money and water; best of all, it gives your plants the right amount of water at the right time.

Today, I'm installing a drip irrigation system throughout my whole main garden. And I’ve brought in an expert to show me how

We’re going to setup everything from the—first because we have to start there.

So we’ve got our timer, and then we’ve got our filter.

Leon Springer: Okay. The timer which goes onto the manifold—first, we attach the filter by hand tightening it onto the timer.

Okay. Next we’re going to thread on the regulator.

Patti Moreno: And we’ve got this easy lock fitting.

Leon Springer: Now we thread the whole manifold onto the four-way splitter.

Patti Moreno: We are ready to attach our mainline tubing.

Leon Springer: Let’s get the tubing out.

There you are.

Pattie Moreno: So on our end, we want to make sure that there’s just a perfectly flash cut.

Leon Springer: That’s right. And it looks like it’s a little off here so then we’ll take a nice square cut with the pruners. Now we’re ready to attach it to the easy lock fitting.

Patti Moreno: All right. We’re going to do the left side so that this one—

Leon Springer: And the best way to do it is to line this tubing up.

Okay. You’ve got the tubing; we just wiggle it on to this little nipple that sticks out and then we turn the easy lock fitting; it’s locked on.

Patti Moreno: All right. So we’re going to just start rolling it out now?

Leon Springer: Now we can roll out the tubing right along the base of the raised bed.

Okay. Well the next thing we need to do—the mainline—is to take it and cut it at the appropriate place so that we can attach a 90 degree fitting and come underneath these tiles and across the pathway.

So I take my pruners; make a nice and clean square cut; get an easy lock elbow; next thing we need to do is come back with the claw-end of the hammer. And we need to disperse lightly; scrape a line right underneath the tubing to go between the pavers that you have in your pathways.

Patti Moreno: This is so easy to do it this way.

Leon Springer: Now at this point, we can grab one of our U-shaped hold downs to hold the tubing and place at the beginning where it enters the pathway.

Okay, good job.

Patti Moreno: Thank you.

You can just cover the stack-up with soil.

Excellent.

All right, so now we’re going to set-up the main line for the right side of the garden.

Leon Springer: Okay.

Patti Moreno: I think I'm getting a hang of this.

It’s going to be nice and invisible.

Leon Springer: At this point, I think we ought to cut the tubing when we run into this first raised-bed.

Patti Moreno: Excellent. So now we’re going to put in our elbow.

Leon Springer: That’s right.

Patti Moreno: We’re going to attach this here, because we want to basically elbow it around and if we kinked it, then it’s not going to run. So you really do have to put the elbows in.

Leon Springer: Yeah. You have to be somewhat careful at this step.

Pattie Moreno: So we’re going to put one more elbow in?

Leon Springer: We’re going to put one more here at the corner of the bed and then go all the way down along the rest of the garden—the five more beds.

Patti Moreno: Let’s keep going.

Leon Springer: All right. I'm ready to finish this job up.

Pattie Moreno: So now we just have to cut the end of the line and just put and end cap on it right?

Leon Springer: That’s right.

Pattie Moreno: Excellent. So we’re just going to go back through and we’re just going to attach the main line to these beds; then we’re going to get to the fun part, which is our drip irrigation.

Leon Springer: I'm ready to water.

Pattie Moreno: All right.

So you need some quarter-inch solid.

Leon Springer: Quarter-inch solid tubing to go at the side of the bed.

Okay. We’re going to measure the distance it takes to go from the main line up the side of the bed; and then cut the quarter-inch tubing and put a transfer barb onto the end of the quarter-inch tubing.

Okay. So we simply put it in the end and push it in, like that.

Now I'm going to take our punch and we’re going to make hole in the main line.

Patti Moreno: All right. So we need this, right?

Leon Springer: I’ve got our keypunch and I'm going to use to make a hole in the main line tubing. We’re on a little tight spot over here. It’s the only punch that’ll do the job.

And then simply push the transfer bar into the half-inch tubing.

Patti Moreno: So now we need our elbow, right?

Leon Springer: We need our quarter-inch elbow; put it into the quarter-inch tubing; and it will look something like that.

Patti Moreno: All right. And here are—

Leon Springer: Okay. So we’re going to take this quarter-inch clamp and we’re going to tap it into the side of the bed.

Put one right over here and one after we attach a few—maybe six inches more of this solid quarter-inch tubing.

Patti Moreno: Okay.

Leon Springer: Now to secure it in place, we’ll take another quarter-inch clamp and give it a few taps with the hammer, and we’re good right there.

Patti Moreno: Okay. What do we do next?

Leon Springer: Next we’re going to put our very flow valve, which will continue the water flow going out down the end of the bed and back in this direction.

Patti Moreno: I’ve got the drip line here.

Now can you let me know what is the pattern that we’re going to basically lay this drip line out?

Leon Springer: Well it’s going to be really simple. We’re going to have four straight lines that’s running down this bed with about one foot step rating each line.

Patti Moreno: Excellent. So let me roll some out.

Leon Springer: And we have our three inch hold downs that are going to keep this soaker drip line on the dirt in your bed. We put them about every three feet. And then you’re going to make a half circle turn and go back toward the other end of the bed.

We need to cut right here and then we’re going to put an end cap inside of this quarter-inch tubing.

You take this little plug; you put it inside the end of the tubing and you push, okay.

Now we go back—and with these little staples that we have, we secure the tubing all along the way.

Patti Moreno: All right. So we’re installing two soaker drip lines into this one raised bed. Why is that?

Leon Springer: Well, your beds are about 8 feet long. Soaker drip line which—every six inches only has enough water in it to go about 15 to 20 feet.

Patti Moreno: So we just run it down once and then run it back up and now we’re attaching the second one which will we’re going to run down, and then back up, and then we’ll have our four rows.

Leon Springer: Right. And that will control the other half of your garden bed.

Patti Moreno: Excellent.

Only eleven more to go.

Leon Springer: Okay, good job.

Patti Moreno: Thanks.