Drip irrigation is an efficient watering system, boasting 90 percent water efficiency on average. Once used mostly in commercial operations, home gardeners are catching onto drip irrigation systems. They are perfect for vegetable gardens, because you can design the system to water only to the vegetable plants' moisture requirements. Although these systems can be expensive and initially time-consuming to create, your money and hard work will pay off in water conservation and low-maintenance watering.
Attach a backflow preventer to the outdoor water faucet that you attach your garden hose to. Attach the pressure regulator to the backflow preventer.
Install a water filter and connect it to the pressure regulator. Attach a properly sized tubing adapter between the water filter and the drip tubing.
Select the drip tubing that meets your garden's needs. Drip tubing has emitters that channel the water along the plants. You can have emitters that are spaced evenly for crops planted in rows or emitters spaced intermittently for plants that are spaced far apart.
Stake the drip tubing to hold it in place. Fix the end caps onto the emitters. Adjust the pressure regulator so that you add 5 pounds-per-square-inch to the operating pressure for every 10-foot rise in elevation above the water source.
Set the drip irrigation system so that it runs either automatically or manually. If you live in an area that receives a lot of rainfall, you may want to operate it manually to conserve water. Drip irrigation is designed to run twice a day, but you'll need to adjust the pressure regulator and the emitters' flow rate depending on how much water your plants require.
Check your filters and emitters at least once a week to ensure they're working properly and not clogging. Remove the drip irrigation system at the end of each growing season and store it indoors.