ot water

[Anonymous-0]

Looks like I over did the drip irrigation.

Well actually this was during a little shower on Friday evening. Shotly afterward the water had all soaked in. Still welcome though. We got about 0.7" total.

Phil

 

[Anonymous-0]

Nice! What type of plant are you growing there?

 

[Anonymous-0]

Dad is in SW North Dakota and got almost 4" of rain in the last week and a half... neighbor got almost 6" out of one storm that lasted half a day. Moisture is always welcome, you never know when the next shower is coming.

 

[Anonymous-0]

Drip irrigation gone mad.............

.

 

[Anonymous-0]

Here are some pics taken after above mentioned drip irrigation from Mother Nature:

Creek never ran this year when the snow melted, and that is generally the only time that it does, but plenty of rain will also get 'er going!

 

[Anonymous-0]

Peppers, anything I grow on plastic (tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers,zucchini, even cabbage and pumpkins) I bury drip line beneath the plastic and can drip irrigate and fertigate. Very seldom do we have a summer that it is not needed at least part of the season. If we have a really wet summer then the cost of the drip tape was crop insurance.
I haven't yet tried to drip sweet corn or green beans but I'm considering it. I buy my water from the township water authority and everyone thinks this is expensive but if you consider no pumping costs, very little filtering costs and no capital expense of developing a water source it isn't so bad. Wouldn't want to do this farming today without some source of water. Great granddad and granddad and uncle did though.
Phil

 

[Anonymous-0]

That's gonna be a nice looking field!

Remember last year I drove by my garden in a rain storm...and I had puddles on the raised beds!

 

[Anonymous-0]

No pics but we got 2.5 inches here in Muleshoe, TX last night. It sure is keeping things green around here this year.

 

[Anonymous-0]

What variety of peppers are you growing and have you tried growing Big Jim, NM #6 or any other NM chile? Maybe too much rain and not enough sun in PA for those.

 

[Anonymous-0]

Can you explain this drip irrigation to me a bit. Just never heard of it.

 

[Anonymous-0]

Drip irrigation is also called trickle irrigation. It essentially means delivering water to the plant via a small tube that has some type of emmiters along its length. The concept is that water can be supplied near the plants roots thus saving water as compared to overhead (sprinkler) or flood irrigation. With the drip tubes buried under plastic mulch the loss of water by evaporation is also cut down. I think that with this system and our heavy clay soils I use 1/3 - 1/2 less water than i would with another system. I have a machine I pull behind the tractor that burries the drip tape and lays the mulch in one pass. The drip tape I use is 6 mil T-Tape. It comes in a 10000 ft roll and costs less than 2 cents per foot. Go to our farm's blog and I think my daughter posted a video of the plastic and drip being laid.
http://doudsfloydfarm.blogspot.com
You'll see my wife does most of the work, I only drive!
Phil