Wednesday, March 15, 2006
Water Water Everywhere
So it's been raining - not that uncommon for my part of Northern California in the winter, but sort of cruel given that we had weeks of almost summer-like weather just back in February, and mostly tropical rather than arctic storms before that. There's a dusting of snow on the hills around the Silicon Valley, and I've been caught in hailstorms ( very rare for these parts ) twice in the past two weeks when stepping out for lunch.
At least it seems to be making the plants happy. Some dormant things I ordered from Forest Farm nursery - a magnolia and a Szcheuan pepper tree - are starting to leaf out, proving yet again that the folks at the nursery did not just ship me any old dead twig. The rain has given me yet another reprieve from fixing the underground irrigation leak in front of the house that is slowly killing one of my azaleas.
Given the rain, thoughts turn to fixing the greenhouse watering system, which I spent much of the past few days on. It's drip irrigation using those big, bulky commercial grade drippers (supposed to clog less, and I think they're right..) connected to sprinkler valves. I'm moving away from using the flexible 1/2" tubing and multiple circuits to just one or two circuits on 3/4" PVC connected to sprinkler adaptors. The reason for this is twofold - the flexible tubing doesn't deal well with being supported - no matter how many supports you put it tends to sag in the warmer days of summer, and the flexible tubing was also getting way too many patches and leaks. Any stress or pull on the tubing, and it manages to work its way out of the push-on connectors and spray water all over the greenhouse every morning until I notice it and fix it.
The PVC was supposed to be better. Less leak prone. Less messy to change the number and position of drippers. Last night, I finally got all the pieces together and turned it on for the first time, only to be greeted by a shower of rain - for the first time ever, I had managed to break one of the schedule 40 PVC pipes by stressing it at a joint after it was assembled, and it was squirting water directly at one of my newly installed circulation fans.
After fixing the leak ( a little section of 1" pvc pipe, pvc glue, and a couple of zip ties ), I spent the night disconnecting and re-connecting all the emitters in the greenhouse, plus re-positioning some of the poorly placed ones. Everything except the misters/sprinklers is back in place and working. The larger pots all get their own emitter, and the smaller pots are in trays which get one or more emitters per tray depending on the size. I still need to set up the misters and sprinklers on a separate system since with the whole greenhouse connected, the 3/4" sprinkler valve reduces the pressure too much for such items.
In the last few years, the drip irrigation tubing that is available has changed. The new tubing is much stiffer than the old, and quite a bit less easy to bend. This is bad for the greenhouse setup where I need flexibility to move individual drippers around to a huge number of smallish pots, but I will have to admit that the new tubing seems to seal better than the old.
The misters are mostly intended to wet a few key baskets and a lot of cork plaques which are carrying epiphytes. Since I'm interested primarily in tropicals, I have a huge number of things growing tied to pieces of cork bark and not much else. These hang from the walls and ceiling of the greenhouse, and they need the full coverage that only a mister or sprinkler can provide.
Meanwhile, the rain outside continues, the rain inside has abated, and it's time for a hot drink and wishes for the return of eternal spring to the San Francisco Bay Area.
At least it seems to be making the plants happy. Some dormant things I ordered from Forest Farm nursery - a magnolia and a Szcheuan pepper tree - are starting to leaf out, proving yet again that the folks at the nursery did not just ship me any old dead twig. The rain has given me yet another reprieve from fixing the underground irrigation leak in front of the house that is slowly killing one of my azaleas.Given the rain, thoughts turn to fixing the greenhouse watering system, which I spent much of the past few days on. It's drip irrigation using those big, bulky commercial grade drippers (supposed to clog less, and I think they're right..) connected to sprinkler valves. I'm moving away from using the flexible 1/2" tubing and multiple circuits to just one or two circuits on 3/4" PVC connected to sprinkler adaptors. The reason for this is twofold - the flexible tubing doesn't deal well with being supported - no matter how many supports you put it tends to sag in the warmer days of summer, and the flexible tubing was also getting way too many patches and leaks. Any stress or pull on the tubing, and it manages to work its way out of the push-on connectors and spray water all over the greenhouse every morning until I notice it and fix it.
The PVC was supposed to be better. Less leak prone. Less messy to change the number and position of drippers. Last night, I finally got all the pieces together and turned it on for the first time, only to be greeted by a shower of rain - for the first time ever, I had managed to break one of the schedule 40 PVC pipes by stressing it at a joint after it was assembled, and it was squirting water directly at one of my newly installed circulation fans.
After fixing the leak ( a little section of 1" pvc pipe, pvc glue, and a couple of zip ties ), I spent the night disconnecting and re-connecting all the emitters in the greenhouse, plus re-positioning some of the poorly placed ones. Everything except the misters/sprinklers is back in place and working. The larger pots all get their own emitter, and the smaller pots are in trays which get one or more emitters per tray depending on the size. I still need to set up the misters and sprinklers on a separate system since with the whole greenhouse connected, the 3/4" sprinkler valve reduces the pressure too much for such items.
In the last few years, the drip irrigation tubing that is available has changed. The new tubing is much stiffer than the old, and quite a bit less easy to bend. This is bad for the greenhouse setup where I need flexibility to move individual drippers around to a huge number of smallish pots, but I will have to admit that the new tubing seems to seal better than the old.
The misters are mostly intended to wet a few key baskets and a lot of cork plaques which are carrying epiphytes. Since I'm interested primarily in tropicals, I have a huge number of things growing tied to pieces of cork bark and not much else. These hang from the walls and ceiling of the greenhouse, and they need the full coverage that only a mister or sprinkler can provide.
Meanwhile, the rain outside continues, the rain inside has abated, and it's time for a hot drink and wishes for the return of eternal spring to the San Francisco Bay Area.
