Watering is about all I can do in the garden right now, apart from weeding, that is. The days have been hot, so at least some crops (like lettuce) are getting a daily sprinkling.
I’m still watering by hand, with a very long, heavy hose. I keep thinking and talking about setting up some kind of drip system, but haven’t done it yet. Although I have a start. I jabbed the soaker hose in my cane berries when I was doing some digging there the other day. So I’ve got to pull it all out and replace it. I’ll use the pieces in the vegetable garden somewhere and see how it works out.
The hot weather has also meant delaying transplanting my fall crops. They’re been ready to go in – as soon as it looks like we’ll have a cloudy day, or at least a cool morning, I’ll pop them in the ground.
In the meantime, watering gives me a chance to observe, to just watch (if I can summon up the patience to do just one thing at a time) and to “commune” with the plants. They look healthy at least.
If you’re looking to conserve water (and watering time, perhaps), there are critical times for watering each fruit and vegetable. There are also times to not water at all, mostly closer to harvest. This is especially important for storage crops such as potatoes and onions. Go here for a table of critical moisture periods.
The weather has been a challenge in the Willamette Valley this year for sure. The bees are fewer than in past years although with the borage in bloom they have arrived.
To help with watering I use those 30 foot green 2″ wide flat sprinkler hoses throughout my garden beds. Where necessary, around flowering, fruiting plants such as eggplants, melons and zucchini I cover the hoses with strips of burlap cut from free bags from the coffee roasters. This helps to keep the water spray off the plants. Keeping the hoses covered with growing plants and the burlap also keeps the UV rays off the plastic thus a longer life.
PS – I’m using your tomato panel idea. There were lots of leftovers from building
Thanks for the tip, Debbie. My husband was just talking about those the other day. I didn’t think about getting bags from the coffee roasters – glad you mentioned them! We’ve still got a few laying around from the days when feed used to come in them, but I was wondering where I could get more.