One way to water garden plants
You can't always depend on nature to provide sufficient rainfall to keep your vegetable or flower gardens thriving. Occassional watering will be necessary and an expensive irrigation system isn't needed. With water conservation in mind, you can water garden plants more efficiently following some simple watering techniques. Does this Spark an idea?
Instructions
1. If your garden is small, you can use a garden hose, with or without a nozzle. Water the plants from the base so the water is taking the shortest route to the roots. If you are using a hose without a nozzle, have the water on a slow stream so as not to wash away the soil. Another option is to use a sprinkler can without or without the sprinkler attachment; or try the age-old process of using a bucket or large kitchen pot and a ladle to dispense water to each plant.
2. For larger gardens, a lawn or yard sprinkler or soaker hoses can be used.
Keep in mind that the higher the sprinkler shoots the water into the air, the more water will evaporate before reaching the plants. To reduce chances of evaporation and thus conserve water, keep the water flow through the garden hose to the sprinkler at the lowest rate possible so the sprinkler functions as it should. In addition, you can reduce chances of evaporation by watering in the morning, before the heat of day. In a particularly large garden, you will need to periodically relocate the sprinkler to reach all areas.
The advantage of soaker hoses in that you can place the hoses immediately after planting and then you can turn on the faucet (from a garden hose connected to the house or a rain barrel) as water is needed. A soaker hose is a very efficient to water garden plants since it is dropping the water directly at the base of the plant. A potential disadvantage in soaker hoses is that you may need to lay a lot of them, and depending on available water pressure, you may need to change hose connections to water all areas of a large garden.
3. When using hoses to water your gardens, to follow through on the concept of watering garden plants more efficiently, install a water timer to the faucet to shut-off the flow of water through hose at a designated time. That way, if you forget the water is on or get detained, your garden plants will not be overwatered, your water bill won't be outrageous, and you will help to conserve water.
Tags: garden hose, garden plants, soaker hoses, chances evaporation, conserve water, garden plants