My goal was to move the existing hoses each west a row, and
then add a third line down next to the tomatoes. Each line is attached to it's own spigot that is controlled by a valve on the north end of the garden. There is not not a 3rd spigot, so I needed to join the new hose to the old one at the end, and then wrap it back towards the starting point. Every 10-15' there is a Rainbird style sprinkler that is plugged into the hose and attached by a piece of rubber tubing. (this photo is one in the front yard area so you can see what they look like together.I found a lot of irrigation hose with attachments and parts going in many different directions. My first plan was to re-use the old hose, and add pieces where I needed to. But then taunting me in the corner was roll of brand new virgin hose still in it's shiny plastic.
"How easy to just lay it out exactly as it needs to be, with no old holes and plugs to deal with!" I naively thought.
The first part was attaching the new hose to the one in the garden already. These hoses are made to cut and clamp and punch holes in, they are thinner and made of a semi-pliable plastic. I rustled through the boxes of irrigation parts (see yesterday's post) and found a coupling I thought would work. I unrolled the hose, no easy task as the plastic like to stay in those little loops it had been bound in for who-knows-how long. Then I counted out the sprinklers I had available to attach and, satisfied I could complete the job, I started on the tricky part. There are these tiny little plastic parts with a pointed bottom and a valve on top and on the side. You have to poke the sharp part into the hose and then attach the sprinkler to the top of it. Its hard to push the point through he plastic. Sometimes it just slips right in, but most of the time you make a screwy face and twist it back and forth and bruise the end of your thumb. Or maybe that's just me. There was no instruction manual in the box of parts, but I was happy when all the pieces went together the way I hoped they would.
About halfway through the sprinklers I had all had a Little plug attachment at the hose end. I couldn't get it out, and with the pain the little sharps things were causing me in the first place, I didn't want to pierce the hose, pull the sharp thing out and reinsert, so I just started cutting the end off that had the little plastic valve already on so I could attach them to the shiny new ones I was using. After a couple hours, I had the run completed.
I tested my hard work with a twist of the valve and was immediately disappointed to see that ALL of the new ones failed to function. Not a single sprinkler broke forth with a satisfying tick-tick-tick of spray. I waled up the malfunctioning row, thinking that perhaps the little blue valves were all in the "off" position. A couple of the sprinklers (out of 20) seemed to respond a bit to this and give up a teeny trickle of water- still not strong enough to activate the sprinkler heads. When I reached the original coupling, I saw that it was leaking pretty bad. Bad enough that it was possible water was all being lost at that point in the hose. Off to the hardware store for a piece.
The hardware store has an aisle and a half of irrigation parts; metal, plastic and hybrid. I actually found a hose coupling that was 1/2" on one side and 3/4 on the other, and a few small clamps to ensure no water escaped the coupling that wasn't supposed to. I even picked up the CORRECT tool for punching the holes on the holes. The box called it an "irrigation hole puncher".
Back to the house, switch out the coupling and race to the valve to see how well all the new sprinklers work.
No change! The news ones all failed to spray. I again traced the line back to the new coupling and started messing with the first sprinkler. On my way there I remembered that there was a little toll with different gauge wires attached that was for clearing the sprinkler heads of gunk. After adding that to my arsenal, I trudged to the line and stared sternly at it, willing it to behave the way it was supposed to. Like the kids, it was not intimidated into compliance that easily. I wiggled the base of the attaching line, reached out to touch the sprinkler head which came off in my hand as a stream of water headed directly for my face. Startled, and a little wet, but happy that water HAD made it through my coupling, I put my mouth on the bottom of the sprinkler head and blew (a technique described by the previous owner to check if they were clear) and was rewarded with a stinky gooey blob of something shooting out the other end. Immediately horrified that I had so freely placed my mouth on the end of something so heinous, I was still rather delighted when I returned the sprinkler head to it's place (while fighting the stream of water that would soon go through it) and the tick-tick-tick broadcast across the corn.
The next one was not quite so simple to solve. Removing the sprinkler head yielded a slow drip, and as I messed with the valve it did not improve. In fact, I couldn't really tell which direction was "off". I ended up pulling the entire valve out of the hose and, as it sprayed me mercilessly, I tried in vain to clear the line that was supposed to run between the hose and the sprinkler.
You get the picture. Every single sprinkler and line has to be cleared or cleaned to some extent. Some had to be completely replaced, and some were fine as soon as the tips were cleared. Apparently the pile of sprinklers laying in the pile with irrigation stuff had been irresistible to all manner of critters and dirt. Some had rocks in them, some grass. It was puzzling how items so large had gotten crammed into the sprinkler heads, but one by one they were reborn.
In the end I was one sprinkler short, and soaking wet from the trail and error method of fixing each unit.
Most of all, I was pretty darn satisfied that I had figured it out and solved a problem for the garden.
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