Solar Powered Drip Irrigation System

[Dave Sparks]

I would also go with solarvic and go under the road. Local telephone companies do this all the time. Just use a galvonized pipe. You may also want to consult a master gardener on mulching techniques and low water use gardening. I have seen huge gardens powered from small RV pumps. No one uses three hour soak times offgrid because the pumps cannot take continuous operation. There are so many ways to do this if you are there in the garden daily. If this is a big city project where you are not home (at the office) then you probably should just dig a well and spend the stimulous money! Good for the economy and all....

[ahunternj]

Thansk you for your advice on this subject. I am currently in the process of getting well quotes. I realized this whole time I was calculating on 2' row centers when it should be 3.5' row centers (mostly heirloom tomatoes) so that drops me down from 1444 gallons per day to 800. As far as the pumps, aren't the "surface mounted" pumps listed on this site from companies like SunPumps and Dankoff rated for continuous duty? If the well comes out too much $$$ or if the idea won't work, then running a line under the road will be the only choice. It's also a little more than just burying the pipe under the road, it would have to be buried all the way back to the house and again on the other side of the road. I don't want the pipe just laying across the lawn! Granted pvc pipe is cheap and so is renting a ditch witch for a day, but it's not nothing either. I didn't want to tax the well in our house which was one of the original drivers of the whole idea but we'll have to see how the quotes come in.

[Dave Sparks]

The devil is always in the details is it not? Good Luck!
PS our heirlooms are in the ground and barely escaped monday night snow. Yep, definately global warming!

[byntyme]

Don't know if it is too late to reply to this, but I sure hope that you have not spent a fortune. It is entirely possible for you to just use a simple pump system fueled by a PV panel to pump water to a holding tank with a flow valve & piping to your garden. If you are still interested please let me know and I will be happy to share more information with you. We used this method to irrigate an entire community garden (however we are not using drip irrigation as we are tilling the entire acre each year) so we instead use gravity from the tank to feed about 15-20 spigots throughout the garden. Our set up is much larger than what you would need and cost us under $4000 as we purchased an 800+gallon tank, solar panels, 2 pumps, etc, etc....

[ahunternj]

No, I haven't spent anything on this yet. Right now I am busy at work and around the house. My plan is to buy things in the fall/winter and have everything ready by the spring. Please share your experiences here for my benefit and all those who also may be interested!
In other news I have lost about half of my ripe tomatos this year to blossom end rot! Trying to remedy it by adding lime with the water but it is very dissapointing.

[byntyme]

I will give you more specifics on the irrigation as soon as I can gain access to those files & links, but in the interim please take a look at this link about Late Blight. Hope that some of this information helps! I will be back in touch!

[ahunternj]

What I have is different then the fungal blight. What is happening here is blossum end rot due to a lack of calcium being absorbed by the plant. This is commonly due to too much water, not enough water, too much fertilizer, or an overused plot of land. It has been really dry here this year so it would seem to be the lack of water causing it. It has really only rained a decent amount twice in about 3 months.