Reuse last season's drip line and save on irrigation costs with these tips.

The weather is warming up, which means spring showers are giving way to summer heat. For gardeners, this also means it's time to start thinking about irrigation. Irrigating your garden can take several forms depending on the size of your operation. If you have a large garden, there is a good chance you use drip irrigation.

Drip irrigation is incredibly useful. It allows you to water row crops at the turn of a switch, but laying it out is a bit of a process. Then comes the couplings and manifolds, and by the time the whole system is set up you are hot, sweaty, and tired. As the season progresses, rips and punctures eat away at your lines, and by the end of the summer you're spending a lot of time repairing lines and cursing under your breath whoever was careless enough to damage them in the first place.

New drip tape is relatively easy to work with. It comes on a nice roll and doesn’t have any holes from errant harvest forks and cultivators. All you have to do is cut it to the appropriate length, stop up one end, and plug the other end into the manifold. Why, then, would anyone want to reuse drip tape when they could buy it new?

Reduce, Reuse, Recycle

With a little effort on your part, drip tape can last several seasons. This saves money and reduces waste. However, reusing drip tape can be very time-consuming if you go about it the wrong way. Reusing drip tape requires preparation and foresight, but with the right tools you can recycle your system from year to year.

Electrical Tape Fixes Everything

The best way to repair rips in drip tape is electrical tape. Electrical tape is one of the few tapes that can stick to a wet surface, making it ideal for repairing drip lines. If the line is clean, you can repair small holes in the line even if the line is soaking wet. This is good news because repairs are best done with the water turned on, as it allows you to tape evenly around the line. If you tape too tightly, the line will pinch and your repair job won’t last very long. You can also use the water from the hole to clean the line prior to taping.

To repair drip line with electrical tape, start taping about an inch below the rip and overlap your tape by a few centimeters as you wrap it. Your tape should overlap the far side by an inch as well, and should be taut but not tight.

Couplings

You will definitely need to invest in some couplings. Not all rips are repairable with tape, and sometimes it makes more sense to just cut the line and reattach it to itself with couplings. This is also a good way to gauge the health of the line. If you need to put more than six couplings in one 100-foot line, it might be time for that line to go to the trash. Reuse your drip line for as long as you can, but don’t push it past its limits—or yours.

Reels

Instead of ripping up drip tape and tossing it in the trash bin at the end of the season, plan to reuse your line by placing it on a reel. Your reel can be as simple or as high-tech as you want to make it, as long as it wraps up your drip tape without tangling it. This enables you to easily store it for next year or transfer it to a new bed halfway through the season. Just make sure you label it by length and the spacing of the holes so that you grab the right line for the job.

Prepare for Next Year

Prepare your drip line for next year by evaluating your lines at the end of the season for major damage and then storing them neatly on reels. Badly torn up lines could be saved for shorter rows or cut down to serve as caps for the ends of the line. You will probably need to buy some new drip tape every year, but by reusing your lines you will save money and reduce waste in your garden.