People with acreage how do you water ?

[thistlebloom]

Thistle, I'm learning from the best!

Mary

Well, let's just say you're learning and leave it at that!

 

[Smiles Jr.]

Thistle provided a very good picture of a frostproof hydrant. We have these in many places here at PlayStation. The threaded end of a frostproof hydrant is actually a hose bib connection but the valve design is what makes it a frostproof hydrant. The valve body is actually deep in the ground - below the frost line - and they are available in different depths for different latitude installations.

This is a hose bib. This picture shows a more common bib but there are many design variations.

I think the words "hydrant" and "hose bib" are pretty much the standard throughout the USA. Hope this helps.

 

[majorcatfish]

have done it both ways dragging 100's of feet of hose everywhere to a hydrant, but that's back years ago before moving the garden closer to the well and adding a bib to it now just have to drag a 75' hose around.
bad thing about hoses laying in the way of mowing is once and while the hose would jump up into the mower, always kept hose splice kits handy in the barn...
got smart and installed a hydrant but lasted only a couple years once the trees grew up the garden only received 4-5 hours of sunlight, so moved the garden to where it is now.

 

[Nyboy]

http://www.homedepot.com/p/Prier-Pr...phon-Outdoor-Faucet-Sillcock-478-08/204516667 I have 2 of these on my house. Before them I had to turn outside water off for winter, that meant going in to crawl space.

 

[Nyboy]

When I was a kid, all of the rich people in neighborhood had underground sprinklers. Kind of funny because lawns in city houses are postage stamp size. At the country house about a acre around the house is landscaped. I had one faucet for outdoors, would drag hoses all over. I once left a brand new $75 hose out, and lawn guy ran it over, ( I didn't know they could be spliced back together). About 3 years ago I had a plumber with my nephew helping run a waterline underground from house to back shed. I was still dragging hoses all over. Last fall I broke down hired a water company to put in underground sprinklers in. Guess what I still have to hand water certain parts of the yard, anything close to house. I did not want water hitting house everytime they came on. The system as a rain gauge that's suppose to stop sprinkler from coming on if its rained. Now I am putting in a small orchard it is on the other side of a stream from my house. Watering that is going to be a problem.

 

[Ridgerunner]

If you do a search on frostproof hydrant you get one thing. Do a search on frostproof spigot, hose bib, or faucet you get something else entirely. We had a hand pump on a cistern on the front porch (used to be back porch but them they put in the road) where we got most of our drinking water when I was growing up. The other source for water was a hand dug well at the bottom of the hill where we used a rope and a bucket to get water. Never used water from a spring but had some relatives that did.

Personally I've never heard of a "hose bib" but it seems to be a common terminology in some parts of the country. I always call them faucets or spigots.

I have some rain barrels that I carry buckets of water from to water certain things like my blueberry bushes or trees that I've transplanted. that need pretty constant watering when the weather turns really dry. I'll use that for spot watering too or when I transplant things into the garden. For more general watering I drag hoses.

I installed a frostfree hydrant next to the chicken coop. That was a big help since it's well over two hundred feet from the nearest outside spigot from the house. That's what I generally use to water the garden although a hose from the house would be shorter but I don't like the tripping hazard.

Did you know that the blade on a riding lawn mower does not stop spinning when you disengage it? It can still damage a hose if you run over one. Don't ask how I know. Now I raise the mower blade as high as it can go as well as disengage before I cross a hose. Well, at least most of the time.

 

[Carol Dee]

Our garden and fruit trees are at the lot 2miles from the house. There is NO water there. No well. (old landfill site.) We catch water in 2 55 gallon blue plastic barrels, and this 100 gallon barrel.

We have to dip out of the drums. But are able to hook up a small electric pump to short hose and longer hoses to send water to gardens. We still need to fill buckets and haul them to the back of the lot to water trees if needed.

This is the cub cadet mower and small trailer he hauls water in. Also uses it to take spray tank back to orchard. (Note the flower that seeded and grew all by itself!)

 

[Nyboy]

I am setting up 55 gallon rain barrel this weekend, just don't know how much rain we will get. The town waters the public flowers with something like that

 

[Carol Dee]

You will catch a lot more than you would think, if you put it under a down spout and catch the runoff from the roof of a shed, barn, garage, house....

 

[Nyboy]

Putting a gutter on green house tomorrow, to set up rain barrel.