DIY Sprinkler System for Garden

Learn how to integrate your sprinkler system into your garden in this post!

Today, we're going to be talking about how to create some efficiencies for maintaining a vegetable garden with a DIY sprinkler system for garden!

Our indoor projects have been put to a halt because we've been enjoying this awesome weather. The studio bathroom paint job, living room paint job, basement corner bookshelves, and foyer paint job are still in process. Which means that we have tools and ladders scattered everywhere in our house. Which means that we're pretty embarrassed when we invite people over.

Ryan has had an itch to put in a garden. Remember when we lived in the boonies (in a garage) on five and a half acres and grew a half acre garden?

Well, Ryan's had the itch to do it again, this time on a much MUCH smaller scale. He's been talking about this for the past six months. Like babbling about it. Every day. So I'm kind of glad that he's starting on this project.

Here is the hubs drawing his blue print for the garden:

This is our garage, which has turned into Ryan's woodworking shop. My vehicle used to be parked in garage (we can't fit both of our vehicles in the bays because we have full sized vehicles). So now, we have no cars parked in there. I won't complain since I didn't give him much room anywhere inside the house.

Below is an image of what our backyard looked like before this project. In retrospect, although we did buy this house for a deal as a short sale, I think one of the things that may have put others off is the steep hill behind our house. On the flip side, during the winter, it is amazing for sledding! Also, in Asian superstitions, its better to have a hill coming towards the house than away from the house (hill represents a passage of "wealth" into the home instead of flowing away from the home).

Besides being able to eat fresh foods, one of our other intentions with this project was to break up the visual of the hill in our backyard. A tiered garden was one of the answers to that dilemma! We plan on incorporating a secondary patio above the retaining wall. That's after we finish our patio that we need against the back of the house. Sigh.

Here's what our backyard looked like prior to the project:

Last winter, Ryan went to work on creating a budget for the project. After his estimation around Christmas, the project budget/cost came to $500. When he went back this spring, the lumber prices shot up to $2-3 more per feet. Needless to say, he went over budget. And then went over budget again when the tiering didn't work out exactly like he had planned (although he won't admit it).

I will give my hubs props. He was strategic in his placement of the garden. After our experience of watering a half acre garden by pulling the hose 20 feet over a pond, we knew we wanted something that would provide a little less work. Ryan placed the garden above one of the sprinkler heads, and planned on splitting the head into two - so that it would water both tiers. Totally his idea. And I'm glad, because I'd have no idea how to do it. Here are very general instructions on how to divide a sprinkler head into two. If I can get Ryan to be patient as a take images of his set up, I will share the details of the projects in depth.

Materials Needed to Create a DIY Sprinkler System for Garden

• Fasteners: Carriage bolts & Washers - 5/8 and/or 1/2 inch
• Pipe: PVC Pipe 2 inch

Directions:

1. Find an existing sprinkler in the system.
2. Position your garden design over the sprinkler.
3. Dig up the sprinkler.
4. Cut the old sprinkler.
5. Tee in the new sprinkler heads.
6. Hard pipe a new line.
7. Cut PVC pipe at 45 degree angle.
8. Drive it into the ground on where you want the sprinkler system.
9. Plumb the new line through it.

This is what he used to glue the PVC pipe and the existing lines (you can get the exact glue here):

Here's the end result of one of the sprinkler heads that was split from the original:

Here are the images of it in action:

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