Over the past few weeks I have been working on installing a permanent pressurised water system to the veggie garden and front paddock area.

Up until now I’ve used a small 2-stroke petrol pump to bring water up from the race through a 1 inch pipe that just went all along the fence-line and into the veggie garden. Every time I used it I had to go down, fill the pump up, start it up with the pull-cord (and hope it kept going) and then go and position the sprinkler, or knocker, as they are called. Sometimes it just got a bit tedious, especially when the pump kept stopping!

When I first moved into the place I found that there was a 1 1/4 inch pipe running from the road up to the house. This was the original domestic water supply that originated from the Redlands Estate and it was cut off when all the local properties were sold off.

I only found it as an accident when I rotary hoe’d up one of the garden beds. The rotary hoe suddenly jumped and water erupted from under the ground. I had to go and turn off the house pump pretty quickly so I didn’t loose too much water, and then find a place to cut the pipe and block it off.

Anyway, what I decided to do was to bring the 1″ pipe into the veggie garden and join it to the pipe that runs down to the road and that would give me water all the way. All I have to do it put taps in at intervals.

The trench to the end of the pipe down to the road.

I bought all the fittings and joined the 2 pipes after digging trenches to bury the pipe in the veggie garden. That all went well apart from forgetting to buy some thread tape. Of course without that, the joints leaked slightly. Just a drip, but not good enough. I had to take that manifold apart a couple of days later when I’d got some tape and re-do all the joints.

The manifold joining the 2 pipes with branches for a tap and to the water tank.

I made the manifold there so that I could have a tap there as well, and also a branch off to the garden water tank.

Then I had to repair the pipe under the veggie bed that the rotary hoe attacked (gotta watch those rotary hoes!) and i started by digging it all out. There were 3 or 4 massive holes in the pipe that the hoe chewed out and I replaced a section about 3 feet long. I also put another tap there.

The holes chewed in the pipe by the rotary hoe. You can see why it leaked!

The last thing to do was to block the end off down by the road. I switched the pump on first to flush out all the earth, stones and spiders etc and once it ran clean, put the cap on and went back to the garden and turned on a tap.

It was a really great feeling to see the water come out of that tap!

All I have to do now is fill in the trench and bury the pipe, but that’s a job for a few days time. Work tomorrow.