The Big Project is Done

The big project was putting in the fruit orchard along with its drip irrigation system and it's all done. We have every type of fruit that ripens between the months of October and April - we have lemons (regular and Meyers), limes, regular oranges, blood red oranges, pineapple oranges, tangelos, pummelos, tangerines, pink grapefruit, red grapefruit, avocados, kumquat, persimmons, pomegranates, guavas, figs, bananas, mango, papayas, pineapples, pecan trees and macadamia nut trees. Some are in blossom now like this pineapple orange tree.

Some have finished blooming like this Hamlin Orange and have started to grow little oranges..

And here are the remains of the blossoms from the Arkin Papershell Macadamia nut tree, if each blossom is going to be a nut, we're going to have plenty of macadamia nuts

Clearing the land and planting them all took its tole on my back muscles - I'll never straighten up again. But then came putting in the irrigation system. This machine bounced me all over the place.

The chain drive dug a ditch and the little auger pushed the dirt away but when it hit a root watch out.

I bought two 500 foot rolls of tubing but ran out and had to get another 200 feet to finish

The main line runs down the center trench

And tees break off side branches. The joints are all compression - takes a little effort to get them together but it's faster than cement joints

Special knife is used to cut the hoses

And when it comes time to put a dripper into the hose another special tool punches a hole in the side of the tube

Here's a dripper installed

I used four drippers for each tree in a circle around the tree. Each dripper drips 1 gallon per hour - I initially plan to run them for 1/2 hour three times per week. As the trees grow I'll increase the time and number of drips.

To end a line you just have to bend over the hose - put a kink in it.

I have four separate loops that are controlled by this program controller

Which turns on and off these four valves.

Two valves run separate loops out to the orchard, so they don't have to come on at the same time and lessens the load on my well and allow for expansion. The third is for plants that aren't in the ground but need water till we come back next fall. These are pineapple plants just starting to grow. But other plants like the mango, papayas and potted plants around the house increase this to almost 20 separate drips..

The last zone is for a small section of lawn that will allow us to walk to the car without having to walk in dirt. It has nine of these little spray heads in it.