DIY autowatering

Caring for a plot near a house - a vegetable garden, a greenhouse, a garden, a lawn, flower beds - takes a lot of time and effort, and watering is a lot of trouble. If it is automated, it will take less time and effort, and the result will be better: less water will go away, the yield and appearance of plants will become better. It's all about the regularity and uniformity of watering. Specialized firms are developing such systems, but automatic watering can be done by hand.

Types of autowatering systems

Watering in automatic mode is possible for plantations planted in any way: outdoors, in a greenhouse, even on a balcony or on a windowsill. It's just that the scale and methods will be different. Water can be supplied in several ways:

• Sprinklers. Through special devices, water is sprayed over the surface, simulating rain. This method of automatic irrigation is most often used to irrigate lawns. The grass responds well to surface water application. Application for other plantings may be limited due to the possibility of disease development.
  

  One way to automatically water plants is by spraying water

• Drip root watering. In this case, water is supplied to the planting zone and supplied in drops, sometimes in thin streams, to the zone of the plant's root system. This method of automatic watering is used for garden and berry crops, trees, shrubs, flowers. It is often mounted in greenhouses, in vegetable gardens, in flower beds. Miniature systems can be made on the balcony or for home flowers. Because water is supplied exactly where it is needed, such irrigation is called "point".
  

  More economical use of water when dripping

• Underground water application. Underground water supply is mainly organized by drip technology. Hoses differ - they must be more durable, have dropper features: herbicides are introduced into the composition of the material from which they are made, which prevent plant roots from clogging the outlet openings. In all other respects, the structure is similar.
  

  Underground water supply is done using drip technology, but the volume of earthwork is large

Despite the different ways of supplying water, the automated irrigation system itself is built in the same way according to the same principles. They differ in working pressure: drip water supply can work even in gravity systems with low pressure - from 0.2 atm; for sprinklers, the pressure should be higher. Accordingly, the components of the irrigation system and its connections must be designed for different working pressures. There are no other differences: the layout is the same.

Construction principles

The basic diagram of automatic irrigation is briefly as follows. There is a water source, from which a main pipeline is laid along the site to the irrigation zones. Further, using tees, crosses, small diameter pipes and water supply devices, an irrigation system is created. For the normal operation of the water outlet units, filters are needed; they are installed on the main water supply. That's all. Everything else is particular. Even a pump or control system can be or can be dispensed with

Do-it-yourself autowatering system is a real task

how to organize water supply of the house from a well or a well, read here.

How is it managed

Irrigation can be controlled by a controller (automation unit) or a person by turning a crane.If a controller is installed, the system is almost completely automated: it turns on and off the water supply at a given time. There are devices with a very high degree of automation - they monitor the weather, soil moisture and, in accordance with these data, adjust the operation of the equipment. In the simplest version, the automatic irrigation supplies water at a given time, after a certain period of time (set in the settings) it turns off.

If there is no irrigation controller, a person needs to open and stop the water supply. But this is all that is required of you, the irrigation system will do the rest.

Water consumption and irrigation intensity

Since the water flow through the distribution points is mainly normalized, it is possible to determine with a sufficiently high accuracy how long irrigation should take so that there is not much water, and not a little. If all plants watered require the same amount of water, no problem arises, but this is not always the case. This is the case with the lawn, sometimes there are extensive plantings of the same plantings in the garden or in the garden. But the situation is more common when some plants are more moisture-loving, others less. There are several ways to solve this problem:

• Put on drippers or sprinklers with adjustable water flow. With their help, for each site or plant, set the required amount of moisture for one watering.
• Use multi-zone controllers. They can independently control multiple irrigation zones. It is convenient in the garden, in the garden or greenhouse, where there are extensive plantings of plants that require different moisture.
  

  Sometimes it is more profitable to make two autonomous irrigation systems

• Make several independent systems. Sometimes it is more profitable than pulling a long pipeline from one section to another or buying a complex control.

That is why automatic watering with your own hands can be done: you have a lot of opportunities to achieve the desired result.

Where to get water

The source of water for an automatic irrigation system can be a water supply system, a container with pumped water, a well, a well, a river, a lake. In all cases, filters are installed on the main pipeline. It's just that different sources require different equipment. If water is pumped from an open source (river, lake), be sure to put a coarse filter first, then a fine one. In all others (except for drinking water supply systems), only fine cleaning equipment is installed.

Do-it-yourself watering of the site can be done from any water source

If we are talking about automatic watering of a garden or greenhouse, then it is definitely better to first pump the water into a container where it will heat up, and then distribute it over the site. For summer cottages and personal plots, there are a number of systems that operate almost by gravity. They need a minimum pressure, which is created by lifting the container to a height of about 1-2 meters. There are systems that can work if the container is raised 10-40 cm above the ground (this drip irrigation systems AquaDusya, Vodomerka and others, you can read about them here).

With such an organization - with a water tank - you can choose any pump for an automatic irrigation system. If only he could periodically pump water into the tank. The water level in the tank is most often controlled by a float mechanism (such as in a toilet cistern). In this case, do not forget to provide for an emergency overflow and bring it to some source, otherwise your site may turn into a swamp.

If the water supply is used as a source - centralized or not, and drip irrigation is chosen, a reducer is needed that reduces and stabilizes the pressure in the system, since most of this equipment can operate at a pressure of no higher than 2 atm.

Automatic irrigation schemes

There are many options and variations of the schemes. They are very mobile and allow you to take into account all the features of plots and plantings.Consider the case when water is supplied from a source using pump station immediately for watering plants. This automatic watering option is shown in the photo below.

Such a do-it-yourself irrigation system in the country can be assembled in a day.

Water can be supplied to the plants in drops or using sprinklers. There is a fertilizer application unit. It will be useful in the system of automatic irrigation of a vegetable garden, greenhouse or garden, although it will not be superfluous for a lawn and a garden either. The number of irrigation lines is determined depending on the need, then the pressure is calculated. Droppers or sprinklers are selected according to the amount of water required for the plants.

A diagram of an automatic irrigation system using sprinklers is shown in the photo below. These devices have several names: sprinklers and sprinklers, which is why irrigation is called "sprinkler".

The sprinkler irrigation system is suitable for watering a lawn or small plantations - up to 10-15 cm

The main difference between lawn irrigation systems is that pipelines are often laid underground. To keep the sprinklers out of the way when mowing the lawn, they should also hide in the ground. There are also such models.

The scheme of automatic watering of the vegetable garden, greenhouse and garden is shown in the figure below. Water is first pumped into the container. From there it can be fed by gravity if the water supply is drip (it is drawn). To provide the required pressure for the sprinklers, you will need to install a pump or pumping station.

Irrigation system in the country from a container

If a vegetable garden, garden or greenhouse needs moisture, you can arrange everything as in the figure below. From the top it differs in the presence of a pumping station, which supplies water to filters, after which the pipeline already diverges to the beds.

Do-it-yourself automatic watering of the garden can be assembled from components or buy ready-made watering kits

The procedure for developing a do-it-yourself irrigation system

First take a scaled site plan. If it is not ready-made, draw on graph paper or a large piece of paper in a cage. Apply all buildings, garden beds, large plants.

Configuration development

On the plan, draw the irrigation zones, the source of water, its location. Along the way, you draw how the main pipeline will pass. If you are going to spray with sprinklers, draw their areas of action. They should overlap and there should be no non-flooded areas.

If the plantings are planted in rows, it is more rational to use drip irrigation: the water consumption is much less, as is the cost of the equipment. When developing a drip irrigation scheme, the number of irrigation lines depends on the distance between the rows. For rows between which the distance is more than 40 cm, one line for each is needed. If the rows are closer than 40 cm, I irrigate between the rows and the lines are one less.

DIY irrigation system development

After all the sections are drawn, you decide on the length of the required pipelines, consider how many and what water distribution points you have got, decide on the equipment - the number of pipes, hoses, tees, droppers, spray nozzles, whether or not you need a pump and a reducer, will be whether the container is installed or not, which automation should be installed and where. After all this has already been thought out, down to the diameters of pipes, fittings and adapters, the practical stage begins. The irrigation system, drawn on paper, begins to take shape on your site.

We start building

Further construction work is already underway. And the first thing you need is to decide how you will lay the pipes. There are two ways: lay the pipeline on top or bury it in a trench. It is usually laid on the ground in the country: here watering is seasonal and in the fall it is dismantled. Very rarely, irrigation systems in summer cottages are left for the winter: even if the equipment withstands the winter, they can simply break or steal it.

When creating an automatic watering system for a plot of a permanent residence, they try to make everything as invisible as possible, because the pipes are buried. In this case, trenches with a depth of at least 30 cm are dug. This depth is sufficient so that the pipes are not damaged during excavation. Just remember that pipes, fittings and other equipment that remain overwinter must be freeze-resistant.

One of the stages of creating automatic irrigation with your own hands is land work and laying of main hoses

Branches for irrigation depart from the main water pipelines. It is advisable to make all units and connections in hatches with lids: precisely in connections, tees, etc. most often leaks occur. Digging an entire trench to find a leak is not the funniest thing to do, and if all “problem areas” are known in advance and relatively accessible, maintenance becomes an easy task.

When laying main pipelines underground, install the connection points in special boxes

The last stage - depending on the selected irrigation method, water dispensers are installed in the hoses, everything is connected and tested.

Components

The pipeline layout on the site is made of polymer pipes. They are resistant to corrosion, do not react to most fertilizers, are reliable, easy to install (there are installation methods without any special devices). Most often used pipes HDPE (low pressure polyethylene). To all the advantages described earlier, ultraviolet resistance is added: they can be laid over the surface. LDPE (high pressure polyethylene), PVC (polyvinyl chloride, but it is afraid of ultraviolet radiation) and PPR (polypropylene, its disadvantage - it must be welded and cannot be disassembled) are also suitable.

Most often, do-it-yourself automatic irrigation systems are assembled from HDPE pipes on compression fittings

For automatic irrigation systems in summer cottages, greenhouses and vegetable gardens, they usually take a pipe 32 mm in diameter. If you are going to water a large number of beds, it is better to take a step larger - up to 40 mm.

HDPE pipes are assembled using compression fittings (with threaded gaskets). They can withstand the pressure in the water supply systems of high-rise buildings, so they can withstand the pressure for irrigation exactly. Their plus: at the end of the season, they can be unwound, dismantled, and used again the next year.

If drip irrigation is chosen, drip hoses or tapes can be connected to the line, you can mount droppers on ordinary hoses (make a hole and insert a small device in there). For sprinkler irrigation, sprinklers are installed. They have different structures and cover zones of different shapes and sizes - round, sectors, rectangular.

The types and types of accessories for automatic irrigation are well described in the video from one of the market leaders in irrigation systems, the German company Gardena (Gardena). Their equipment is high quality, but prices are also very high.