Drip system installed!

I'll be sure to get pictures later.  Like most things, I did this in the dark, haha.

So, you can order 250 feet of soaker hose online, but you're going pay a hefty price for it (unless you get the cheap brand that fails after one year...no thanks).  I have debated over what to do with watering, and I've thought of drip systems, sprinklers, soaker hoses, and just watering with a garden hose.  Here's the pros/cons of each:

Drip System
Pros: Long, slow, continuous amount of water provided to plants.  Can be placed right at root level.  Saves money since no water is wasted.
Cons: Expensive to set up, lots of fittings

Sprinklers
Pros: Lots of water provided very inexpensively (since sprinklers are installed in my yard already). 
Cons: Very wasteful of water, due to evaporation and/or wind.  Water is provided from overhead, and must have time to soak through mulch into ground.

Soaker Hoses
Pros:  Water applied at the roots.  Long slow continuous amount of water provided to plants. Cheaper than drip system.
Cons: Some water is wasted, since hoses need to run between rows/plants that is just watering the ground.  Slightly expensive.  Requires lots of fittings.

Garden Hose:
Pros:  Lots of water, versatile to move around.  Very cheap.
Cons: Wasteful due to evaporation/wind.  Annoying to drag a hose to each plant, and very time consuming.

So, what do you do?  Clearly the drip system and soaker hose are the best approaches for the benefit of the plant, but are expensive.  Well, luckily I am an engineer and can never settle for doing things the simple way.  I built my own.

Home Depot was having a great sale on garden hoses, so I bought 300 feet (wow!) of garden hose, for $40.  I created a unit of measurement, which I called a "link," that is a 15-foot strand of garden hose.  Thus, from 300 feet, I have 20 links.  Perfect, since I needed 17 links for the garden.

I also ordered (from Amazon) some 5/8" tees and elbow fittings for these hoses.  I could have done without the elbows, but oh well.  They were a couple bucks. 

Now with my links all cut, and hoses laid out, the fun began.  I tediously walked along and drilled a very tiny hole every foot (or 6", or 10" - whatever the spacing of the plants was).  As of right now, I'm about 3/4 done.  My back said "I'm through!" so that was it for last night.  Then came the test. I plugged a cork in the end of each hose, and turned on the spigot.  It took a little bit to get the pressure up to par, but it finally did, and then I turned it down a bit.  I let it run for 30 minutes, under the mulch, at root level.  Perfect.

In the end, I guess I could add up all of my expenses and it probably would be a little more expensive than the soaker hose plan, but it was a "custom" install, so I'm happy with it.  And it's still a lot cheaper than those expensive drip-irrigation systems.

I'm pleased :-)

Now I have to ask, what will I do when I have a garden that is an acre or so, one day!?  Yikes!