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Join us on our DIY project—installing a remote automatic sprinkler system! 🌱💧 In this video, we walk you through the entire process, from digging trenches with a trencher to ensure safety for garden machinery, to integrating valves that distribute water efficiently across different garden zones.
Learn how to:
-Dig and prepare trenches for your sprinkler pipes to prevent damage.
-Install valves that control water flow to various parts of your garden.
-Set up a remote control panel powered by a car battery charged by solar panels.
We also connect the system to the city’s irrigation, saving well water and enhancing sustainability. This setup not only automates watering but also ensures your garden thrives without the hassle.
What You'll Gain from This Video:
-Step-by-step guidance on setting up your sprinkler system.
-Tips for using solar power to run your garden’s irrigation.
-Insights into connecting your system with city infrastructure for an eco-friendly approach.
Whether you're a seasoned gardener or just starting out, this video will empower you to take your garden’s irrigation to the next level. Don’t forget to like, comment with your questions or experiences, and subscribe for more handy DIY garden projects!
#Sprinklers #DIY #GardeningTips #SustainableLiving #DIYGarden #preparedness #readyforanything
Check out our Easy Food Storage Plan: https://pantrypreparedness.com/food-storage-made-of-the-meals-your-family-loves/
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0:00
Good morning, my friends. It is a comfortable 50 degrees on this nice, beautiful overcast
0:05
day here in Idaho. I kind of hope it stays this way because there's a lot of work to be done
0:11
today. That's because we are going to be investing some hard work now to make our preparedness
0:18
easier going forward. One of the most valuable things that I've found for being able to be
0:23
self-reliant and be prepared is to make those things a part of my everyday life. And in order to do that
0:30
well, we have a busy life, which means we need to make them as easy and as automatic as possible
0:36
One of the things that's really helped us here at our home is in our little backyard garden
0:41
We have automated all of the watering. I have it all on just one sprinkler valve, but popping up in every single one of my garden beds
0:49
I have a little riser that's coming up from water lines that I ran under the ground several years ago
0:54
and I only had to do that one time. And those pop up and on top of each one of those, I just connect to whatever water
0:59
watering I need for that bed for that year. Some of them have little sprayers, some of them have
1:04
drip lines, and right now the garden's a mess because we're not ready to plant anything and
1:08
we left the leaves and sticks on the ground because it's supposed to be better for the bugs
1:17
and stuff. And we've been letting our chicken scratch around to eat all those bugs. Anyway
1:22
to shorten that long story, it's allowed us essentially to, we get all excited in the spring
1:26
we get all planting, we're taking care of everything, we're making sure that we've
1:29
are at bay. And then by midsummer, things are crazy. There's trips. There's kids activities
1:34
There's so much going on. And the garden gets neglected. And my brother Jake was telling me
1:39
he's like, they basically lost their garden multiple years because of that same issue. And they don't
1:45
even have kids old enough to be in activities yet. It's just the nature of life. But we've managed
1:50
to have a successful backyard garden for several years now because we get busy and the garden waters itself
1:56
As long as we come out here and pick the food off of the plants
2:02
like we're going to get a lot of benefit from our garden. Well, over at my parents' house, they have a huge garden
2:08
I try to help them maintain it, but it is what it is, right
2:12
It's really hard to do. And right now my dad's got a pretty great watering system set up
2:17
but it's all manual. It connects up to a hose that's fed off of their well
2:22
which means they're using up their well water faster, and it means that whenever they're running the water
2:26
the garden irrigation, the water pressure in the house is awful. But they have pressurized
2:32
irrigation running just behind their house. And they do have an outlet fed to their house that
2:37
they're allowed to use. They just haven't been yet. So here's what we're doing. We're setting
2:43
up a new watering system. We're bearing it underground right now because it's above ground
2:49
We've got PVC pipelines running everywhere, which means we can't drive the tractor or the
2:53
mini excavator over the top of those lines, which we're running like long routes to get to
2:59
certain places in the garden and there's lots of places we just can't even get to, literally without
3:03
breaking the water lines. So we're going to bury it underground and we're going to automate
3:08
the whole thing. Because right now, not only are we connecting to a hose, but every single station
3:13
requires my dad to go out and turn on a valve. Again, from there, the watering is great, but if he
3:19
wants to go on a trip, it means the garden doesn't get watered for a week. And that's problematic
3:24
So we're going to make our plants do better. We're going to make it more automatic and easier
3:29
And we going to make it so we can drive wherever we want to with our tractor and mini and four and lawnmower and all that stuff Make things easy That what we doing today
3:40
Okay, we've got Jake here on the trencher. He's running this trench so that we can put all of this sprinker line underground for all those reasons we talked about
3:48
This line here, we're going to have a one-inch line running the whole way down between all these trees with an individual offshoot to every single tree
3:57
But that's going to allow it all to be buried. I'm actually super excited about that
4:01
But also in the same trench, because we were actually asked by someone
4:05
why don't you just use a puller and just pull the pipe? Well, I actually needed to pull two pipes because I wanted to be able to run a supply line
4:13
and the wire all the way down here because in the future
4:18
I have room for a couple more valves on the control box, and I want to be able to potentially put in more sprinklers along this fence line way over here to the side
4:26
because we haven't done that landscaping yet. So I didn't want to have to dig another trench in the future or pull another line
4:32
So we'll have a supply line running all the way down here, ready to go for some future valves
4:37
Then moving here along the front of the fence, kind of going clockwise, and that's kind of the way we're doing this whole project
4:43
We're going to put in several valves. Each one of these valves will be feeding a different section of the garden
4:49
And basically, we're just putting in a valve and a little connector so that we can connect to existing drip lines and stuff
4:56
because those, they can be above ground. They're in areas here, like with the, we got berries over here
5:02
we've got this open area over here where we do a pumpkin patch, we got grapes. Those kinds of things, they can be above ground
5:08
Because once the plants are out and we put the drippers out, we aren't driving tractors over that anymore
5:13
But we can also just kind of roll it up and put it away in the winter so that if we do need to run equipment over here, we absolutely can
5:24
Hey, Jake. So where'd you learn to use a trencher? Got a lot of practice
5:32
I learned at Tate's Rents this morning. And he showed me how to turn it on
5:36
I pointed the instructions here. It was super clear. You know, half of them are there, but, you know
5:43
we figured it out. There's only so many levers. Nice. Yeah, crank it up and go
5:47
What do you think of the weather? It's, I don't know, wait five minutes
5:52
It'll turn around, I'm sure. All right, we're back, but it rains
5:56
all weekend. So we got a lot of moisture here. But today what we're going to do is we're
6:02
going to start by kind of cleaning out the trench a little bit. See we ran this main trench
6:07
and we ran our supply line. We have a one-inch line coming off that valve that's going to go to
6:11
each one of these trees. But in trenching out the little line to each tree, we kind of
6:18
buried a little bit in the main trench where the T's will be, where we're actually connecting
6:22
up. So in the main line for every tree we'll be installing a little bit
6:26
little T that will run off to this swing pipe. This is just half inch funny pipe or swing pipe
6:34
And it'll run to this. And then on the other end of this pipe, at each tree, we'll install a bubler
6:41
Now, these are the same bubblers that were there before. They were just in this PVC pipe that obviously breaks easily and is above ground
6:50
It breaks super easily because the sun degrades it super fast. It gets driven over, it gets stepped on
6:55
it just busts all the time. So this is going to be a huge improvement
6:59
and we'll have a nice buggler watering every single one of these trees
7:03
We're going to get to work. So we're installing an individual soker, bubbleer
7:38
bubbleer, at each one of these trees
8:05
The reason for that is we can keep the water contained right at the tree
8:09
We're not trying to sprinkle everything. Ideally, we don't want to water the weeds
8:13
They turn green and grow a lot in the spring, but in the summer, they're not going to grow much just because it's so dry
8:19
But we can water the trees super well with these soakers. So even though it's a lot of work to run aligned to each tree, this is how we're going to water the trees the absolute best
8:31
All right, is that it? That's it. It's the last one. Nice
8:35
26 tree bubblers. All in. Yes. So now what? Gotta bury it all
8:42
Oh man, we gotta backfill all this. That is a lot of shoveling
9:18
Okay, I think water's supposed to be on now. So, turn the valve
9:31
Oh, yep. All right, water's running. I can hear all this air just like blowing out of the tubes
9:39
It's filling up like all those supply lines. Good. All right, so hose
9:48
We're gonna call that good. It's working. Working. So, now we have a functioning hose
10:03
Well, I turn on the main valve, and there's definitely water now
10:07
So we're gonna turn on this first valve to the tree bubblers, and hopefully nothing blows up
10:13
I'm not expecting explosions, but there's a lot of pressure here, so
10:17
We'll see what happens. Check it out
10:29
Well we know that the valve for the trees is working right and the bugglers are all good
10:53
They're all turned on, which is fantastic. Hey, Moka. But now I want to try one of these front ones and it'll be a good opportunity for me to show you kind of how this drip systems are going to work
11:04
Let me turn one of these on. Woo! And you can see there, all the drips about every foot on this line
11:21
And these are what's going to feed our whole... This is a raspberry patch over here
11:26
So we got just rows of raspberries. Looking good. Yep
11:38
No problem. It's getting water to all. all the lines. Honestly, like, one valve station could do a lot more than just this. So
11:49
uh, I'm not even at all concerned, but nice to know it didn't blow anything off. All right
11:54
goal number one, getting everything underground so we can actually like drive around out here
12:00
Check. Goal number two, getting all of these separated sprinkler valves that are each
12:06
like each distinct area of the garden can be watered independently of the others. That's going to make it
12:11
so that we actually water everything the appropriate amount and aren't stuck out here changing things all the time
12:16
So that's done. Check. Goal number three was automating all of this
12:21
So we don't even have to be here to turn it on or off. Well, that's what we got to check right now
12:27
This is the control system I've set up. I'm going to be mounting this so it's at the appropriate 43 degree angle so that we can optimize for our latitude
12:35
And it is completely remote and off grid. If you want to know more about this, I got a whole video that shows
12:41
shows this entire setup that'll be coming out in the next week or so
12:45
But I'm going to turn on the power here. We're going to plug in our control box
12:52
Now we've got our sprinkler control panel, which I haven't even turned on yet
12:58
So we're going to see if this thing actually works right. Pull out the battery back up
13:04
I'll worry about setting the date and time later. For now, we're just going to go here to manual, press manual
13:11
And I want to go to station, nope, how do I do that
13:17
Station one. Four, just a few minutes so we can test this
13:25
and make sure that it's going. Station one. Come on, trees
13:37
There it goes. That's what I'm talking about. I don't have to worry about this, because it's going to turn stuff off in three minutes, so..
13:49
That's it. We've solved, well, achieved, I guess, all three of our major goals for this project
13:56
Now we're just going to have to set each of the station timings and durations based on when we want them, as we get our stuff planted for the year
14:03
We're good to go! We can just forget about it. I mean, except for the whole planting and weeding and harvesting part
14:10
harvesting part. But we'll get to those later. We'll see you guys in our next video
#Gardening
#Home Improvement
#Plumbing