I liked the project part of building a vegetable garden, but after being chained to a sprinkler last year starting the lawn, I decided that I was going to put in an automated system for watering the vegetables so I would not have to run home at lunch when I forget to water in the morning.

I looked at soaker hoses and individual drip emitters, but for the rows of vegetables I decided to go with drip tape, which I was only able to find on the Internet. Drip tape is a plastic tube with 1 gallon per hour drip emitters spaced along the tube every 12 inches.  I purchased the drip tape as well as the compression connectors to attach the tape to the poly water line.  The compression fittings worked well to T off from the main line, but I don't really like the end cap compression fittings and chose to run most of the tape in a loop.

The vegetable garden is located in the back of our yard so to get water to the system I ran a hose inside of our hedge back to the vegetable garden.

Then I started laying out the poly line and attaching the T's for the drip tape where the rows were going to be.  At first I terminated each row of tape with a compression end cap but all of the end caps were leaking more than I wanted, especially the first ones with the highest water pressure, so I connected the tape for the rows in a loop so the pressure is more consistent.

Using a standard timer, a pressure regulator and a 3/4 inch hose to poly line adaptor the hose waters the garden each day.

If you add plants to the garden that are not along your rows, you can attach 1/4 inch tubing to the poly line to connect individual drip emitters. Now all I have to do is turn off the water when it is raining.