This video is a must see for a new gardener. Almost everyone does this wrong at first. We discuss proper watering schedules and we also discuss effects upon plant yields with overwatering.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=BtslMiSigls

For more information on watering check out a former blog post.

Anyone who hates gardening because of all the weeding probably doesn’t use mulch. Last year I hardly ever had to weed because I use mulch wherever possible. If for only this reason I would mulch, however, there are many more benefits to mulching your garden. Go to the USU extension fact sheet on mulching for a full run down of mulching and the different types, I will sum up the benefits here.

Benefits to mulching:

• Reduce moisture loss
• Increase nutrient and oxygen absorption due to near the soil root production
• Moderate soil temperature
• Control weeds
• Reduce compaction
• Add visually to landscape

Hopefully this will convince you to use mulch, but now the question is what kind. Here are a few tips.

First, my favorite mulch is black plastic. It is fairly inexpensive, and provides the best results for the benefits listed above. When it is not possible or practical to use plastic, then I like to use grass clippings.

For example, with peas, beans or corn it is not very practical to use black plastic because it would require so many holes. For these I spread grass clippings which also improve the soil over time. I also do this for my raspberries.

A word of caution when using grass clippings, you should not use a “weed and feed” lawn fertilizer on your grass or else the weed control will affect your plants, if you do use this type of fertilizer then let the clippings compost for a number of weeks before using. Also, you should let your clippings dry out before using. I usually only need to dry them out for a week in my climate.

Of course, if you want the many benefits of mulching then you need some sort of irrigation system that would allow mulching. I would recommend a drip irrigation system as shown here.

When I first began gardening I was amazed to learn how poorly I watered my vegetables. In fact, I have been astounded to learn how many others were doing the same as me. Hopefully in this post I can help explain how often, how much and why overwatering will yield poor results.

First, the frequency. All of my vegetables are on one of three different watering schedules.

• Twice a week schedule for water loving plants like strawberries, lettuce, onions, brocolli, cauliflower, carrots, peas etc.
• Once a week for summer crops like peppers, beans, corn, squash, cucumbers and eggplant.
• Once every two weeks for hot crops like tomatoes, and melons.

I will water a little more frequently when temperatures are pushing 100 degrees, but generally that is the schedule. The trick is to water deeply, but infrequently.

That leads to the question of how much. Of course this will depend on your drainage, evaporation and many other factors, but a basic rule of thumb is 1 inch of water will soak down 1 foot, 2 inches of water will soak down 3 feet and 3 inches will soak down really far. Therefore, I try and water 1-2 inches at each watering for water loving plants and 2-3 inches for once a week plants and 3-4 inches for hot crops. This means that I will leave my drip irrigation hose, which emits 2 gallons per hour, per emitter, with emitters 1 foot apart, on for about 1-1 and 1/2 hours for water loving, 2 hours for once a week plants and 3 hours for hot crops.

So what is the big deal you may ask? Watering schedules are important for plants because the same reason that plants need water to grow they also need oxygen. Overwatering will prevent your plant from getting the oxygen it needs. It will also prevent it from getting important nutrients into the roots like iron. Most importantly there is a phenomenon in plants called the source-sink relationship. This is a bit hard to explain without a white board, but lets see if I can make it simple.

Plants make all of the fruit sugars, proteins etc in the leaves. So in order to make fruit a plant must first make leaves. This is called the vegetative stage. Plants need water, nutrients etc. and the plant knows to send its energy into this process. Somewhere along the way the plant goes into a fruiting stage. It stops putting energy into creating leaves and begins to put it into the fruit. All of the fruit is being made in the leaves (the source) and then it must transfer this food into the “sink” or the fruit.

So what does all of this have to do with watering schedules? Well, when you overwater the plant it will not naturally go into its fruiting stage. It will stay in its vegetative stage and keep producing leaves and new growth. Basically, it still thinks it Spring because it keeps “raining”. For the same reason, you will want to stop side-dressings of fertilizers/nitrogen after a while so that the plant will not stay in the vegetative stage.

So for those of you who grow beautiful tomato plants with hardly any tomatoes, it is because you are watering too often. Trust me on this and if you don’t then ask the experts. This is especially important for tomatoes since over/under watering will cause blossom end rot. Don’t be worried if you see blossom end rot of the first few ripe tomatoes, this happens all of the time, however, it should only be on the first few and not the rest.

We do have a problem in Utah with tomatoes cracking. Therefore, after the plant has successfully gone into the fruiting stage, (it is making lots of tomatoes) then I begin to water once a week to help prevent cracking.

I use these practices in my own garden and get great results. I have yet to have a plant die due to lack of water, however, I have had many problems in the past due to overwatering. For more important information on irrigation practices please see another post on the subject.

I want to show you what system I use in my garden for irrigation and why I think it is the best around. Before that, I want to mention that drip systems that you buy in stores are worthless, in my opinion, because the ones with just the holes in the tubes are cheaper, but they get clogged really easy, they don’t water evenly and sometimes even spray all over. Also, if you choose a hard PVC pipe system and then drill holes in it, that may work, but again you can’t control the flow of water, which is paramount to irrigation.

I have ordered a new one this year that seems close to my hand built system by Toro. I will see how it does.

So here is the system. I buy really thin and cheap 1/2 tubing from Walmart, made by Orbit, and the necessary fittings to attach to my hose etc. The pipe is less than $5.00 for 50ft and the fittings are a little more than $1 a piece.

The thin pipe is really nice because I then poke pressure regulating emitters into it with ease. The emitters are made by Rainbird. I use the 2.0 GPH emitters. This means that each emitter will deliver 2 gallons per hour no matter the change in pressure. Here are the emitters.

I buy these at a plumbing supply house and they will range between $.35 to $.75 a piece depending on where you go or what type of an account you have. This can get expensive for a larger garden, however, you should only have to make this purchase once and you will save money in the long run with not having to replace bad systems or poor plants due to improper irrigation.

So once I have the pipe, I poke the emitters in one every foot. At the end of the hose you just crimp it over and wrap electrical tape. This will save money on buying caps for the end of the hose. It will also allow you to open up the hose at the beginning of the new season and clean out the hose by running water in it with the end open.

When you have the length you want then just lay it down the row with the emitters laying sideways.

Some rows may require one length down and one back for even watering. I would suggest this for rows with plants on either side of the row or plants with large root systems like squash, cucumbers, raspberries etc. Here is an example of a run down my soon to be strawberry patch.

You will notice a couple of other things going on here from this picture. First, you want to have a 3/4″ filter (about $10 at plumbing supply house) at the beginning of the system. This will ensure a long life for your emitters so that junk doesn’t clog them up. Note that the filter is 3/4″ NPT thread which is different than regular hose thread. Therefore, you will need to my a 3/4″ female hose thread by 3/4″ Female NPT adapter for both sides of the filter.

You will also see some PVC pipe running off my system. This is for my raspberries at the other end of the garden. At the end of this PVC hose I have a valve and then another drip system running down that row.

Now for your manifold system. You will want to be able to control water going in each row in case they are on different watering schedules. In order to do this I cut up a cheap hose and add ends to each length.

Between each length is a wye with valve controls (about $1 each at walmart). Click here for examples. I continue on the run with one side of the wye and the add another wye to the other end. I will run two rows off of each wye. This allows full control over each row. Note on the wyes. They 20-30% of them will break each year. You can choose to spend $5 a piece on the really nice ones or just replace them as they break. I just replace them.

Now whenever you need to water your garden you just hook up your hose to the filter end and turn on the rows that need to be watered.

I water plants for about 2 hours each watering sessions. 2.5 hours for those that require water less frequently but deeply. This is assuming a 2 GPH rate of flow.

A quick primer on watering. I have water loving crops (lettuce, strawberries, onions, carrots, peas etc.) which I water twice a week using this system. I have summer crops (squash, cucumbers, corn, beans, peppers etc.) that I water once a week. And then there are the vine crops like tomatoes and melons that only need water once every two weeks.

Water deeply, not frequently. Note: when germinating seeds I keep the ground moist always. Therefore, I will water everyday for about 15 minutes until the plants are up. I will use a rainbird type sprinkler for this for speed unless there are other plants in the garden.

Now, why is this system preferable to other methods?

• Mulching- This system allows you to use a black plastic or organic mulch system. I put black plastic under all the plants I can so I don’t have to weed and the moisture doesn’t evaporate, except through the plants. Vine crops love the heat of black plastic.
• Diseases- If you water plants on the top and the leaves get wet then you invite fungal diseases to set on your plants. The longer the leaves are wet, the more likely the disease.
• Water conservation- Drip irrigation puts the water right where the plants need it. This saves water and your money by not watering empty space or the air.
• Simplicity- This system is easy to operate. Of course you have to build it the first time, but then when you need to water once or twice a week you just connect a hose and walk away (I would get a timer since you can forget about it). Watering in furrows is a pretty good system, except that you have to keep moving the water etc. That is why this is better.

I hesitate to say that you will get better yields on this system, but I believe I do. I will just stop it at that.

Special thanks to Dr. Gordon Wells of Spanish Fork, UT for teaching me this system.

Update: Here a closeup of the wye configuration