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Watering to Keep Your Plants Healthy and Happy

Just what are the best ways to water your vegetable garden?

I guess each gardener has their own ways of watering. It may be different methods for different areas of the garden. I certainly have my own way of doing things – including irrigating.

Again, it is an important topic and one that deserves reasonable consideration. After all, there seems to be a bit of a shortage of this precious commodity in my part of the world.

Because we’re growing our food organically, we want to be sure that we’re watering with the cleanest water possible, so I prefer to use rain-water for my garden water whenever possible.

Whenever I set up a new garden bed or vegetable plot I always think about how I’m going to get water to it. Then I incorporate the irrigation system as I’m building the bed or plot. It’s a lot easier to get the watering garden system in place before you have all the soil in and especially your plants.

I once had a plot that I needed to bring water in by the bucket. That became not much fun fairly quickly – a valuable lesson.

Water is arguably our most precious resource. All living things need water to survive. But we don’t just want our productive organic food gardens to survive, we want them to thrive! And a growing plant uses a lot more water than one that is just surviving.

Every part of the plant growing process uses water.

When plants start to become dehydrated, they stop photosynthesising, close their stomata, stop taking in nutrients and stop growing. It can take a few days for some plants to recover, even if there has been no tissue damage. So it is vitally important not to let your plants become dehydrated (just like yourself).

Not enough water can kill or stunt your plants. Sometimes mild water stress can be a good thing, as it encourages plants to send their roots down deeper into the soil, making them more drought tolerant. The aim is to use as little water as possible, without causing stress.

Ways to reduce water use

Create soils that are made up of humus and organic matter. These soils can hold lots of water and it is easily available to your plants. It has great water-holding capacity as well as having a high nutrient content.

Mulch your soil surface. This reduces evaporation, keeping the underlying soil moist for longer. Any mulch is better than no mulch, even if it’s old carpet underfelt (the older kinds are safer) or newspaper. This also helps prevent soil erosion.

Use drip or soakage irrigation – preferably under the mulch or soil surface. There are purpose-made recycled rubber hoses available now that are perfect for the job. You can save up to 90% by using drip irrigation rather than a sprinkler.

Only water when it is needed and as much as is needed. If you’re not sure, try the finger test. Yes – just poke your finger into the soil and see if it is moist or dry. Make sure the water penetrates as deep as the roots. It’s a waste to water any deeper than that.

If you live where summers are really hot, plant crops under partial shade. It could be shade from a pergola, tall plants such as sweet corn, or even shade cloth.

These are simple methods to reduce your water consumption, while still making sure your plants will grow very happily. You may also consider collecting your own water. If we all had rain-water tanks attached to any structure that could collect water, it would not only give us clean, free water, but would reduce the amount of water that ends up in our storm water drains and reduce the strain on our water reservoirs. It is also much better for food gardens, as mains water is often high in salts, chlorine and fluoride.

Re-use of “grey” water is also another way to reduce how much water we consume. It can be used on lawns and other plants in the garden that are not for food production.

Today’s Top Tip

Did you know that a five percent increase in organic matter can quadruple the amount of water the soil can hold? So keep adding your composted material to the soil surface. To increase the water conservation even further, add a layer of organic mulch to the surface. This greatly reduces moisture loss and helps to keep plant roots cooler through summer.