Installing drip irrigation: What I'd do next time

What a freaking headache.  Meh, I shouldn't say that.  You learn 3 times as much by failing first than by doing something correctly first.

I have delicate, newly planted bare-root trees all over the acre, and that made it especially hard to unroll the 3/4" irrigation hose and lay it out without whacking and damaging the new plants.  I mean, that 3/4" hose is not at all like a garden hose, so unrolling was a pain.  It kinks easily, and it's hard to fix the kink once established.  The attachments are super hard to get onto the 3/4" hose with my level of strength.  Also, pushing the 1/4" drip lines into holes I punched into the 3/4" hose killed my thumb tips!  They're so sore!  At one point, I had the wrong attachments (see the male to male connection I messed up on).

If I were to do this again with established plantings, I would unroll, in the sun, in an open space to get it stretched out and let the sun warm it up, and fix the kinks.  Then gently move it into place.

If I were to do this again with NO established plants that I cared about, then I would lay it out in one of
these patterns.

Hmm.  It just occurred to me that I might've found info similar to this online before I started.  Oh well.  I was in a hurry.

Also, I figured out (finally!) how to get a strong enough grip to shove attachments onto the 3/4" and the 1/4" drip line.  This potholder, which is actually useless for holding hot pots!  Actually, maybe my sister read the box wrong when she bought it for me, and it's actually one of those jar opener assist things.  Who knows!  I just wish I had thought of it when I spent days wrestling with wet hose and wet fingers.  Gah!

Alright, I've got 2 of the 4 major areas set up.  That took 3-4 days, so I guess I've got a lot of work left to do.  :)  I also want to get timers that will turn the water on automatically.  I often forget to turn the water off.  OMG!  I'm forgetting right now!  

I'm out in the garden now.  Wow, somebody's happy.  The ends of this noble fir were looking brown and dry until after the first watering.

In fact, there's a general sense of ease and joy coming from the acre now.  Like all the plants have breathed a sigh of relief.

Oh!  I forgot.  I'd also weedwhack where the hoses go, and then staple landscape fabric under it (ie, before laying the hose), about a foot or 18" wide.  That way the hose wouldn't disappear under greenery.  At least, not in the first couple years.  Maybe I'd put wood chips over the hoses for winter.

Satellite images over time

I have a bunch of other short blog posts to make, but I just noticed that Google has updated the satellite view of our property, so I thought I'd do a little slide show of how things have changed.

First, here's a reminder of the plan for the empty acre.  (The remaining 1/4 acre has our house, and I have plans to leverage the microclimates caused by the heat-trap nature of our house and the shady north side, but those designs are more fluid.)

The basic plan:

The way I'll hope it looks.  :)

Satellite from 2016.  Nothing but weedy grass that had chemicals and biocides regularly applied to it by the previous owner--grass that was habitually mown and the clippings removed off-site.  (Ie, organic material removed over and over.)  Spectacularly dead dirt and compacted clay underneath.

Satellite from around 2018.  I didn't know what I was going to do yet, but a permaculture designer was helping me put in a zig-zag ditch that I later abandoned in favor of straight rows for annual beds over the septic reserve field.

Satellite from late fall in 2020.  I think the nearby forest fires were out by this time, and the annual grasses had died and mostly been trampled by me.  Only a few of my major trees were planted--a couple walnuts, some chestnut, a few berry bushes.  12 apple seedlings grew from 40 seeds I had planted.

It looks much different now, but I don't mind waiting until 2022 to see a good photo.  :)  The most recent changes are the 72 bare-root native trees I planted (noble fir, Oregon ash, big leaf maple, Garry oak, chestnut, beaked hazelnut, countless berry shrubs, Indian plum) and small plug plants.  Also, I have yet to do this, but this year I'll be altering the structure of the annual beds... again.

Ooof, this is Google's current image.  I think it's from August 2022.  Everything died, and unlike previous years, there were still brown dead spots into winter.  (Usually, the rains of fall restored greenery everywhere by the first cold snap, but not last year.)