Bigfoot Sustainability: Green Tip of the Week

Watering system being put to use! The top covers of the two pipes are removable
We just remove the top covers and use a hose to fill the pipes with water

This week's green tip is focusing on how to build a water efficient raised garden bed. Raised beds can be a bit of a challenge in terms of keeping your plants watered. Raised beds tend to be warmer and drier than a garden bed that is not raised. The new student garden only uses raised beds. Because of this and our reliance on volunteers we decided to put in a system that would be as water efficient as possible.

Woody debris in the bottom of the garden bed

Our first step to make a water efficient raised bed was to put large woody debris in the bottom of the beds. These provide an increase in the organic material and essentially function as water sinks. The debris will absorb water when the beds are wet and slowly release it as the beds dry out.

Next we wanted to be able to reduce evaporation from watering. Traditional methods of watering from the surface result in water losses due to the sun's heat evaporating a portion of the exposed water. To avoid this we built pipes that run length wise along the beds and than turn upward at 90 degrees at one end making the whole setup look like a "L". The other end of the pipe is capped.

The bottom of the long part of the pipe has wholes drilled in the bottom. The long part was then covered by a permeable material to keep dirt out of the pipes. This will allow water to drain out along the bottom of the pipe.

Once the pipes were completed we then placed them two per bed about six inches or so below the surface. With the watering system in place and the woody debris in the bottom of each bed it is our hope that our garden beds will be far more water efficient than a standard raised garden bed. Future improvements could include a mulch over the surface of each bed to further retain moisture.

Pictures of us working on the watering system: