From Mud Pit to glorious soil!

The front garden is finally finished.  It actually didn't take that long, maybe two weeks, but being ankle deep in mud seems to draw out the process.  In Seattle I didn't use any formal watering system, just soaker hoses and a small sprinkler system conected to my hose bib.  It seemed to do the trick, but then it rained nine months of the year.  At the Twin Oaks house I pulled together a system that was a mixture of drip, soaker and sprinkler. It worked okay but the pressure was getting low and hence limiting to expansion and how often I could water.  For the type of garden I was wanting to achieve it seemed to do the trick.  In my opinion, drip is great for simple plantings that will never be added to or changed.  But for those of us who like to find a "little something" at the nursery and just tuck it into the perfect spot - drip sucks.  More often than not the plant dies before I get the chance to plant and irrigate the little guy.  I also enjoy a very full garden, interwoven with texture, color and chaos.  Chaos is very difficult to achieve with a drip system.  It's like gardening with an engineer.  I found a solution to the drip in the sprinkler system.  The problem I found with my improvised sprinkler system is that as the plants grew - and grow they did with the 10 tons of turkey manure I gave them - some plants blocked water getting to others.  It was tricky and had to be adusted weekly.  

Another problem with overhead irrigation systems are that they waste a lot of water, which gets really expensive.  The proposed solution?  Underground drip/flood irrigation.  The product I'm using is called Netafin (not sure of the spelling).  It's predrilled holes are in a very strong poly that has some movement to it but is more dense than regular poly for drip.  It is laid under 6-8" of compost/topsoil and irrigates the roots - just where the water is needed.  We've laid it in my front garden at a spacing that allows for all soil to be watered, minus the grass.  What our contractor actually did was excavate the existing grass/soil.  He then brought in a good quality soil mix and laid down 4-6", which was mixed with the native soil.  He then laid down the watering system and connected it to the irrigation timers.  On top he mixed in cow manure and soil to the depth of 6".  It looks awesome and I'm looking forward to getting it planted here soon. 

This Netafin stuff is nothing new.  I guess they use it pretty extensively in agriculture here in the Southwest.  They are even using it in sod applications.  I can imagine that it reduces the amount of water but also the amount of water borne diseases - like mildew, botritis, etc.  Pretty cool.  Of course it's expensive to install, but once laid it should last (save me digging through it) for a very long time since it's not exposed to sunlight and won't rot. (It's pretty thick) 

I'm dreaming of having climbing roses, 6' perennial flowers and grasses alongside heirloom tomatoes and lettuce - all growing seemingly magically in my garden.   Can't wait.