Gardening

Build your own. Helluva a lot cheaper, and more configurable for what you need. All you need is a cheap spout timer, some drip tubing, and a couple connectors. Any hardware store will have all the bits and pieces you need, but there are tons of supply sites online that can ship any bits you need.

You can what a kit looks like here for example. You could just buy a starter, or source the bits yourself for a little bit cheaper. Once you have a basic setup going, it's dirt cheap to maintain and build off of in the future.

If you're irrigating on hills, look into pressure compensated emitters.

Also if you're practicing BDS, lots of drip stuff is made or owned in Israel

I don't know if these kind of irrigation systems are available outside europe too, but maybe check out the Blumat drip irrigation system (DE) or similar systems.

The cones work as indicators and regulate a passive valve based on soil humidity. Completely analog, no smart shit inside. Just clay that expands/ contracts. And a stupid tube.

Or maybe check out Ollas

Drip irrigation is hard to get right. Either you waste a lot, or the plants dry up.

Those passive methods are more efficient and you can maybe even dissolve some mineral fertilizer in the water

I abandoned drip irrigation for my raised beds. The vegetables weren’t happy with the approach, a lot of plastic is involved, and I was spending a lot of time futzing with parts. Instead: lawn sprinklers evenly water each bed and easily allow for seasonal crop augmentation.

This or soaker hoses. For drip irrigation, if you’re hooking up to a spigot, just keep in mind the pressure isn’t great so the longer your tubing, the less the end will get. I finally hooked mine up to our sprinkler system and it’s better, especially with raised beds.

As someone else mentioned, if you have raised beds and using a spigot, might not be the best option. But play around with it. Hands off watering will change your gardening life!! :)

I use a $40 hose timer and inline regulator filter. Works great!

I found Drip Depot’s YouTube videos indispensable for learning everything I needed to get mine set up even if you don’t choose to order from them.

I didn’t order from them at first but found their prices much better than what was available locally and they had a much broader selection as well.

I spent $12 on tubing and parts and just built my own. I have a solar timer on my hose bibb that runs it for a couple minutes every 6 hours or so. In the fall I wrap it all up and redeploy in the spring, I probably don't have to do that but I do anyway. I don't have to worry about batteries or drought or whatever, it's sweet. If you're on the fence about doing irrigation, you should do it.

Late to the party, by quite a big margin, but I have some thoughts having gone the commercial and DIY routes on this with two rounds of raised beds.

First, drip irrigation = great. Soaking the soil slowly is way better than flooding it and having a lot of the water simply roll off. It also keeps water of leaves, which is generally good for your plants.

I found homeowner grade commercial systems effective, but also fiddly and expensive. I was happy with the Rain Bird setup in my first garden after I installed an inline pressure regulator. The pressure regulator was necessary because we have very good water pressure out our spigot, even after 50' of hose. The Rain Bird system didn't offer much flexibility year over year. For example, if I planted a sprawling zucchini one year and wanted to put tomatoes or peppers there the next I was cutting hoses and swapping fittings as you can fit multiple tomatoes/peppers in in the space of one zucchini. Draining everything for winter was also fiddly and I would inventively lose a few parts to the freeze/thaw cycle. These systems are not easy to break down and reuse.

My original garden beds wound up getting torn out when we pulled out our pool and I went the DIY route with our second garden setup. Instead of running a hose to my beds, as I had before, I dug a trench and laid PVC pipe underground. Each of my beds has its own ball valve to help balance flow/pressure. On the house side, I PVC glued a hose adapter that I use to tie into a hose bib. I usually have a brass Y valve attached to it, so I can either send water to my garden or the hose.

None of the PVC pipes or fittings downstream of the ball valves have any PVC glue on them, so draining them for winter is super easy. Inside the beds I simply laid the PVC on the ground and drilled 1/8" holes into them every few inches. If you ask your favorite search engine, you can find a number of articles/videos showing variations of this technique. I do have a sprinkler in my raspberry bed, as raspberry canes are weeds and row style irrigation doesn't work well for them.

Despite using drip irrigation, powdery mildew on squashes and gourds seems unavoidable due to my garden's location. It's flanked by trees on its eastern side, which means it doesn't get direct sun until 10-11 in the morning.

... I hope this wall of text is helpful. Feel free to ask for follow ups.

@dominotheory Lots of excellent tutorials at dripdepot.com. They are a bit more expensive than others, but they stand behind what they sell. Twice they have replaced things I purchased that didn't meet expectations without asking me to return the defective items.

A drip system running off an existing hose bibb is simple to install and doesn't require expensive tools.