We spent a good half day putting in the irrigation system for the garden and orchard. Since we are not in the house, so cannot really use the automatic feature of the system until all the finish plumbing is completed, we will have to manually turn water on to each zone in the meantime. However, it will be nice to have the biggest part of it done early and it does give us a more efficient way of watering trees and garden raised beds until then.

We planned the lines so that each zone covers a particular part of either the orchard or garden and ran a line and capped it for future expansion in the back patio area.

While Oz put the lines together, I was the ditch-digger, cleaning out all the trenches with a trenching shovel. Our first test of the lines showed that we had no leaks in the system, but that dirt and small pebbles were caught in the valves, keeping them from operating properly. After taking them apart and running water to clear the lines, everything works well now.

This project cost about $300, including the controller box. Easily it would have cost $1500 if we paid a subcontractor to do it… another example of the value of sweat equity.

I got email notice earlier this week that our fruit trees will be here on Saturday! So… preparation of the orchard, including irrigation system, hole-drilling, etc. had to be done. We mapped out where we want the garden beds to be and planned the irrigation system for them and the grape arbor all at the same time. Together, Oz and I measured out where everything would be and tried to design an efficient system of valves and lines. First, we had planned the tree location (photos earlier); now we planned the layout of the raised beds, marking them with stakes. Using a 4′ x 8′ wood frame for a template, we marked the corners of the bed locations.

To begin with, we’ll have 6 raised beds, with planned space for 3 more when time and energy allow… we have 6 grape starts promised from a local retired Veterinarian who has an amazing garden, so we planned for those plants along the back garden fenceline, too.

To make the trench-digging easy, we rented a trencher from Davis Hardware (great folks to work with) in Roswell. In only a couple of hours, we had all the trenches for this project dug and returned the machine.

After trenching was complete… we rented an auger to make hole-digging easier. With 11 fruit trees (yes, the number has increased due to the generosity of a friend, who purchased a fig tree to add to the orchard) and 6 grape plants, we’d never have gotten the holes prepared in time (and would have needed the pickaxe with the ground as hard as it is). In less than an hour, everything was done…