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Watering Your Garden
All vegetables need adequate water throughout the season to grow
and produce abundantly. Here are some tips to help you meet your plants' needs.
* Vegetables need about an inch of water every week, so you'll need to
provide extra if rain doesn't provide enough. To determine the amount of
rainfall your garden receives, place a can or rain gauge in your garden and
check it after every rain. Add up the amount over a week's time, and if it
doesn't total an inch, it's time to water.
* To determine how long it takes to water a certain section of your garden with
a sprinkler, use a rain gauge or put a straight-sided can in the garden near a
plant. Turn on the sprinkler and check the time. When there's an inch of water
in the can, check the time again. Now you know how long it takes to supply your
garden with one inch of water.
* One way to tell if your plants need watering right away is if they look
wilted before eleven o'clock in the morning. If your plants droop in the heat of
the late afternoon sun, don't worry, that's normal.
* Water early in the day to cut down on evaporation losses (which are highest at
midday) and also to give your plants plenty of time to dry out. Wet foliage
overnight can help trigger some diseases.
* Avoid frequent, light watering. Water less often and more deeply. Soak the
soil to a depth of about six inches. This will encourage plants to develop a
deep root system so they can better tolerate hot, dry weather.
* Here's a clever way of watering tomatoes. Cut the tops from some
gallon-size cans, punch holes in the bottoms and dig holes big enough so you can
set them in the ground with only about an inch of the can showing above the
surface. Use two cans near each tomato plant and fill them two or three times
per week, or more often if needed. This method directs water right to the root
zone of the plants.
* You can water with an overhead sprinkler, a hose or with a watering can, but
soaker hoses and drip irrigation are the most efficient techniques.
Soaker hoses have tiny holes along them. By laying one right next to the plants,
the water seeps out to soak the soil thoroughly. You don't wet the foliage, and
hardly any water is lost to evaporation. Drip irrigation systems have individual
water lines that you place next to your plants; at the end of each line is an
emitter that drips water onto the soil.
* Increase watering of carrots and onions when the roots begin to enlarge;
increase watering of cabbage, broccoli, and cauliflower once the heads begin to
develop. Melons, cucumbers, and eggplant need more water after flowering, once
the fruits begin to grow, but slow down on watering a couple of weeks before
harvest.
Q. Is it true that you should stay out of your garden right after it rains?
A. Yes, diseases can spread quickly by traveling on beads of water from
leaf
to leaf or plant to plant. Even if you try not to touch the plants, you could
transfer bacteria without realizing it. Also, the soil is more easily
compacted when it's wet. This recommendation also applies to right after you
water with a sprinkler.
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needed by your hanging baskets and other containers. The granules absorb
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