There is more to watering your flowers and vegetables than sprinkling a little water on the leaves. For healthy growth, most plants need about one inch of water per week and they need that water at root level.
You must use a rain gauge to determine if your plants are getting the required amount of water. Don’t rely on what the weatherman says or what you read in the paper. Rain amounts can vary greatly over just a short distance. Make sure your rain gauge isn’t under a tree or in the rain shadow of a building or tall plants. For an accurate reading, the gauge must be out in the open.
If you need to supplement the rainfall, apply water slowly, deeply and uniformly. Watering to a depth of five or six inches encourages the growth of deep roots, enabling the plants to seek out water at different levels in the soil. Deep roots also make the plant more stable and resistant to wind. For this reason, it is much better to water deeply and less often versus light frequent waterings. Once every five to seven days should be sufficient if no rain falls.
You can find out if you’ve watered deeply enough by digging down with a shovel in different parts of the garden to see how far down the soil is moist.
Another benefit of the deep root systems that develop from deep watering is that if no rain falls while you are gone on vacation, the plants will be better able to survive without supplemental watering.
It is best to water when the air is still. Wind will blow away some of the water before it even hits the soil as well as cause quick evaporation of water in the top few inches of soil.
The best time of day to water is in the morning when humidity is highest and temperatures are lowest. A lot of water is sacrificed to evaporation when watering mid-day. If you can’t water in the morning, the second best time is late afternoon. Watering in the evening may promote the growth of fungal diseases.
Signs that your plants aren’t getting enough water are wilting, curling leaves, stunted growth and retarded fruit development. Tomatoes suffer blossom-end rot and peppers drop their blossoms if the soil becomes too dry. Some plants, especially beans and peppers, will wilt in mid-afternoon heat because they are giving off more water than they can absorb. Don’t worry unless they don’t perk up by again the next morning. If they don’t, water them immediately.
There are many watering methods. Some people set a lawn sprinkler in the garden, others use a hand-held hose or watering can, still others use the most efficient method, a drip or trickle irrigation system. These consist of soaker hoses full of tiny pin holes and are set on the ground next to the plants. They allow water to trickle out slowly right where it is most needed with very little lost to evaporation.
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