Greenhouse irrigation

hi Paul

thank you for your contribution!
I'm now working on a same project, not for a Greenhouse, but for my garden.
My project is, a Raspi-Pi2 for the central and 3 ESP8266 for the 3 stations
(station 1, Pump with 2 Valves for sprinkler / station2, with 4 Valves / station 3 with 1 Valve)
on the Pi is node-red running and at the moment I have some of troubles to find the right way
my first question, MQTT, I was reading a lot about, but is this necessary only when for external use (outside from the "home-network") or it helps generally?
thanks