This year, we're branching out and starting up several new 20x40' garden beds. We're doing corn, squash, and much more on our 5 acre property. Two of the beds are quite far from the house (hose won't reach without multiple connections/leaks) so my idea is to buy a sprayer and tow it along with my Kubota bx24 or garden tractor. I'm looking at the Fimco 40 gallon tow behind sprayer (TR 40-ex-tsc) for $449. My plan is to fill it with water and set it up to spray one garden bed for 20 minutes (or until empty) while I'm doing some other chore. Then, I'd fill and move it to another garden. Does this sound like it would work? I've never used a sprayer before so I'm coming to the experts for advice.
Sprayer I need help purchasing a sprayer....
- Thread starter bx24d
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fredhargis
Gold Member
I have that sprayer, and I'm not sure how you would get the water distributed evenly across the garden. Regardless, that's not much water. In the summer I'll water for about one hour at roughly 5 GPM, call it 300 gallons for whatever size area the sprinkler will cover. I'm pretty sure that's less than the 800 sq. ft. you'll have.
smstonypoint
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No expert here, but I don't think your plan is practical.
Your plan requires irrigation of 1600 square feet (2 beds at 800 square feet each). This is 0.037 acres (there are 43,560 square feet per acre). [FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]One acre inch of water = 27,154.2876 gallons ([/FONT]Weight of Water per Acre from One Inch of Rain[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]), so one inch of water on your two beds would require [/FONT]997.4 gallons (rounded). Assuming your sprayer has a flow rate of 2GPM, it would take 8.3 hours to apply the water, not counting fill up time and trips to the beds.
Another problem would be attending the spray wand. I haven't measured the coverage of my spot sprayers (1 @ 1GPM and 1 @ 2GPM) at various settings of their spray tips and distances, but I'm guessing that they cover 9 square feet or less at their maximum throws.
I think it would be more practical to use water hoses in the short run. I would also consider running plastic pipe underground to the beds and installing hydrants near the distant beds as a long-term solution.
My :2cents:.
Steve
bx24d,
a couple of thoughts...
the sprayer you are looking at has both a spot sprayer wand and an extensible boom sprayer with nozzles. this sprayer is designed primarily for application of herbicides/pesticides to turfgrass, meadows, etc, and of course weeds etc alongside these areas.
the wand is used for spot spraying, such as when spraying Roundup on unwanted grass/weeds within a gravel driveway. the wand nozzle can be adjusted for a short- or long-range dispersion pattern. the boom produces a droplet mist, is intended to be a set distance above the application surface, and is used when the sprayer is pulled across the application area.
neither of the fluid application methods i described above are really suitable for irrigation of a garden bed. the biggest problems i foresee are that
1) you are going to lose a lot of water to evaporation [that is, the fine mist that you get on the garden plant leaves is going to evaporate and not do you any good -- for herbicide application this is OK, but not for irrigation];
2) getting even distribution of the irrigation water is going to be difficult. the boom sprayer will be useless to you in this irrigation application, and the spot sprayer will need considerable manual work to get the water to where you want it, and where you want it is IN the soil, not on the leaves.
3) the 40 gallon capacity is not going to go far -- at all.
my advice is to not get such a sprayer; instead -- purchase a much larger, purpose-built towable irrigation tank. then lay "leaky pipe" (that is, irrigation pipe or hose with tiny holes in it) parallel with your crop rows and adjacent to the seed bed, and terminate these pipes at a common point using a flow control manifold at the end. the manifold need not be elaborate, the kind they sell at HD or Lowes in the garden hose aisle will probably do you fine.
so in practice .. pull alongside the manifold with your towable irrigation tank, connect up a short length hose to the manifold inlet, and disperse the water directly to the soil at the plant base. this will make best use of the water, and you won't lose a lot to evaporation. you also won't have to stand there and babysit it.
regards,
wrooster <-- has sprayer, does not think it's a good idea for irrigation.
galaxie428
Gold Member
I would have to agree with the previous posters, 40 gallons is not going to get you very far. I have a 300 gallon water tank I use to water my garden, it is about 100'x35' and 300 gallons don't even really wet the ground much. It helps I think but not as well as I had hoped.
I bought 5 sprinkler heads from farmtek that I hook up to the tank and run with a roller pump, it works but like I said, 300 gallons don't last long and it doesn't just soak the ground.
I bought 5 sprinkler heads from farmtek that I hook up to the tank and run with a roller pump, it works but like I said, 300 gallons don't last long and it doesn't just soak the ground.
ayelvington
Gold Member
I recommend that you check out the threads on driving your own well. I'm driving a well now, but I currently have to run two trips a day hauling 140+ gallons of water in my RTV to water my orchard. Once I get there I have to hook up a generator powered water pump to feed the drip irrigation line.
You're going to be wasting a lot of time hauling water. Drive a shallow well and put in a small pump house.
You're going to be wasting a lot of time hauling water. Drive a shallow well and put in a small pump house.
dstig1
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Dig a trench or pull a pipe and put an outlet out near the gardens with PE or PVC pipe. You don't really have to hard plumb it in - you could even connect it to a hose bib near the house as desired with a short hose. You should be able to pull the PE pipe with a middle buster or the like. I haven't done it, but it seems many here have.
Should be a lot cheaper and far more reliable and less work in the long run.
Should be a lot cheaper and far more reliable and less work in the long run.
agreed. although the OP hasn't specified his location -- if up north he will either have to trench it below the frost line and use a freeze-proof hydrant, or alternatively trench it shallow and put together some fittings so he can attach his air compressor and blow out the water in late fall.
wrooster
fredhargis
Gold Member
I'm guessing you're referring to the hand wand, and I'll try to measure that later today and get back to you. Mine has a trigger lock to hold the sprayer on, but even if it didn't you could easily block the trigger open with a zip tie, or even a block of wood. The tip on the hand wand is adjustable, but I haven't opened it to it's full width.