OK, let's begin at the beginning. Assuming you have a single hose outlet, you'll want some kind of a splitter. You can probably use any old home improvement store splitter. I bought these at Amazon. Simple, sturdy. By the way, I use a wrap of teflon tape on all of these connections. One small step to both stop leaks and help with seized threads.

Next, you typically need a short length of garden hose to go from the splitter to the timer. This hose will be under pressure 24/7 during the season, and also exposed to sun. You want a fairly high quality one (this one is rated to 150 PSI), but even so I consider this a 'wear item' that is likely to fail in one season.

Water timer. This one is an Orbit 62061Z (which Amazon does not want me to link to for some strange reason). I've owned a handful of these and find them pretty decent. Relatively easy to program and operate; there's nothing worse than a fussy timer that's difficult to read upside down and bent over. Takes a couple AA batteries, which usually last the growing season. This is for sure an item to remove in the winter, if there's water inside it when it freezes it will render it useless. There are 'multi-outlet' versions of these. I tend to just buy the single ones twice if I have that sort of need.

Backflow preventer. Required by code in most areas, this prevents any potentially muddy irrigation water from flowing back into the drinking water supply. This one is simple and rugged.

The next little 'meter' with the LCD screen is to measure 'gallons' of water. This was provided to me by the P-Patch, and they request that we use it.

Below the 'gallons' meter is the Dripworks / Irritec 200 mesh filter. The filter keeps the silt and grit out of your drip network. It's pretty easy to clean.

Below the filter is the Dripworks / Senninger 10 PSI regulator. This lowers the line pressure down to a level appropriate for the drip network.

Below the pressure regulator is the Dripworks female hose start

The whole assembly is tied to either the hose bib itself or a handy post. The first place where the main line tubing contacts the ground has a staple over it to stablize it. You want to check that section of tubing periodically; it can 'kink' if you haven't got everything laid out relaxed and staked down.

After a short section of tubing, I installed a stopcock first thing. This isn't necessary for most setups. It provides a handy way to 'leak check' everything on this page without watering your garden. It also allows me to isolate this filter assembly from the rest of the network. Since I have two networks that can be joined together, I wanted the ability to shut it down.

Mainline Tubing and Fittings

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