People with acreage how do you water ?

When it rains I don't need the rain barrels much. When it doesn't rain they quickly run dry. They are still very handy and have saved me a lot of water and inconvenience, but there have been times I've run a hose to a rain barrel to fill it up.

Mosquitoes love to lay eggs in rain barrels. I use "dunks" for that. Dunks are a form of BT that targets mosquito and fly larva. It should be available at a big box store with a garden center. Since they float a heavy rain can wash then out so I wrap them in a square of tulle with a rock, tie that up with string, and tie the other end of that string to a stick that floats. Those don't wash out.

Some people put a screen over the rain barrel so the mosquitoes can't get in to lay eggs. Others may have other solutions.
 
I just got past the bibs and not tuckered out, had a nap.

I'm a little surprised no one mentioned two options: aluminum irrigation pipes and abs plastic pipe.

Only smaller fields around here use the 4" pipes that are carried but that is what is in my big veggie garden. It's between little fields of alfalfa totaling about 3 acres. In the garden, the pipe isn't moved until the end of the season.

Four inch pipe may not be needed in your yard, NyBoy, but I've seen people use 2".

At another garden, I had 1" abs plastic pipe running through bushes, trees and across a gully to my garden. It was a couple of hundred feet. The pipe stayed year around since I could drain it. A section was coiled up in the gully. In the garden, that pipe was permanently buried under a center path.

Steve
 
I also say faucets. Hydrants are for firemen. Funny how terminology differs for the same thing. My husband is from north Alabama, where a water hose is called a hose pipe.

I want to get real ambitious, rent a trencher and play tinker toys with PVC pipe. I want to wait until I build sheds and barn so I can route water to where it is needed.
 
Bay, remember, "You can do anything with plastic (PVC) pipe." (My brilliant DH)

I don't mind a short coil of hose, but my dream is much like bay's. I want all the hoses running across the yard buried under ground and popping up near where the water is needed. Then a simple, short piece of hosing can be used to do the watering.

My system with the reel hoses worked pretty well for a few years. I could uncoil, move, and wind up hosing as needed relatively quickly and easily. Then someone messed up my system instead of letting me handle all the water. End result: broken hoses, broken reels, broken reel winders, hoses rewrapped backwards, kinked, and knotted.

I hate toting miles of hosing from here to there, knowing full well that as soon as I get it there, I will need to pick everything up to mow. It is so frustrating that I could cry.
 
I keep it simple I have irrigation buckets. 5 gallon buckets with a small hole drilled in the bottom. Place the bucket, fill it and it's usually empty 12-24hrs later. I keep a few around and they are all labelled so I don't put something else in there on accident.

Nice thing is they are portable, and I can simply store them when the weather changes. Downside is getting them filled. I'm still hauling water but it's not a crazy aWhen we planted 4 trees last year (I think it was) each tree got a bucket and I'd fill them every so often. Nice thing too was I know how much water each tree got too.

I've used those buckets for most perennial plantings to help get things established with great success. It's simple but very effective.
 
There is a benefit to having a lot of hose that needs pulling and coiling. It's a pretty good arm workout.
If you stand astride it and pull hand over hand quickly, so it's in a pile behind you, then coil it neatly on the ground or hanger your arms get a nice warm glow, not a genuine burn, but enough to know you're doing something.

Okay, I know I'm really scraping the barrel here, but I'm trying to be positive!
 
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