Raised Bed Gardens and Water Distribution

all put together

Given the many weeks of isolation in quarantine, I decided to move home rather than continue to pay  bay area prices to be in quarantine indefinitely. It was nice to spend time with family, and we decided to remodel the house to keep ourselves busy. My project was the new garden.

I decided to build three 4×8 raised beds. Pretty simple design. Each bed takes three 2x4s with one cut in half. Then screw the ends together. Staple barrier fabric across the bottom, and fill with dirt. Next, I bought 125ft of soaker hose and wound it through the gardens, held in place with garden staples. For the finishing touch, I added a small fence in front to keep the dog out, and solar garden lights in the beds.

Here’s what it looks like;

raised bed gardens complete

Problems

The soaker hose is not designed to carry enough pressure to run more than about 40 feet. So it would need to be split into a separate run for each bed. I also wanted to be careful not to let it drip in between the beds, otherwise the weeds and grass would take off and be hard to control. So I built this;

water distributor

Basically, there is an inlet at the bottom for a hose to attach. I had already run a 100ft hose all the way around the yard from the spigot to the gardens, so it just connects there.

Then the high pressure hose branches off into three valves to control the pressure to each bed separately. Then there is a corner to bend down to the soaker hose attachments. This prevents water from dripping outside the beds. Here’s what it looks like all put together;

all put togetherI also added an automatic timer at the spigot which turns the water on and off on a schedule. So now it’s just a matter of tuning the amount of water each bed receives with the valves!

Trellis Alternatives

I didn’t want to use those stupid tomato towers for all the plants so instead I got some eight foot posts and drove them about a foot into the ground, then I stapled chicken wire around them. This also keeps the cats out while providing something for the plants to climb. I plan to espalier both the tomatoes and cucumbers, as well as the zucchinis and sugar snap peas.

Garden fences