A question for someone who has played around a bit with ground
irrigation.
Obviously no evaporation if ground irrigation pipes are buried; nor will the plastic pipes degrade as much. When i tried this, moisture seemed to be uniform thoughout the hoop house, though i did use a substantial amount of harvested rainwater. With my setup i do have unlimited amount of water at my disposal from roofs and mains.
Maybe it's a stupid question, but is there any advantage to burying irrigation lines some inches below surface and relying on capillary to bring up the moisture. There's the obvious risk of someone cutting into pipe with a garden tool, and that raises question how deep to bury them. Only the top mm of soil seems to get a bit crusty, and that's possibly more noticeable cause the beds were amended with a rather peaty soil (though i'm yet to top off with clay). Perhaps a ground mulching of chopped
straw would take care of that. Another advantage might be far less slugs if the surface is pretty dry. Maybe i'm a little guilty of overthinking about it, but would value some extra opinions. In a few days, i'll be ready to start planting in it.
