Gardening - Watering
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There are several different ways to deliver water to your garden.
Depending on the distance from the water and how much watering
needs to be done, your technique may vary. You want to make sure
you don't over water as this is as bad as not enough water. The
topsoil should dry in between waterings. When you do water, make
sure you get a good soaking in. If you are just getting the top of the
ground wet, this could promote your plants to be shallow rooted. The
more mulch and organic material you have in your soil, the more water
it will retain. This means less watering and less work for you.
When we are watering our soil to get our seeds to germinate and to
pop up out of the ground, we like to use a sprinkling can and soak the
rows we are trying to get up and out of the ground. This is a good
method for shallow planted seeds as it won't uncover your seeds.
Lettuce comes to mind when thinking of shallow planted seeds, but
too much water force can uncover many different types of seeds.
Above ground sprinkling systems can be the ticket. As the garden
gets more mature and larger, we elevate our sprinkling wands on a
step stool. We have several smaller gardens that one sprinkling wand
will, for the most part, cover the entire garden.
Soaker hoses are good too. They tend to clog up from time to time
on us though. For situations where you may just have two rows, like
flowers, a soaker hose can be used to water just a specific location. In
this kind of scenario, a wand would waste a lot of water by watering
areas that are not garden.
During different times of the season, part of your garden may need
water, while other plants may not be needing water, or watering at
that specific time of harvest could prove to be detrimental to your
harvest. Its at these times where we fill a horse tank with water and
dip from that with our sprinkling can to water just the specific plants
that are needing the water. This cuts down on the number of trips to
and from the hose to fill the sprinkling cans up.
Using the sprinkling cans also works well for the smaller gardens of
patio gardens. Puts the water right where you need it. If you have
just a small raised strawberry bed in your yard, a sprinkling can may
be all you need. Another choice could be just a hose with a sprayer
attachment screwed on the end of it. Make sure not to have set too
high as that will flatten plants.
We have a friend that raises small amounts of vegetables in hanging
plants all around the outside of his business. He uses a drip method
for watering his plants. He just turns on the hose which is connected
to his pipeline. At each basket, there is a dropper spout off the
mainline and it just drips water into the plants. Any excess water
drains out the bottom of the pots. Of course this could wash out
nutrients faster than more traditional methods.
Another friend uses old two liter bottles with the bottom cut off and a
funnel screwed on for the lid. He fills up the bottle after he sticks the
funnel part in the ground near the plant. Then fills them up with water
and it slowly drains into the soil. This gets a much deeper penetration
of the water into the soil.
It has been said by some that you should water during the morning
hours so that your plant leaves will dry during the day. The reason for
this is if you water in the evening, your plants will have wet leaves
overnight and that this can cause fungus to grow on your plants. I
have watered a lot in the evenings after work and have not had a
problem with this. It could be where I am at there isn't a big fungal
problem, so if you are getting fungus on your plants and you are
watering in the evening, a change in your watering times could be the
ticket to solving your fungal problems.
One thing about watering that you might not be aware of in the fall.
When trying to stretch out that late season lettuce crop and you start
getting some frost on the leaves in the morning. Rinsing the leaves
with water before the sun hits them tends to help prevent your plants
from kicking off. It works on more than just lettuce. Early season
frosts on strawberry plants in northern Indiana has been a problem
from time to time. Rinsing off the blossoms can save you some fruit
when June rolls around.
Depending on the distance from the water and how much watering
needs to be done, your technique may vary. You want to make sure
you don't over water as this is as bad as not enough water. The
topsoil should dry in between waterings. When you do water, make
sure you get a good soaking in. If you are just getting the top of the
ground wet, this could promote your plants to be shallow rooted. The
more mulch and organic material you have in your soil, the more water
it will retain. This means less watering and less work for you.
When we are watering our soil to get our seeds to germinate and to
pop up out of the ground, we like to use a sprinkling can and soak the
rows we are trying to get up and out of the ground. This is a good
method for shallow planted seeds as it won't uncover your seeds.
Lettuce comes to mind when thinking of shallow planted seeds, but
too much water force can uncover many different types of seeds.
Above ground sprinkling systems can be the ticket. As the garden
gets more mature and larger, we elevate our sprinkling wands on a
step stool. We have several smaller gardens that one sprinkling wand
will, for the most part, cover the entire garden.
Soaker hoses are good too. They tend to clog up from time to time
on us though. For situations where you may just have two rows, like
flowers, a soaker hose can be used to water just a specific location. In
this kind of scenario, a wand would waste a lot of water by watering
areas that are not garden.
During different times of the season, part of your garden may need
water, while other plants may not be needing water, or watering at
that specific time of harvest could prove to be detrimental to your
harvest. Its at these times where we fill a horse tank with water and
dip from that with our sprinkling can to water just the specific plants
that are needing the water. This cuts down on the number of trips to
and from the hose to fill the sprinkling cans up.
Using the sprinkling cans also works well for the smaller gardens of
patio gardens. Puts the water right where you need it. If you have
just a small raised strawberry bed in your yard, a sprinkling can may
be all you need. Another choice could be just a hose with a sprayer
attachment screwed on the end of it. Make sure not to have set too
high as that will flatten plants.
We have a friend that raises small amounts of vegetables in hanging
plants all around the outside of his business. He uses a drip method
for watering his plants. He just turns on the hose which is connected
to his pipeline. At each basket, there is a dropper spout off the
mainline and it just drips water into the plants. Any excess water
drains out the bottom of the pots. Of course this could wash out
nutrients faster than more traditional methods.
Another friend uses old two liter bottles with the bottom cut off and a
funnel screwed on for the lid. He fills up the bottle after he sticks the
funnel part in the ground near the plant. Then fills them up with water
and it slowly drains into the soil. This gets a much deeper penetration
of the water into the soil.
It has been said by some that you should water during the morning
hours so that your plant leaves will dry during the day. The reason for
this is if you water in the evening, your plants will have wet leaves
overnight and that this can cause fungus to grow on your plants. I
have watered a lot in the evenings after work and have not had a
problem with this. It could be where I am at there isn't a big fungal
problem, so if you are getting fungus on your plants and you are
watering in the evening, a change in your watering times could be the
ticket to solving your fungal problems.
One thing about watering that you might not be aware of in the fall.
When trying to stretch out that late season lettuce crop and you start
getting some frost on the leaves in the morning. Rinsing the leaves
with water before the sun hits them tends to help prevent your plants
from kicking off. It works on more than just lettuce. Early season
frosts on strawberry plants in northern Indiana has been a problem
from time to time. Rinsing off the blossoms can save you some fruit
when June rolls around.