While it may seem like watering a vegetable garden is an easy thing, in reality there are a lot of factors that play into the process of the best way to water a vegetable garden. Variations include the type of soil your vegetables are growing in, the types of vegetables you're growing and even the season and weather pattern that is prevalent where you live.
Step 1 - Check the soil to see what kind it is. The soil type that you have will determine how often you need to water your vegetable garden. For example, sandy soil doesn't retain water well, so you will want to water your vegetable garden more often. Clay soils are great at holding water, so you would need to water your vegetable garden less often.
Step 2 - Choose how you're going to water your plants. Much of this depends on whether or not it rains a lot where you live. If it does, it may not be necessary for you to do much in the way of watering your vegetable garden. You may want to set up an irrigation system, or just use your garden hose as needed.
Step 3 - Add some organic matter (if necessary). Adding organic matter is one way that you can help the soil, whether sandy or clay based. For sandy soils, organic matter gives the water something to soak into, rather than the water just sinking right through it. For clay soils, organic matter gives the soil some lightness and air.
Step 4 - Add a fertilizer (when needed). Generally speaking, most soil fertilization is done when prepping the soil for a vegetable garden, but it is sometimes done (sparingly) afterwards. Whether or not you need to use fertilizer largely depends on how much organic matter is already in your soil. If there is a lot of organic matter in the soil, you probably don't need to fertilize your vegetable garden, or only need to do so sparingly. Organic fertilizer, such as compost, horse manure or chicken manure is best. However, if you do decide to use a commercial fertilizer, use it sparingly and be careful around young plants because commercial fertilizers can burn your roots.
Step 5 - Water your vegetable garden as needed. One thing to keep in mind when watering your vegetable garden is that most of the roots are near the surface of the soil and need to be thoroughly soaked. One way you can ensure this is by using a soaker hose, which allows water to seep out of the entire hose all along its length. Alternative ways are via sprinklers, the garden hose, and even a special irrigation.
The more you know:
- When the days are sunny and warm, your vegetable garden will need more water.
- If you live in an area where the humidity is low, you may have to water your vegetable garden more often.
- If the wind blows a lot where you live, this could cause some water to evaporate before getting to the plants, so you may need to add extra water.
- Be sure and keep the water off the leaves of your vegetable plants, as this can lead to disease.
- If it is a warm day and you notice that by the evening the leaves on your vegetable plants have turned brown and wilted, don't add extra water.
- Sometimes when plants are growing quickly the leaves get ahead themselves and the roots cannot get them water quickly enough. If this happens, you will notice by morning that the vegetable plants are lush and green because the roots have caught up with the leaves.
- Watering your garden in the morning helps prepare it for the day.
- If you live in a hot climate, you should water your vegetables before 9:00 a.m., or as early as possible.
- No matter where you live, never water your vegetables during the heat of the day. Even if you forget to water them in the morning, watering during the heat of the day will do more harm to your vegetables than good. If you live in a dry climate, you may want to water your plants twice daily: in the morning and the evening
