How to Install Drip Irrigation - Beginner-Friendly Guide!
This month we have embarked on my most exciting garden project yet! We’ve installed drip irrigation!
I’ve been wanting to install drip irrigation for ages now but kept putting it off because I had no idea where to begin. Every time I browsed the drip irrigation aisle, I would get so overwhelmed with all the bits and pieces. It’s like buying your own custom lego set only you have to figure out what you need. Lucky we have our resident landscaping guru and family friend Robert who has installed many irrigation systems before. I asked him a billion questions and have now realised that it is actually quite straight forward. So I’ve put together a beginner-friendly guide below to show you all the basic tips you need to know to get started!
* in partnership with Bunnings *
STEP 1: MAP OUT WHAT YOU WANT WATERED AND HOW YOU WANT IT WATERED
The first thing you want to do is draw out a map of your garden, and mark out all the plants you want watered. An easy way to do this is to highlight your garden beds, pots and any trees you want watered.
Then, consider how you would like it watered. There are two common ways of watering when setting up drip irrigation which I’ll be focusing on. The first way is using drip tube, and the second way is using shrubblers.
Drip tube: This is a hose-like tube that holes pre-punched into it every 30cms allowing it to deliver drips of water. These are great to use in raised garden beds where you want to pretty much water the entire bed, as well as placed in a circle around a fruit tree or larger tree. Drip tube is somewhat flexible and can be bent around corners if needed, but otherwise you can cut them into various pieces and connect them together with special parts (poly fittings).
Barbed shrubblers: Barbed shrubblers are like mini sprinkler heads that are attached to a spike, so that they sit above the soil level and emit water from them like a small sprinkler. This is a great option for pots, or for putting next to specific plants that you know will be permanently in that spot.
For my garden, I decided to water all our garden beds with drip tube and our pots with barbed shrubblers.
STEP 2: PLAN HOW YOU WILL CONNECT IT ALL TOGETHER
Once you determine where your drip tube and shrubblers will go to water your plants, it’s time to determine how you can then connect these parts to your tap using poly pipe, a pipe that does not have holes / water the garden, but instead is used to connect your tap to your drip tube/shrubblers. Poly pipe usually comes in varying widths (13mm, 19mm, 25mm). The larger the poly pipe, the more water that can flow through it, so choosing the size depends on your water pressure and how much garden you want to water. If you’re using lots of barbed shrubblers, it may be better to go for a wider poly tube width. If you’re just watering a small area, then it may be better to go with a more narrower width. Usually your poly tube will be wider than the width of your drip tube, kind of like tree roots that start off thick then branch out to thinner roots.
On your garden map, draw out how you’ll connect all your various watering areas together using poly pipe. This is when a bit of creative fun comes into play, and often there is more than one way to connect everything. Don’t worry if you need to make right angles with the pipe, etc. We can definitely build such a thing!
STEP 3: CONSIDER CREATING SEPARATE ZONES
If you have a large number of plants to water like me, then consider dividing your watering into various zones. This helps keep the water pressure high enough so that water can flow through your drip irrigation system properly and water every single plant from the start of the drip line to the end of the drip line.
For my garden, I’ve decided to divide our watering into 4 zones. Zone 1 is for our enclosed veggie garden area, Zone 2 is for the beds bordering our enclosed veggie garden area. Zone 3 is for the garden beds at the back of our yard along the fenceline and Zone 4 is for our potted plants on the concrete patio and greenhouse area.
STEP 4: CONSIDER A TIMER
Most people set up drip irrigation so that they can automate their watering, so why not also get a fully automated wifi tap timer to go with it, so that you can water you garden using a phone app! Finding out such a device existed really motivated me to finally get started with this project. I picked up 2 x Holman WX2 dual outlet wifi tap timers to include in our system, meaning that we can automate the watering of all 4 zones.
STEP 5: BUY YOUR PARTS
Now that you know how your drip irrigation system will look, it’s time to buy your parts! Here are parts you will likely need, and how to use them.
Tubing
Drip tube: as per above, this is a hose-like tube with holes punched in it, used to water your plants.
Poly pipe: as per above, this is a roll of a larger pipe that you will use to connect your drip tube (the watering tube with holes) and shrubblers to your tap. This comes in 13mm, 19mm and 25mm.
Poly tube cutter: you will need this to cut your pipes to size. This a special cutter that can cut poly pipe, as well as any other soft plastic, vinyl or rubber tubing.
Fittings
Joiners: Joiners are the little lego pieces that are used to connect your poly pipe and drip tubes at right angles, etc, so that you can go around corners. Joiners can come in T shapes, cross shapes and elbow shapes. And of course, they come in different sizes depending on what pipe widths you are using.
Ratchet clamps: Whenever you’re connecting two bits of tube together using joiners, you will need to get the same size ratchet clamps to secure these connections together. Ratchet clamps come in plastic or metal. While the metal ones cost more, they’re more long lasting especially if you’re using them in the sun. So if you can, try the metal. It will be handy to have a pair of pliers to secure these.
Reducers: You know when your poly pipe turns into drip tube? But the poly pipe is a different size to the drip tube size? This is when you will need a reducer to help you connect two pipes of different widths. For example, you can get a reducer to connect 25mm to 19mm pipe, or 19mm to 13mm pipe. These also need to be secured by ratchet clamps.
End plug: if any of your pipes end with a dead end, you’ll need an end plug to close off the end of the pipe.
If using barbed shrubblers
Barbed shrubblers: This is the one we used in our garden.
4mm flex tube + 4mm take-off joiners: If you’re using barbed shrubblers you will need to get 4mm flex tube and 4mm take-off joiners connect them to your poly pipe (of any width).
Drip punch: If you ever need to make custom holes in your tube, for example to connect your barbed shrubblers, you will need a drip punch. This one here can punch holes in 3 different sizes.: 4, 6 and 10 mm and it’s made of steel.
Other
Tap splitter: If you’re breaking your irrigation up into various zones or lines or subsystems, you will need tap splitters. You can get two way splitters or four way splitters depending on what you need.
Wifi tap timer: I am so excited this kind of product exists! So this is a tap timer which comes with an app, meaning that you can literally control your tap watering schedule using your phone. How incredible is that! The Holman wifi tap timer comes in two versions - one with a single outlet and one with a dual outlet. We wanted to have 4 outlets total so could have gone with a 4 way tap splitter and 4 single timers. However we decided on a 2 way tap splitter and connecting 2 x 2 outlet tap timers on each. Creating 4. I did this because you can connect up to 4 tap timers into the one system, so if we ever wanted to put an additional timer in the front garden, we still could.
Irrigation pins: These metal pins are for staking down tubing so it does not move about.
STEP 6: INSTALL!
Here I will show you how to install a simple drip tube grid for a raised garden bed:
Here are the parts I used to create the drip tube grid.
Below left you can see I used a T-shaped joiner, which I secured with ratchet clamps. The 4-way joiner is so that I can connect the 4th side to the main poly pipe to feed water to the grid.
You can secure ratchet clamps using pliers as per below.
Here is how we connected it to the poly pipe which is connected to our tap.
Here I will show you how a barbed shrubbler is installed:
First, gather your parts - 4mm flex tube, 4mm take-off joiners and the barbed shrubblers. Cut the flex tube to the size you need. Then, add a take-off joiner to one end and a barbed shrubbler to the other end. Using your drip punch, punch a hole in your poly pipe. Then, insert the take-off joiner into the poly pipe to connect it. Too easy!
Here are some tips for installation
Soak your cut pieces of tube in boiling hot water for 20 seconds so that you can easily fit the fittings on top. The water helps soften the tube so that it is easier to insert. I used a ceramic indoor planter pot to hold my boiling water.
Dig a small trench and bury your poly pipe lines if possible, so that they are not visible, making the garden neater.
I hope this post helps you get started on your drip irrigation journey, and gives you confidence to feel like you too can do it yourself!
