Okay, so I turn on the soaker hose to my raised veg. beds and go off to explore the yard and see what else needs to be accomplished today. Then I go back to turn off the soaker hose to use the hose for watering some of my hanging baskets, which i normally do first but it was so hot and the veggies looked like they needed it worse than the ornamentals, only to find that my raised beds are leaking out between the wood and the ground. I kneel down for a better look and i see the most beautiful brown, nutrient filled water, you know the kind of water you dream about just running out onto the GRASS.

My beds are very simple and short term. 4-2x6's that are 4'long screwed together to make a square and laid on top of the grass. Then i tilled up all the existing grass and replaced it with 3 bags of cotton burr compost.

I am thinking that i am going to get some good clay or something like that and try and make a makeshift seal. any other thoughts would be wonderful.

Sealing the container ain't the problem.

We gotta figure out why you have water flowing -- particularly from soaker hoses.

1) Is the soil saturated? Just plain can't hold no more. And that I'm figuring is unlikely if you're turning on the hose.

2) Is the soil so dry the water is beading up and running off?

Hard crust on the top?

Just plain dry?

Sometimes when it's dry here I'm known to water spots ahead of a rain...so the rain itself will then soak in.

3) Is there a hole in a hose you don't know about that's flooding an area???

4) Are the hoses around the edge? Would it help to move them to the middle?

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As the organic content of the soil improves, and the earthworms et al go to work the soil will be able to absorb more water and faster.

Still, somethings sound just plain odd for soaker hoses to do what you're describing...there just ain't that much water coming from them.

I wouldn't seal the bottom.

I'd either find if the hoses are leaking or need to move in from the edge, or it may be that you just need to give it more frequent, lighter waterings until the soil has built up a healthy structure. It's gonna be tougher for it to do that if you end up constantly have "mud" at the bottom from over-watered soil...

I checked the hose for leaks and didn't find any. i thought the same thing so i moved it to on top of the soil so i could watch it and nothing looked over watered.

Yes i have a hard pan underneath. The soil around here is about 98% clay and 2% rock.

Yes the soil around the box is dried out and has cracks. (i don't water the yard). But i dig down near the hose and it only saturated the soil directly underneath the hose.

The hose is not near the edge.

I must clarify, I wouldn't say that it is pouring out but there is standing water.

I used to have that problem when I used soaker hoses - I have raised beds, and I would always end up with puddles between them, unless I watered more often, in shorter increments, which is a PIA if you have to turn it on and off, or have to move the hose from row to row and back! The water was simply coming out too fast, and if I turned the flow down, it would come out faster in spots, and almost stop in other areas - also not good. And eventually the hoses would get holes in spots, and then there would be a major flood!

I have replaced all of my soaker hoses - they were better than hand watering, but they did water the weeds in between, plus the runoff problem, so water was wasted. I now have drip irrigation, with max. 1 gal/hr emitters, and most 1/2 gal/hr, so there is no puddling up. On rows where I have things close together I use t-tape - sort of like a soaker hose, but with close emitters on the hose, that are very slow, so it has to be left on a few hours, but it soaks the entire area, w/o runoff. I use that on my garlic row, and in my herb sections, where the plants are close.

How far apart are your plants in the raised beds? If they are not solid packed (like my mint area! lol) you could put drip emitters on them fairly cheap, using 1/4" line. This is how I have my front "flower" bed set up - with a 1/4" line going along the back, then coming around front, with a tee going to an emitter at each plant. I used to have a soaker hose in there, too, and always had that problem you are describing, with the water coming from between the boards, but not since I set the drippers up.

I almost sound like a salesman for these things, but they really do work!

Dave

How much do you think it would cost to make a drip system for 3 4x4 flower beds. Mostly big plants, squash, tomatos, peppers, broccoli, beans and what not?

I know that i will want to do that in the future but this is my first season and didn't want to jump in, but if you think i need to (come on, give me and excuse to buy the stuff).

It really wouldn't cost that much, since you have mostly big plants, and they would be spaced apart, and the number of emitters would be low. Here are some photos I took of the drip system, being set up in the beginning of the season. The first photo of the upside down tomatoes is the 1/4" tubing I was talking about, that is inexpensive, and for small areas like your raised beds would be perfect, since it is flexible, and you just run it from one plant to the next, with an emitter going to each plant, and ending it with an emitter on the last plant. The larger, 1/2" tubing is only necessary if you go over 30 gal/hr, which you definitely won't want to do.

I got started with a 7.95 kit with 100' of tubing, and a bunch of tees and emitters, and it worked out so well I started switching my entire garden over to it. I did find out, however, that the cheap kit had emitters that clogged, and once clogged, nothing could be done to fix them. I found out that there were better ones out there, and found dripworks, where I also obtained filters (to keep them from clogging), and pressure regulators (not essential, but keeps some things from popping off unexpectedly), as well as the tee-tape, and the better emitters - the pressure regulating ones, that are sort of self-cleaning, and almost never clog. Maybe sign up for one of their catalogs, and read through that - it's easier to see the items compared in the catalog than online. They have a bunch of starter kits, but most are for things you wouldn't want.

The emitter I use the most is the yellow turbo SC - 1/2g/hr. There is also a 1qt/hr emitter I use in some pots, as it is the lowest rate, and since it is not pressure compensating, I can hook up a valve to it to get it to drip ever so slowly.

Dave

how often do you run your drip system?

I hate to ask this question , but do you think this is something I could get at Home Depot? I got a gift card for my birthday and need something to buy with it.

I have my system on a timer that I run every other day, except when it gets superhot, then I run it once a day for a few days. I also have three sections - the one that goes to the upside-down tomatoes and a few other buckets, one that goes out in front of my house, as well as the pots around my deck, and a 4-way valve going to 4 rows in the garden. In the early spring I may run it a few times a day for much shorter times, while the seeds are germinating in some of the rows, and the soil has to be kept moist. The t-tape I leave running for about 3 hrs every 3 days. I have found that the 5 gal buckets dry out in 3 days in the heat of summer, and even faster when it is in the high 90's or 100's, so that's what I base it on, then adjust the times for the other areas. It is best not to let most things dry out, then totally soak them, unllike some reports. This is what causes a lot of blossom end rot on tomatoes, and probably other things we don't know about.

Home depot does not have them (at least it didn't a few years ago). Lowes had some fittings, but they were more things for lawn sprinkling setups, not the drip irrigation, and a few fittings were the same, but not the emitters.

One thing that Home depot does have is quick connect fittings fairly cheap (Harbor Freight has them cheapest, but they aren't everywhere). Those are the fittings I put on each row - a male fitting on the beginning of each drip line, and a female on the source hose. This way you can remove it and move it to the next raised bed w/o having to screw and unscrew every time. I wouldn't be without those things!

Dave

If this happened in a fairly short time frame, less that 4 or 5 hours, then the water pressure in the soaker hoses was too high and the water went out of the hose too fast for the soil to allow it to flow into the soil. All of the soaker hoses I have ever looked at state that the sill cock should not be opened more than 1/4 turn and often that is should take several hours to water using that soaker hose. My experience using soaker hoses is that they will allow moisture to soak into the soil at the rate of about 1/2 inch per hour, at most, even in my well amended with organic matterial sand.

So then i should just not turn the faucet on so much

That would save money on the drip system.

Go to your hardware stores and look for
a flow restrictor washer.

Or surf the net with;

flow restrictor washer/hardware stores

Good Luck,
bill

This reminds me of a problem I used to have with soaker hoses, though they were in much longer lines - 40-45' - so you will have much smaller ones. When I tried reducing the flow, and the runoff, by turning the valve down, the water would actually stop coming out in some of the hose - usually in the far end. I figured this was due to the pores clogging (this was before I had filters on them!), since it happened most with older ones. As a result, every season I would move the fittings from one end to the other, in the hoses I could do this on. It helped a little, but eventually both ends showed some clogging, but usually the hose was beginning to decay by then (4-5 years).

Something else you may be able to find in a local store, that will probably help greatly with this clogging (wish I had them back then!) are the screen washers - a hose washer with a filter in it, which helps prevent things getting in the end of the hose as it sits there. I have one of these on every one of my lines behind the quick connect make fitting, as well as the main filter.

Dave