It will be intersting to see how long this lasts.

PEX tubing is generally not considered suitable for use in direct sunlight because that rapidly degrades it.

Appears the tubing you bought is not UV Stabilized which would have made it last several years. At best I think you'll get two years though I'll put my money on only one year.

But $30 is not much to pay to test if drip irrigation is right for you. Though I'm concerned about that way of thinking, it's still waste after all.

You can get thin-walled black polyethylene pipe for not much more than pex (indeed, it may be less) and it is suitable for exposure to sunlight.

With the white pex, even with larger holes, you will get blockage fairly quickly because algae will grow inside the pipe and will collect at the holes. The black pipe will avoid the algae problem as well.

I am curious why you chose this material. Will you leave it in place during the winter?

Let us know what you think

Interesting to hear all the notes on longevity. Mark got the pex piping because it's something our local hardware store carries (while drip irrigation piping is not). He bought it when I first started talking about drip irrigation...then there was a three or four year wet spell in which the pex tubing sat out in the sun waiting to be used before the rain stopped. There doesn't seem to have been any adverse effects so far, which suggests that pex is more long-lived than other readers suspect. It definitely stands up just fine to at least three or four years in the sun!

Alison --- We'll probably take it up because the tomatoes will go in a different place next year. But one of the pros of pex is that it can freeze without bursting the tubing, so we won't have to be careful to entirely drain it (supposedly).

I have really low water pressure in our orchard, which is where the 5,000 water storage tank is located. It isn't enough to use a soaker hose or sprinkler. I've been thinking of trying something similar, but portable. To create a length of 1/2" black ABS tubing with holes that I can 'wrap' around the fruit trees and/or lay along the berry rows for watering. I have a drip hole punch that I'm intending to use to drill the little holes. We have had an incredibly dry late winter/spring. It is raining right now and I'm so excited. My little pump (gravity powered Highlifter) hasn't really been able to keep up with the necessary irrigating in the garden. I'm actually cutting back on some of my secessional planting plans due to the anticipated extra long dry season. I need to keep water focus on traditional summer crops, like my zucchini and tomatoes.