0 2009-11-07T06:39:16-08:00 false I've been reticulating. And reticulating and reticulating and reticulating. I only have a quarter acre block, with only about a third of it (deliberately) growing plants of any kind. It seems quite mad that I could possibly have spent so much time and energy on reticulation. I have opted for drippers, rather than sprinklers, from the desire to not waste water encouraging weeds, and from the belief that water is a community resource and I am not entitled to use it carelessly. I have been learning as I go, which probably accounts for at least some of the time it has taken. I have thus far put reticulation down the side of the house all the way along the rose/geranium garden, into the wild fern-y garden next to the patio and down to the lemon tree in the poolyard in one run. The two vegie beds are running on a seperate line, but are running together. The potato bed is seperate again and another set of retic runs around the pond and branches down along the middle of the poolyard garden to take care of the andless swathe of golden diosma. Today, it took me two hours to lay out 25 metres of hose and attach 8 drippers to it. I have to hit the garden again tomorrow to attach the other 8 drippers I expect to run from it, attach it to the hose network and seal the ends. . Then I expect I shall need a good lie down. The sad part about the length of time this is taking is that I haven't even done it properly. The poly pipe is just lying on top of the ground, not buried as it should be. I anticipate that over the next few weeks I shall acquire mulch and sheet it over the retic, which will have the effect of hiding it from view and protecting it from the sun. Doing it like this is a bit half-arsed, but at the same time, if I don't do it like this at this point in time, it won't get done until after everything dies - which is even less my preference than dodgy, hacked together retic. Perhaps this winter I will manage to bury what I've already done and upgrade the vegie garden retic. The sad thing about all of this, is that this garden has clearly been reticulated and well-loved in the past, but when we moved in, all I have been able to find is lengths and lengths of black pipe that have been chewed and mangled by doggy teeth, remains of both large and small sprinklers and no hint of where one might attach a hose to whatever remained of the system. I've pulled out about 12 metres of dead, chewed hose and installed 80 metres of poly pipe and 40 metres of dripper hose so far and still have both parts of the orchard left to do. 0 false 70587 false false false Entry 2009-11-06T16:00:00-08:00 DMY Public 2009-11-07T06:39:16-08:00 143 Overcast 16 C