These are some observations from my experiences with using each type of container garden irrigation. Please take a look at this post if you are interested in how I ran irrigation stubs to my in-ground planter pot garden along my back wall.

Soaker Hose

This is what I started out using for my in-ground containers because I’m using ¼ inch soaker hose on the raised bed gardens I have. For the raised beds I wanted as much coverage as possible when watering so I left the hose above ground.

As seen in the picture, if the soaker hose isn’t covered by some type of mulch there is a lot of over-spray. When I was using this style of irrigation for the older in-ground pots I covered the soaker hose with shredded leaves for mulch.

Soaker Hose Irrigation Without Mulch

Drip Line Emitter Tubing

Drip line emitters have a drip put in every 12 inches for ¼ inch tubing and every 18 inches for ½ inch tubing. They are supposed to regulate the flow of water to usually 1 gallon per hour (gph).

Truthfully, I had this line emitter tubing from I’m not sure where. What it was supposed to do and what it did were two different things. Here are the reasons I really didn’t think this type of irrigation would be good for containers.

• There ends up being a lot of tubing coiled in the pot to get a couple of emitters in it.
• My hose must have been cheap. It had slices in it instead of a punched hole. This probably made a big difference when it came to water flow.
• The tubing I had definitely needed an in-line water pressure reducer. The pressure coming out of the emitters would have torn up seedlings.

Drip Line Emitter Tubing

Adjustable Drip Emitters

Adjustable drip emitters allow you to change the water flow usually from 1 gallon per hour (gph) to 6 gph. This is the solution I liked the most so far, but it is a little expensive compared to the other solutions. Each emitter is about 50 – 75 cents each and it requires a T connection to branch off.

• If a container isn’t being used the emitters could be turned off, and the water usage can be close to none. I’m sure there will be a little leaking if any.
• The coverage is good. The emitters being used now cover about a 4 inch diameter area when they are opened up. The entire container surface area is almost covered using 4-5 emitters.
• The flow from the emitters is slow enough not to damage seedlings.

Adjustable Drip Emitters

Fixed Drip Emitters

I’ve used these for herbs like Basil and Rosemary that were started 4-5 weeks under the grow lamp setup I built.

• Fixed drip emitters usually com in 1 gph and 2 gph flow rates.
• Multiple emitters might need to be used based on how long the watering cycle is and size of the plant.

I had some success with these last season. One thing to note is the plants only received half a day’s sun.

Fixed Drip Emitter

This time around I used two different plastic nursery pots sizes, 4 gallons like before and one closer to 5-6 gallons. Both types were purchased and Home Depot from the gardening area. The 4 gallon one was around $5 and the 5-6 gallon one was closer to $6.50. They were tucked away near the tomato cages and not near the normal pot and plant container area.

Layout

After I removed the sandstone rock that was being used for mulch, I placed the pots along the back wall to try to judge a good spacing.

Rough In Ground Pot Layout

Bringing Irrigation to the Containers

To make the installation easier I used funny pipe. I really didn’t feel like gluing PVC pipe and having to deal with adapting the connections to go to the plastic nursery pots.

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100 Feet of 3/8 Inch Funny Pipe

I was able to use a PVC to irrigation funny pipe connector to tap into what used to be a sprinkler. The grass in that area is gone, but luckily I was too lazy to dig up the existing irrigation.

Irrigation Hook-up

In Las Vegas I’m sure the freeze line is pretty shallow. The irrigation funny pipe was run in a 6 inch deep trench in front of the planters since there was already a funny pipe irrigation line behind the planters that was on a different water schedule, one that runs a slow drip system for a long period of time.

Funny Pipe Irrigation

A barbed coupler was used to pierce the funny pipe for the ¼ inch line that will go to each of the containers.

1/4 inch Barbed Coupler

I made sure to over estimate the length so I wouldn’t run out of ¼ inch line.

1/4 inch Irrigation Lines To Pots

Putting Pots In the Ground

When digging the holes, I tried to make sure when it was filled in that the planter pot would stick about 3-4 inches from the ground. Also, a small trench in front of the pot allowed for the irrigation to easily reach the container.

Pots In The Ground

After this project I ended up taking about ½ a truck bed of dirt to the dump. Unfortunately I had no use for it in other places.

Finishing the Containers

After the pots were all in the ground a 4 foot wide weed barrier was put down. When installing the weed barrier, it was stretched the length of the area and holes were cut for the gardening containers.

An edging, that was purchased at the end of last season for 50% off, was installed to keep the rock mulch from creeping on to the sidewalk.

The usual raised bed / container gardening soil mix was used to fill the pots.

Filling Containers With Soil

The irrigation stubs were capped off so the rest of the garden could be watered while I was figuring out what to plant in these.

Irrigation Stub In Container

Lessons For Next Time

• I should have used string as a guide to keep a consistent center line from the back wall.
• Measure and mark the center line of where the pots will be finally placed on the string described above. Let’s just say my pots don’t have an exact placement .
• Test the irrigation by capping off all the ¼ inch tube with a plug and turning on the water. This is to test the connection point on the funny pipe to make sure you don’t bury a leak. Conserve that water!
• Mix in any time release fertilizer you want to use when filling the containers.

• Put in more in-ground planters along the back wall. This area gets a lot of direct sun.
• In all the raised beds except for bed #3, I’m doing a mix of either vegetables and flowers or herbs and flowers.

Current Garden Layout

Current Garden Layout

In-ground Planters

1. Moon and Star Watermelon
2. Okra
3. empty
4. empty
5. Solar Fire Tomato
6. empty
7. Hot Portugal Chili
8. Sugar Snap Peas
9. empty
10. Zucchini
11. Bell Pepper
12. Masai Bush Beans
13. Early Girl Tomato
14. Super 100 Tomato [seed]
15. Cherry Tomato
16. Masai Bush Beans
17. Salad Bush Cucumber

Raised Beds

Some of the raised beds don’t get full sun because they are near and partially under some large trees. That works out to a degree when summer hits here in Las Vegas. In the Spring and Fall though it’s hard to grow vegetables in certain beds.

This is what I’ve planted so far in the raised beds.

Raised Bed #1
This raised bed gets the least amount of light because of the trees and being close to the house, but the Sage is still alive from last year’s planting.

Raised Bed #2
There is more afternoon sun, about 6 hours, that comes through the trees. This happens more in certain areas of the raised bed than others.

Raised Bed #3
This is the raised bed that gets the most light. Last year, I had two tomato plants that took over the entire bed. Pretty much I expect the same thing to happen this year so I planted other stuff that will be harvested before this happens or will be a vine.

Raised Bed #4
Similar to Raised Bed #2, this one gets a mix of sun and shade. I still need to go through and possibly plant some vegetables or herbs that can be harvested before the Cherry Tomatoes get too big.

The plants that paid off the most this year were the herbs.

Garlic Chives

Rosemary

Note: The sage is still alive, just forgot to take a picture.

The vegetable and flowers really loved the cooler weather of September and October.

Next year I think I’ll try moving the bell pepper to a sunnier location.

Small Bell Pepper

I planted this Big Horn pepper plant later, in May i believe, than some of the others. It ended up producing an alright amount of peppers.

Big Horn Pepper

When the heirloom tomatoes produced fruit it took a while for it to fully ripen. I think next year I’ll try some other variety.

Heirloom Tomato

Heirloom Tomato Flesh Pattern

The following two tomato plants really took over the 4 x 4 raised bed. It was a really good combination to plant the cosmos in the same bed. The bees would be attracted by the cosmos and then hit the tomato plants too.

Tomato and Cosmos

The Super 100 Tomato plant was the best producer out of all of them. This is on my list for next year for sure. The plant had some good growth considering it was in a 4 gallon container.

Super 100 Cherry Tomato

This Japanese Eggplant was a seedling I got from Star Nursery in August. During that time it managed to produce a couple of Eggplant.

Japanese Eggplant

Everything is dead from the Thanksgiving weather so now I just need to figure out how I’m going to shred all the plants to put into the compost barrel.

The leaves on the tomatoes I have in planters that get full sun have been folding inward. These tomatoes are an heirloom variety that I grew from seed using the Burpee Heirloom Tomato Mix and a Super 100 cherry tomato.

Wilting Tomato Plant

Another Wilting Tomato Plant

This was even happening to the hot pepper that is in a pot. I think the problem is the plants weren’t getting enough water. According the Old Farmer’s Almanac tomatoes need at least 2 inches of water per week. I would think it is more here.

Here is what I’ve done to try to combat the plants from becoming dehydrated.

• Increased watering to twice daily. I water for 3-4 minutes each time on an irrigation system. There are 1/4” soaker hoses in the tomato planters.
• Built structures to partially shade the plants from the afternoon sun.

I built the shade structures from some 2x4s for the legs, scrap lumber for the top portions and some old solar screen material left over from another project.

Shade structure dimensions:

• Width: 2 ft
• Height: 6 ft
• Length: 8.5 ft

Shading Structure

The solar screen material was rolled over the sides and stapled on the inside.

Bottom View Of Shading Structure

I built only one shaded area to see the difference between added water and an area with additional shading. I’m writing this about 2 weeks after taking the pictures and I’ve seen some improvement on the plants that get both partial shade and the extra watering over the plants that get additional water only.

• The leaves aren’t as closed up as they once were.
• The Super 100 cherry tomato plant is starting to produce fruit again.

As a side note the basil plant that gets partial sun is doing well. I make sure to pick the flowers as they start to grow to keep the plant from going to seed.

Basil Plant Getting Partial Sun

First Summer Take Aways

• Next year I will start watering twice a day in June. Since I started to water more the heirloom tomatoes have started to really produce fruit. Hopefully I’ll get at least two more months out of them.
• Continue to plant basil in two areas, a cluster in the container that gets full sun for an earlier harvest and one in the bed that gets half day sun for summer use.
• I have some bell pepper plants that get half days sun. Those will be moved into some of the planters that get full day’s sun.
• I will try planting center clusters of 4 tomato plants in the 4 raised beds to see how they do there. (Each bed gets a varying degree of morning and afternoon sun)
• Continue to fertilize the tomatoes twice, once in May and when they are producing fruit. I use a time release fertilizer that contains calcium to help the growth of leaf tips and blossom ends. It also helps prevent blossom-end rot.

• Something to aerate the soil
• Compost to feed the plants
• Material to keep the soil moist

At the end is my materials list and what it cost me to make this soil for 4 raised beds.

Before going out and buying the materials the volume of each raised bed was calculated.
Width x Length x Height

For me I used the following:
4 ft x 4 ft x .5 ft = 8 cubic feet

In able to fill all 4 beds I needed:
4 beds x 8 cubic feet = 32 cubic feet

I needed roughly 11 cubic feet of each of the materials listed above. When I bought the soil materials I got as close as possible, but I figured I wasn’t baking a cake so I just had to get close to the ratio.

Raw Materials

Everything was mixed on a tarp because it was too expensive to waste any of these materials.

Mixing The Different Types Of Compost

The peat moss is used to help hold moisture in. A compressed bail will almost double in size when you break it apart.

Breaking Apart Peat Moss

I found it hard to completely break the peat apart. I just break apart the little clumps when I run across them when checking the garden.

It was also helpful shifting the soil to one side and back on the tarp to bring up the material on the bottom of the soil heap.

Mixed Soil

Finally, with some assistance from My Helper the raised beds were filled.

Raised Beds With Soil

Here is what I purchased for the soil project:

Compost Notes

• The Walmart Composted Mulch (1cuft each) was the worst looking compost mix. There was a lot of thick wood fibers in it.
• The Humus Gro Compost (2cuft each) was the best looking mix for the price.
• The steer manure compost (2cuft) was the most affordable, but I had some mushrooms come up. After talking to a more experienced gardener at work, he had a similar experience when using steer manure.
• The ingredients for the Kellog’s Gromulch are similar to the Humus but it also has some fertilizer mixed in.

Other Getting Started With Raised Bed Gardening Posts

• Building the Raised Beds
• Irrigating and Positioning Raised Bed Gardens
• Mixing Raised Bed Garden Soil
• Raised Bed Gardening Ideas
• Removing Grass For Raised Bed Gardening

At this point I put the empty raised bed garden structures in what I thought would be a good layout. From there I just started to move them around. The frames are really light so re-positioning them was simple.

Getting A Feel For Raised Bed Locations

Once the general position was figured out I did the following to finalize the position:

• I drove a stake in the ground to reference where the fronts of the raised bed gardens would go
• Tied a string on the stake
• Put a really big nail on the other side of the string
• Used a square to referenced off an existing concrete walkway

Setting Up A Reference String

After the locations of the beds was finalized by measuring distances and squaring the fronts to the reference string, the outside corners where the irrigation would cross was marked with marking paint. I used marking paint because I had some, use what you have to reference the corners.

Luckily the existing irrigation ran under or near 3 of the 4 beds so it was a matter of digging to expose the PVC pipe where the modifications needed to be done.

The PVC was cut so T couplers could be added for each bed.

There is really only 3 things you need to work with PVC irrigation pipe

• Purple Primer
• PVC Cement
• Something to cut the PVC (I use an old hacksaw because I’m not spending $20 on a specialized PVC saw. I don’t think I would save that much time.)

To glue, cement, the PVC irrigation pipe together

• Get rid of all the burrs on the cut pipe
• Apply Purple Primer where the pieces will meet, this includes both the coupler and pipe
• Apply the PVC cement to the primed areas
• Push the pieces together (remember to work quickly the cement sets fast)

It always helps to dry fit everything first I’m not kidding when I say the cement sets fast.

I had to trench and lay new irrigation PVC pipe to one of the beds off to the side.

The ground wasn’t level in some areas. This was especially true of the raised bed off to the side where the grounds sloped down in an area by about 4 inches. Fill dirt from converting my lawn in the front yard was used to level out these areas.

To help with controlling the weeds and keep the tree roots from getting into my raised beds, I put down some weed blocker fabric.

When doing the installation, overlay the weed blocker by 4 inches and it is recommended to use lawn staples every 4 feet.

The reference string was setup again. Up to this point the stake was never taken out of the ground.

Final positioning was done using the reference string and a tape measure.

I used black 1/2 inch flexible pipe to distribute the water to the soaker hoses. To connect this to the PVC pipe there is a threaded cap that needs to be installed on the PVC and a PVC to black pipe adapter.

I found that a clamp was necessary to keep the black pipe on the adapter. Also, the protrusion of the logo can potentially cause leaks. I had to file down if the leak occurs from this area. It looked like a manufacturing defect because some of the other ones had this filed down already.

I decided to use the 1/4 inch soaker tubing instead of the drip tubing because I wanted a wide dispersion of the water over the whole bed instead of just down rows.

This is the one of the few cases when buying a specialized tool really pays off. Most definitely buy the tool that punches holes in the black pipe. The back side of this should have a hole in it. This is used to help push in the 1/4 inch barb connectors.

I laid out 8 rows of the soaker hose. The outside rows are 4 inches from the edge with the inside rows being 6 inches apart.

At the end of each soaker hose row a 1/4 inch plug was used to cap off the end and a hose stake held it in place.

I figured out that it takes around 4 minutes for the irrigation system to soak the beds thoroughly. We’ll see what I have to do come summer time, but for now running it every other day seems good.

Other Getting Started With Raised Bed Gardening Posts

• Building the Raised Beds
• Irrigating and Positioning Raised Bed Gardens
• Mixing Raised Bed Garden Soil
• Raised Bed Gardening Ideas
• Removing Grass For Raised Bed Gardening

Here are the materials and tools used in this project to make the 4 raised bed gardens:

• (4) 2x6x16 Douglas Fir lumber @ $6.84 each (Lowes)
• 1 box 3” general purpose screws @ $4.79 (Ace)
• Drill and bits

When I purchased the lumber I had them cut the boards to 4 foot lengths.

Before I read the Square Foot Gardening book, I had already seen where someone had overlapped the joints of fixed sized lumber to make their raised beds.

Raised Bed Plan

First thing was to predrill the boards where the screws weren’t going into the end grain so they wouldn’t split. Stacking the boards and shifting them as the holes were drilled helped speed up this process.

Predrilling Boards

Before assembling the raised beds I identified the way the boards would cup because of the grain pattern. The curve in the picture below depicts how the board will cup if it were to happen.

Identifying Grain Pattern Cupping In The Boards

Only thing left was to put the raised beds together. It helped to put the 3 screws partially in the board and brace the other end against something.

Assembling The Raised Bed Gardens

As you can see my Helper was there to help me temporarily place the raised beds. I don’t plan on permanently putting the raised beds using 4 x 4 lumber or something like that. They will be heavy enough to stay in place when the soil is added.

Temporarily Placing Raised Bed Gardens

Other Getting Started With Raised Bed Gardening Posts

• Building the Raised Beds
• Irrigating and Positioning Raised Bed Gardens
• Mixing Raised Bed Garden Soil
• Raised Bed Gardening Ideas
• Removing Grass For Raised Bed Gardening

Needless to say, I kind of let the grass kind of get out of control in the fall and winter. One thing though, our little dog loved to jump into grass. I’ll just say I let it get that long for her .

Out Of Control Section Of Lawn

Every time I remove turf I keep promising myself I’ll rent a sod cutter, but I never seem to do it. This is the first load of grass going to the dump.

First Load Of Grass Going To The Dump

It took 3 days to remove about 450 square feet of grass with a shovel and 2 trips to the dump.

Day 2 Of Turf Removal

Second Trip To The Dump

With the grass removed I was able to start working on the irrigation to the raised bed gardens.

All The Grass Removed

Other Getting Started With Raised Bed Gardening Posts

• Building the Raised Beds
• Irrigating and Positioning Raised Bed Gardens
• Mixing Raised Bed Garden Soil
• Raised Bed Gardening Ideas
• Removing Grass For Raised Bed Gardening

• Cordless drill
• Couple of drill bits
• General purpose hand saw
• Square (either combination or try square)
• Tape measure
• (Optional) variety of sizes of clamp

To start with I did a preliminary sketch to get a general idea using parameters I knew.

• The fluorescent light ballast is 4 feet in length
• The Jiff seedling trays are about 10.5” width x 21” length
• I want to accommodate for 3” high pots

Preliminary Grow Lamp Sketch

Grow Lamp Internal Spacing

As you can see below my work surface for cutting is an old toy chest. It is the perfect height to stick my foot on the board I’m cutting to hold it.

Using a hand saw, that belonged to my Great Grandfather, tape measure, square and a pen the shelf frame was cut so the final shelf length and width were 4′ x 1′ with a support in the center. I found the equivalent of 1 x 2 pieces of wood for this.

Cutting Shelf Components

It is always good to lay things out before assembling to make sure it’ll work. Now is a good time to remeasure the outside dimensions.

Laying Out Grow Lamp Shelf

For all the joints, holes were pre-drilled for the 1 5/8” drywall screws and glue was applied.

Shelf Assembly

I really lucked out with my shelf top. I had originally sketched using strips of wood as a shelf top, but while I was rummaging through the huge pile of scrap wood I found a pre-cut piece of OSB that was 1′ x 4′.

Shelf Top

Because this building material is usually for sub floors and is never meant to be seen, I decided to make it a focal point. First thing was to sand the heck out of it. It was sitting out in the weather and surface was a little expanded out.

Sanding Shelf Top

After the top was put on the shelf frame with drywall screws, I found some really old cherry stain and wood conditioner to use on the shelf top. The stain really was absorbed in the crevasses of the OSB.

Trying To Make Something Not So Pretty Pretty

The legs were cut from some 1 x 4 lumber. The sides were cut 24 inches long and the top connecting pieces were cut 12 inches. I knew this modified my internal dimensions. I didn’t want to figure out the exact length to cut, and I figured more seedling growing area can’t be that bad.

Grow Lamp Legs Cut and Sanded

Similar to the shelf area the legs were pre-drilled so the wood wouldn’t split when the drywall screws were used.

Pre-drilling Legs

The edges were glued and a clamp was used to hold the legs together while the screws were put in.

Assembling Support Legs

Grow Lamp Legs

It was time to temporarily assemble the shelf and the legs together. This was necessary to put the bracing across the top of the legs. A block of wood was used to raise the shelf about 1 ½ inches off the table. This is where using a clamp to hold the pieces together really came in handy.

Temporarily Assembling Legs To Shelf

Ready For Top Support

Scrap lumber for the top came from some old window trim. Just had to pull out some nails. About this time I decided to use two pieces instead of one for the top bracing.

Scrap For Top Bracing

After the top braces were cut at 4 feet in length, the position away from the edge of the top of the brace was marked.

Positioning Top Brace On Legs

Like everything else, the holes for the screws were pre-drilled before assembly. Again the small clamp came in handy to make sure the wood didn’t move while drilling.

Pre-drilling Top Bracing

Glue was laid down before screwing down the top braces.

Putting Glue On Top Bracing Before Assembly

When finding a piece of wood to put the ballast on, I made sure it was a little longer than 4 feet. The idea was to use a peg system, shown later, to adjust the height of the fluorescent light.

Test Fitting Ballast

The wood going perpendicular to the one holding the ballast will be what supports it.

Ballast Supports

When I said I was a pack rat I wasn’t kidding. Some times stores will super clearance broken particle board furniture or just throw it away. I was able to scavenge these handles from that.

Scavenged Handles To Raise and Lower Ballast

With the shelf removed from the top, I put a couple coats of latex Kilz and one coat of Behr kitchen and bath enamel on the legs and top support.

Painting Legs and Top Bracing

Before painting the sides and bottom of the shelf, I put 3 coats of gloss polyurethane on the stained areas.

Polyurethane Finish On Grow Lamp Shelf

The shelf top was masked off to try to protect it from getting paint on it. This worked to a degree, but what was on there after the tape was removed easily came off by scraping it with a fingernail.

Masking Shelf Before Painting

Just like the legs, the shelf got a couple coats of latex Kilz and a coat of the Behr kitchen and bath enamel paint, I only had part of a quart so I could only put one coat on everything.

Painting Shelf and Top Pieces

After the paint dried, the shelf and legs were put back together. Next was drilling dowel holes on the outside of the legs.

On a thin piece of wood a line was drawn and at every inch a mark was put on the line. A hole was drilled for every mark on the wood. I almost got them all straight. The drill bit I used was the same sized one I needed for the dowels.

Making A Drilling Guide

Using the dowels as a guide the drill bit was taped to make sure I didn’t go too deep. Keep in mind the thickness of the guide when this is done.

Marking The Drilling Depth

A small clamp was used to hold the drilling guide in place while the holes were made. The thing to keep in mind when setting up the drilling guide is to be consistent with the hole heights. Being off center doesn’t matter, having the holes at the same height so the ballast isn’t wobbly does.

Drilling Dowel Holes

Test time once everything is put together.

Testing The Finished Grow Lamp

The little handle on the side to help raise and lower the ballast isn’t necessary but it is fun.

Raising And Lowering Grow Lamp Ballast Using Dowels