One Summer I Started a Garden: June 2011

It's been a record hot summer here in Austin and the calendar hasn't even hit summer, so I've been spending lots of time fixing up our automatic sprinkler system. This system has got to be 10 years old if it's a day, and with all old plumbing, tinkering with it is full of risks. Luckily, I know a guy from my old job who freelances in irrigation work and he doesn't mind teaching me as he goes. That said, I still managed to mess things up after he left and had to pay for another trip (and lesson). So I thought I'd share what I've learned with others in the hope of paying it forward.

First, my main goal was to swap out sprinkler heads that were broken, buried, or otherwise not doing their jobs. Here's an example of an old head (left) and a new one.

Old head (L) and new head with swing joint (R)

The new heads are bigger than the old and should hold up better over time, especially the internal spring that pops up the nozzle. The head in the picture was replaced because it had cracked near the bottom, causing water to seep out around the head instead of going through the sprinkler. To recognize the problem of a broken head like this, look for a little green circle of grass centered in a large patch of dying lawn. Also, the soil around the head will create the soggiest mud pit ever. Hippos and 2-year olds will enjoy digging these heads out.

New head in a new home

With every head I replace, I add a swing joint. That's the extra plastic tubing in the picture. The swing joint allows the head to have some flexibility. If you step on the head or your neighbor's student driver runs over it, the swing joint allows the head to move without breaking. The original head was screwed directly into the main PVC line. This hard-plastic-to-hard-plastic junction easily cracks or snaps if enough pressure is applied. Using swing joints means you have to dig a bigger hole, but they're worth it.

The next lesson is about inline valves. Irrigation systems are divided into 2 or more zones. Each zone has a valve with a solenoid that gates the flow of water into the zone. The valve is inline with the PVC that branches off the main water line and has wires connecting it to the controller in the garage. The section valves can be located all in the same box or in individual boxes throughout the yard. I've only managed to find two of mine so far because the lawn has absorbed the others over the years.

Valves for zone 4 & 5 at Casa Andromeda

Note: If you don't secure the lid to the valve box carefully enough, your lawnmower will destroy it.

One of the neat tricks that I learned from the irrigation guy on his first trip is that you can turn on the zone from the valve. It saved time being able to turn on the backyard section from the backyard without having to go to the controller in the garage. On page 8 of the document, Tips on Installing and Maintaining Rain Bird Residential Valves, I found information about the manual bleed on the valve which allows you to turn the section on and off. Unfortunately, the document didn't include pictures with the information, so I missed an important piece. Right under the entry for manual bleed is an entry for manual on/off that mentions turning the solenoid. Since I thought the solenoid was a completely internal mechanism, I considered this advanced instructions and ignored it.

Turns out, I could have saved myself a lot of heartache and a $30 trip from the irrigation guy if I'd found a picture in the manual. Without knowing it, I was turning the solenoid as I was turning the manual bleed on and off and eventually caused the valve to leak. But the bigger problem was that once I turned on the manual bleed, turning it off didn't seem to shut off the sprinklers. In hind-site, I'm sure it was some combination of manual bleed and solenoid twisting that caused the phenomenon, but at 2pm on a Saturday, I panicked after 5 minutes of water sprinkling out of control, so I ran to the front of the house to turn off the main water line.

That's where I learned another lesson.

I knew where the main shut-off was, but when faced with three knobs to turn, my adrenaline-fueled ignorance flared. I turned all of them off, and thankfully, the sprinklers shut down. Then, gathering my wits, I attempted to turn the water back on. Apparently, I only turned two of the knobs back to open and didn't realize my mistake. When I saw that the water to the house was back on, I expected the sprinklers to work as well. They didn't. I tried turning and un-turning all the knobs and still nothing. In fact, one knob in particular seemed to stop and then spin uselessly. Sweat was dripping into my eyes at this point and my patience was gone. I thought I had broken the main shut-off valve to the irrigation system. Crapola.

Because I don't naturally engage in proper scientific method, I didn't think to carefully check all three of the knobs in the main shut-off box. For example, had I created a matrix of open and close valves I might have seen this.

Yes, that's a goodly amount of combinations, but at least eventually I would have solved the problem of my creating. Instead, I came to the conclusion that the whole situation had gotten out of my hands. I had to wait until after the weekend to email the irrigation guy to come over and see what I'd messed up.

The good news is that I didn't break anything in the system. The bad news was that I just hadn't turned all the knobs back to the on position. Embarrassing. In fact, I had confused the house shut-off valve with the irrigation shut-off valve, so I was focusing on the wrong valve most of the time. Here's the scoop in pictures:

The irrigation system has a backflow prevention assembly which has a shut-off valve on either side. Next time I need to turn off the main line to the sprinklers, I just need to turn off one of those valves on the bottom.

But here's the thing my irrigation guy chastised me for: using these valves like sink faucets. I was using the inline valve in the back as a matter of convenience, but I should avoid turning off and on the system from either the inline valves or the main valve. Those valves aren't designed to be turned on and off repeatedly. Ironically, the more you use them, the greater the chance that they will fail.

Although my lessons in irrigation systems are far from complete, I feel like my knowledge has jumped a level or two. I've still got some work to do to make the system as efficient as possible and to keep the yard in good shape. Thank goodness for the inch of rain this week and the efficiency of Mother Nature!

The day after Thanksgiving I was having kitchen withdrawal symptoms so I decided to spend part of Black Friday making and canning green tomato salsa. The day-long effort was actually the culmination of a six-month experiment in gardening inefficiency. And like a high-school chemistry experiment, I'm writing up the project from memory, about a half-hour before the lab is due.

Tomatoes having the reputation for being fast growers and prolific producers. Not over a hot Texas summer. Apparently the nighttime temperatures have to get below 75 in order for fruit to set. Austin seems to have the right combination of heat + humidity to prevent this from happening. Maybe it's just the type of tomatoes I'm trying to grow. Perhaps I can try others. But it's been 2 years of trying and I've gotten bumpkin.

Last year I got disgusted looking at my scrawly tomato plants about September and ripped them out. Then someone told me that if I leave the plants in until it gets cool again (end of September/beginning of October), I'll have tons of tomatoes. So that what I did this year.