Garden Project - Irrigation

I have such great ideas. Then reality hits. This was a doozy, y’all. Like over ten months in the making doozy. It is like an episode of The Golden Girls when Sophia says, “Picture this! Sicily 1922...”

Last summer (and really every summer for the last 7 years or so) the garden has died because we don’t keep up with the watering. North Carolina is like the surface of the sun. Ironically it is swampy humid at times, yet the clay soil dries it out and cracks. Even cacti and succulents have died in the dried out clay in our yard. Welp, 2019 was going to be the year that I was going to change that!

It started as all things do – with a bright idea found on the internet. Homemade irrigation systems were WAY too expensive so I wanted to go the DIY route. Plus I fancy myself quite a DIY diva.

Step 1: Fall of 2018 I posted a notice that I was looking for janky hoses and social media came through!

Step 2: Put “Make drip irrigation with old hose” to my to do list and find a good website to give instructions.

Step 3: Wait for 8 months.

Step 4: Once weather turns crazy hot and I am tired of watering after 2 weeks, I try to drill holes whilst throwing the tennis ball for Lucille.

Step 5: Connect drip hose (the one with holes drilled in it) to the good hose connected to the spigot. We had to use a 2nd hose because the spigot is too far from away to connect directly.

Step 6: Weave hose through garden so holes are in general vicinity of where you have plants that you want to be watered.

Step 7: Watch the wheels fall off of the project. Cry.

The old hose I got through the Nextdoor app and left in a wad in the yard through the fall and winter and most of the spring somehow got kinks in it. Weird. When I turned the water on – nada aqua. And I could not unkink the hose because someone had drilled holes in it. More weird. Then Lucille kept running through the garden with her ball trying to get me to throw it while I was getting more and more frustrated by the second.

This is not where I cried – I was still staying calm at this point. I got out a new hose and started again with the hole drilling (whilst ball throwing – there are no photos of this because I was feeling much less amused by it). The more observant of you readers will notice at this point the color of the hose turns from red to green.

Progress was made as water flowed from the early hose holes. But stopped about half way through. I moved it around, found more kinks. Used pliers to unkink. Did not work. This is where tears came in. Over a hole hose project.

Let me tell you about the self-talk that was happening at this point. I was 100% convinced I was a worthless human being because I could not get this to work. I did not want to have to ask my husband to help like a helpless female. I wanted to conquer it, yet who was I kidding with this “I can do it” nonsense.

Let me tell you what an asshole that voice is. I cannot stand her!! These old tapes are exhausting. And I know I am not the only woman (person, probably but men don’t seem to suffer this like women do) who deals with this asshole in her head. We are better than this!

During this whole second hose debacle, Paul was sitting on the porch chilling, not offering notes from the peanut gallery. Basically doing his strong, silent type schtick. But this is why he is perfect for me. Right as I was about to move to Defcon 1 and start destroying things, he wandered out to the garden and introduced me to physics. Apparently we have an incline juuuuuust enough to stop the flow. He moved the hose around, yada yada yada VICTORY!

Each red circle is a spout where water spews from.

I waited a day to make sure it was going to work like I planned, then put the mulch down to cover the hose and hold in the moisture. And mulch makes stuff look so pretty.