Well we seem to be having a bit of a problem with the timer but we haven’t been out there yet when the sprinklers are supposed to be on so things may indeed be running perfectly. We will be going out to check on everything at 7 pm and then I need to make sure to check it tomorrow at 7 am and noon so we can go away without worrying that all our plants will be dead when we return. We also managed to mostly fix the leak in the flex hose in the barn although I had to tighten two clamps again today but I think it may finally be leak-free. The primary problem is that the rubber flex hoses are so old and brittle that they don’t fit snuggly around the metal fittings anymore. So we just have to clamp the hoses to the connectors that much harder.
It is already very clear that next year at the latest we will need to replace the hoses running around the barn for this water system. At the moment we also have a bit of wonderment at how some things are connected together, if at all. We have water connections in the horse stalls and former pig stalls and one outside the wine cellar but none of them work at the moment. We thought we had found a shut off valve for them but when we opened it, there was still no water coming to them. So that will be an adventure.
We are also already planning an adjusted layout for the watering system and will give the greenhouse it’s own hose running from the main until as well as a new timer. Then we will install moisture sensors in the raised beds so we won’t be watering everything after it’s rained. But this project will also be waiting until next year…or so we think at the moment.
But back to what we already have done. Everything is now planted and we even had pots left over. Here’s one of our zucchini at the moment. That is Stefan’s finger by it. They’ve definitely getting somewhere and it’s a good thing we finally got everything set up as it should be.
Once everything was in the greenhouse we had to shorten and adjust all the watering drippers but they are all in place now and water perfectly…once we figure out how to set the timer. We have the hoses running almost in a straight line with a tiny bit of play. The great thing about this system is that you can add to and subtract from it at almost anytime you want. It’s almost like Legos for adults but more pricey and water flows out of it.
I forgot to mention this before but we also moved the faucet down a bit so that we can close the barn door without trouble. This also allows us better access to hook the flex hose in the barn to the metal piping running out to the garden. I told Stefan to buy slightly longer pipes for the faucets so they’re pretty far apart. Perhaps one of these days I will learn to just make those decisions himself so that if something isn’t just right I don’t have to hear about it.
We were pretty terrible about posting pictures this weekend since I was writing from our slow laptop and Stefan was hogging the good one with the SD card slot. So in addition to these that we have finally posted, I added a fewphotos in the older posts from this weekend also. If you want to go have a look, here’s what I added..
- We’ve got a rain delay – 2 photos added of the water faucets & my potting station in the barn
- A few very good hours – 3 photos added of the Gardena microdrip setup and our trench.
- Water in the hizzaus – 1 photo of the trench all covered up.
