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When we moved to the Abilene area (HOT and WINDY) I persuaded my lovely wife we didn't need any lawn area at all. The first year we rented a mini excavator for a weekend (about $300, saves your back!) and planted over 20 trees we'd gotten at various stores/sales during the previous month.
We knew we'd need to water them to get them established, and I knew I wouldn't be reliable or timely to do so. I bought drip irrigation line and little battery-powered faucet timers. It turns on the faucet water supply to the drip lines with run zig-zag all over our 1 acre of property to all the trees.
3 years later that system is still in place with even more trees added to the zone. I did finally last fall get rid of the battery-based faucet timer and set up a conventional 24v sprinkler controller that would run on AC (no more dead batteries/dying plants making the wife angry). Still run it off a faucet through a 6 ft hose to the valve manifold/valves.
My wife gradually adds to flower beds nearly every year (we've been married 10 years, I finally figured this out). I just keep creating more above-ground drip hose areas. They're easy to add on to, require no digging, and all still run off a regular sprinkler controller. When she wants to add plants she just runs a little 1/4" side-tap from the main 1/2" line. When she wants to expand the flowerbed we branch off the 1/2" line into the new area or if pressure is insufficient we add a new separate zone/valve supply from the controller.
This year I planted a 20x40 garden, on its own new zone, all with drip line. Next year I'll
Amazon or
eBay order my drip line. The local home store has lines with emitters built in every 12" but after getting it all in I learned some plants are supposed to be at 12" spacing, others 6", and others 3', or anything in between. The internet will allow me to order a variety of drip lines with different spacings and next years garden will have plants properly spaced with correspondingly appropriate drip emitters.
Now, since this is a chicken forum I'll circle back and ask if anyone can recommend a hot, arid, windy-compatible meat bird or another dual-purpose bird? We got 6 Ameraucana chicks about 3 weeks ago for our broody silkie but now we're down to 4 (2 got out of the run and our dogs killed them). I've got another silkie going broody so want to get more chicks for meat and/or dual purpose. Thoughts, suggestions?
