Dante's Garden

@robertokc I agree. I have a customer has the Smartlink, because they travel a lot and it was the only thing available 4 years ago. $200/ yr. is the cost.
Not familiar w Toro. Worked on a Irritrol(Toro) a couple of years ago…not user friendly even for a pro.

Have you thought about just using the percentage tweaks to add to the amount of watering time? I have one of my drip zones set at 150%. What I like about doing this is that I add extra water but it never gets picked up in the moisture levels. So it doesn’t affect the MAD. It only affects the watering time itself.

@Linn. I did consider using the percentage, but went the route of the fixed schedule so that I could use the moisture graph. I figured it could help me dial in the supplemental, fixed schedule. For example, I looked at it after today’s watering and saw that it overshot full capacity, so I dialed it back a bit. If the temps drop next week the graphs might tell me that I need do it again. The droplet would have been easier, but for now it’s been an interesting process.

Thanks for the suggestion though as there are always different ways of looking at things. Take, for example, the whether to use the word minimum or maximum when describing Smart Cycle! :confused:

@azdavidr, I’ve actually been following this thread with interest because I’m trying to figure out better ways to handle my drip zones on flex. I like seeing the different techniques.

@Linn And when it comes to gardens it’s particularly useful to have a few tools in the proverbial shed! I have my trees and shrubs on drip as well but they’re relatively easy compared to the garden.

I’m not sure you need to be watering the garden multiple times a day. That seems a bit much. I just tried creating a new flex schedule with my latest updates to the garden zone advanced settings and after the initial fill-up it seems to want to water every other day. The only issue I know of in the settings is that I can only go up to 100% efficiency instead of the 115% I think it needs but I don’t think that change will increase the watering frequency to multiple times a day.

On the other hand, this is the first year I have a veggie garden so I might just end up with a bunch of burnt plants in the end.

@JPedrego. Interesting. Did you mean crop coefficient Instead of efficiency with regards to going over 100%? What are you using for soil type?

Whoops yes I meant crop coefficient. I have it set to clay loam since I amended the native clay with compost.

That must be why (your soil type versus mine). Some family members built it and they used mostly potting soil, so I set my soil type to Loam. I’m sure there are better ways. Anyway, I think the clays retain water for longer.

I just finished putting up a shade structure tonight, with the hope that it’ll withstand monsoon season. In the fall I plan to re-work the container and soil, so I’ll be research the right way to do that between now and then.

Agree totally with you!!! I have two drip zones with a mix of perennials and annuals in them (plus an herb garden) and I don’t feel like I’m handling them just quite right yet. And while not as drastic as you, it looks like I am quickly going to be running into the problem where the daily watering is not going to keep up. (I have my MAD set to 25%) based on info I found on the NCRS web site http://www.nrcs.usda.gov/Internet/FSE_DOCUMENTS/nrcs141p2_017640.pdf

“With drip irrigation systems, irrigate when 20% -25% of the available water in the active root zone is depleted.” And also it says "Crop growth is badly retarded after 75 to 80 percent of available moisture in the zone
is depleted. "

This is what I’m running into soon. Keep us up to date on your experience!!!

Yeah your soil will require more frequent watering.

Something to explore, I’m converting all my pots this weekend. If your annuals are on their own zone, http://store.rainbird.com/drip-low-volume/dripline-blank-tubing/et2551250-1-4-in-non-pressure-compensating-emitter-tubing-50-ft-black.html
That’s 1/4 inch!
Just serpentine that through your flowers and set the root depth and available water real high to,have that run for 3 hours through the day.

@Linn. Killer article. Thanks for sharing! It makes sense now when I consider having heard from a couple of landscapers that the garden frequency on drip is WAY more frequent than our trees and shrubs. I figured Kc was the reason, but it appears that the recommended MAD factors in too! I plan to dig into that article further, as well as look into the Kc stuff that @JPedrego has mentioned.

I’ll let you know how we get through this temperature peak. This is the first summer I’m trying to make a concerted effort to keep the garden going. Usually it’s a fall/winter/spring thing.

My flower/perennial zones setups are a real mess, set up by an irrigation guy a few years back that either didn’t know what he was doing, or didn’t care. So my worst zone is a mix of annuals and perennials and even misters (for my herbs) AND goes from almost full shade to full sun! It’s too expensive for me to try and fix any of it right now, so I’m trying to make sure that the annuals in the sun get watered to what they need and then hope that everything else will do OK. The zone is set up with 1/2" tubing, with emitters at every single plant, and it snakes through the beds. The huge majority of the emitters are 1/2 GPH, but I have replaced some of the ones on my hydrangeas with 1 and/or 2 GPH emitters. The zone has somewhere between 75-100 emitters on it. So I’m trying to make the best of a mess!!! I’ve been hoping that I might get some help from you and @azdavidr .

Sounds like we can all help each other out. Let’s keep the discussions going. Have you considered building up some shade cloth over the full sun area? It might give you a bit more uniformity given the other part that’s shaded. Of course you may not be able to if whatever you have planted there needs full sun.

Holy cow that’s a lot of emitters. Are the pressure compensating? With that many you could run into pressure issues for the ones at the end of the line if they aren’t pressure compensating

1 Like

You have hydrangeas? Do you live down the street from satan too? Big props for keeping such a delicate plant going in that sweat shop.

At least you are on drip. Like I said in the previous post, you can really jack your settings for the drip zone to trick rachio into running that drip zone for 3-4 hours, starting mid day.

Like setting your pr to .1 inch an hour leaving everything the same. But you moisture graph will not be accurate.

Like setting root zone much deeper, but your frequency might move too far out, probably need to move the co slider way up to counter this side effect.

I personally think the addition of the fixed is most scientifically accurate, but suffers the moisture graph issue.

With any luck, rachio will work on a satan prison rape defense module.

Honestly linn, when it cools down, you should take a shot as installing your own valve. I finally broke down and started doing that 3 years ago, the stuff is dirt simple, just laborious.

That is a lot of emitters, but it should work. Do you-know if he installed a pressure reducer? If so what psi rating?
Approximately how many linear feet of 1/2" are you running? At some point friction loss may be working against you, but even 100 emitters at 2 gph = 3gpm, easily within the capabilities of the system if were installed properly.

Was that controllet the Irritrol Smart Dial? If so, that product had the original smart controller technology with WeatherTrak. It used pager technology. The original WeatherTrak came on the scene about 16 or 17 years ago. It was a product years ahead of the industry, but had way too many dials and required training. That product is not in the residential market now. Pager technology is not used too much. But I sure like Rachio. Unfortunately many contractors area still obsessed with installing one brand of dumb controller. The madness continues.

Just an update on the garden. I used @plainsane’s suggestion of a supplemental fixed schedule to get me the added watering I needed when we had the 113-117F temps, had no shade to the garden, and Flex Daily was ‘bottoming out’. With the fixed schedule added I overshot the Field Capacity a bit but no longer bottomed out. Right around the time of the peak highs I finished the shade structure I was building, and changed the zone from ‘Full Sun’ to ‘Some Shade’. Between that and temps dropping to the low 100’s, I was able to turn off the fixed schedule, and even dropped the watering duration a bit to 31 minutes. I definitely recommend the shade cloth structure for anyone dealing with our type of climate. The vegetables/herbs are all holding up quite well for now.

We’ll see how this all stands up next weekend. The current forecast calls for 119F on Father’s Day!