In Kansas it pays to have water pumps. The latest addition is this inexpensive electric trash water pump https://www.amazon.com/Superior-Pump-91250-Submersible-Thermoplastic/dp/B000X05G1A/ref=mp_s_a_1_14?dchild=1&keywords=electric+trash+water+pump+submersible&qid=1622946749&sr=8-14
The flow of water is not overly strong but it does what i need it to for a garden. This is really nice because today was very hot and things were drying out quickly. I’ve been collecting thousands of gallons of rain water which i began pumping today through a standard garden hose. Long term i have bigger plans but for now it works great as it is. Its completely submersible.
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Hard to argue about your deal on the sump pump. (But I hate giving business to Amazon, among other giants).
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I have almost the identical pump. (I didn’t get it from the evil Amazon corporation though 
) I use it for the same purpose and am mostly happy with it. I’m in South-west Saskatchewan, Canada and I believe our climate is similar to yours in Kansas. 4-6" annual precipitation.
Do you mulch your operation down there? The past 3 years I’ve mulched everything around my yard with straw. There isn’t a speck of open dirt. My entire garden is covered with 4" of straw, and I push it back to seed through. So many people around here think I’m a little nuts and that I’m doing way too much work. Yes, it’s a touch more work to get it seeded, but the way it holds water, suppresses the weeds and the noticeable soil improvement are worth it 10 fold! And my garden was so productive the first year I couldn’t keep up with all of it.
Anyway, just wondering if you do that too. If not, I highly recommend it. It’s frustrating to watch the dirt dry out faster than you can get it watered, I know.
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Yes we use mulch though not woodchips this year on this garden. Im using woodchips on smaller trees as needed. We are using lots of carboard to recycle it between rows. There is many layers of decomposed mulch underneath. Originally i established this garden using hay as mulch. Ruth Stout famous gardener and author is one of the people who inspired me. This garden also has used wood chips and leaves. Many believe Amazon is evil but they saved me on many occasions during the pandemic when i could get nothing from noone. My doctor said i could not go to stores at that time and everyone else would not deliver to me or was out of everything. Before i make amazon out to be the night in shining armor that saved me i paid ridiculously high prices for those items like toilet paper, vitamins, supplemental food (it was winter and i was very ill). It’s the laws of supply and demand and it will be worse next winter with the terrible droughts around the world. Canada is excessively dry right now your smart preserving every drop of your water. Get your supplies together and be prepared with greens seeds. Im not trying to make anyone panic just pointing out Kansas though wet this year so far is the exception its dry in most food producing locations. If the crops are small around the world we need to be prepared for that. Hopefully im wrong. Parts of Kansas are very dry but we are fortunate and get 34" per year. Here is the downside many times in my location we get it almost all at once twice a year spring and fall. Then i sit on the water when i need it https://growingfruit.org/t/ponds-are-a-great-investment/7033 . This thread will make sense Strange weather will it get our blooms & fruit 2018? . The weather is extreme here as can be seen here by 2017 and 2018 A dry year in Kansas . A few pictures as reminders and my sympathy for those of you in Canada going through these difficult dry times believe me i do understand. So far this year Kansas is a mostly wet paradise.
Im very fortunate some parts of the state get around 20"
@39thparallel and @Olpea though fairly nearby are in a much nicer climate as shown by the maps
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Parts of Kansas are nearly identical to you. What you grow on the praries in Canada does very well here. I grow prarie cherries, pears from the harrow station among other things. Frequently when i research food crops i check Canada first because of the similarities. Overall many of the same tricks we use in this state during dry times like mulch you likely use there. Im fortunate to have so much water its not always like this.
Climate Saskatchewan: Temperature, climate graph, Climate table for Saskatchewan - Climate-Data.org
This is what my aronia orchard is like when its dry. I’m shocked they lived! Those were 7 year old bushes in that photo. They look lush and green now covered with berries.
This is how much water i release when its wet so i keep these pictures as a reminder when im tempted to grow things i shouldn’t. That’s a 15" pipe! Literally feast or famine! This place can be a real inhospitable place at times like that. Most likely when Kansas became known as the great American desert they showed up during a dry time. The year those drought photos were taken above by July we had less than 10" of moisture. You can imagine my smile when the water started running out of that pipe. The ground had hardly anything green left on it to stop the run off.
The trees with deep roots were all that were still green and grass where the water was at most recently around the ponds or where mulch was.
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Water is needed right now in Kansas so I’m pumping from a large reserve of stored rainwater. There are many thousands of gallons i have stored to water the garden. The problem is the distance from the water the garden and small trees are apart. Thought I would post how I solved that this year in case it helps someone. Typically I have bought 600 or 700 feet of garden hose in the past. This year garden hose has became expensive so I purchased 500 feet of raindrip 061050 5/8X500 Poly Drip Tubing, 5/8-Inch , Black. Then I modified it to work like an inexpensive garden hose. I used an actual garden hose where the water pump is but the distance in between i attached my home made hose. The gardenhose now easily attaches to the hose I modified for longer distances. This stuff does kink like an inexpensive hose so it’s purpose is only to get the water from point A to point B and the hose to remain stationary. The flexible garden hose can remain on either end. The fittings can be found online and are used for garden hose repair. The pump this is attached to is fully submersible. Water costs can be high in some areas when pumping hundreds or thousands of gallons like this. Some words of warning before you do this I pick my produce before I water since this water is open so bullfrogs, mosquitos , birds, snails and everything else have access to the water. Large water tanks can be expensive but if you have the water stored in an open pit, inexpensive pool like a pond you can collect a great deal of water very cheap. Again it’s only used to water the roots of plants just like a gray water system. Solar power could even be used to run the pump. Sometimes how well we survive is all about how clever our ideas are. Kansas and most other locations have plenty of water the problem is its not consistent. We get heavy amounts of rain part of the year then we have predictable heat and drought part of the year. My location is given more to extreme weather swings than even nearby locations.
This is the raindrip i used https://www.amazon.com/Raindrip-061050-8-Inch-Watering-500-Feet/dp/B000H5WQI2
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I have nothing against Amazon, live 20 miles to the nearest store, 35 miles from Lowe, 45 miles from Home Depot. Live of a fix income.
At least I have a choice of American made or elsewhere, like China.
Just don’t forget we made China a world power. Same with Japan, pour money after the war, just look what’s happening now.
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@aap
Good point and honestly if you shop at Walmart, Amazon or any other major retailer like Tractor Supply, Costco, home depot, Menards, Lowes, Sutherland, rural king in the USA right now they likely have fairly comparable items. I miss the days of small stores but honestly many had very little and what they did have cost 10x more. The old hardwares when I was growing up were more a place to gossip and shoot the breeze to learn how to do something. Knowledge was what we were really paying for and many still would pay. Home depot has began to capitalize on that need . Still having a rake handle installed like what was done by the blacksmith or hardware store may have went out like full service gas stations in nearly every place in the USA. When I built my Ponds I had to bulldoze a few fruit trees. That’s how progress is we sacrifice some things to move in what we believe is the right direction. We are not always right and their are times I miss those old hardware stores. I miss the old guys to that’s place stunk like 20 old men’s cigarettes and coffee with air so thick with smoke you could barely see. You always got a slight hint of bourbon and chewing tobacco in the crowd as well. The people were friendly and the knowledge was priceless. Perhaps most people never saw that as Kansas is typically behind the times but I saw it. Yes I have seen many changes like when the railroad tracks were pulled up and Tractor trailers took over or the coop began to be 5% as busy as it once was. Yes big box stores took over and not all the changes are good. At any time we have the option to open a hardware but the question remains should we? Nearly everyone does not want to open a hardware and honestly neither do I.
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Is there a sump pump made in America you can recommend to us?
Atlantic is German … any other?
The pump I posted in this thread is called a superior. It’s one of the reasons I purchased this one. Our Team at Superior Pump
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Amazon carry plenty American pumps. Superior Pump, I do believe is made here.
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Thanks for the info link.
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Definately this new trash pump has been working out good.
Just an update originally the pump put out an inferior stream of water but it was enough. The water output drastically improved when i used one of my older hoses. The new hoses appear to be inferior in water output to the older hoses i had though diameter was the same.
I actually measured output and length has a miniscule effect, choke points are the worst. Look at the hose ends; if the hole there is 1/4", it doesn’t matter if the hose is a 3/4" diameter; that one choke point will restrict flow
I actually built my own manifolds with a full 3/4" bore and I make sure the distribution hoses are full 3/4" bore as well.
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I was thinking about a trash pump, but with drip emitters itnwould be a problem. I went with a clean water, Generac cw20, 150gpm. I am pulling water from pond and have intake covered in 2 layer ss screen cloth. aam pulling from algae free area. Variable speed. Global industrial sale $139. sweet little pump.
I pump up to an electric pump booster, and have a pressure relief line in between.
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