digitS'
Garden Master
The above post in this thread is from 9 years ago and covers my approach.No, not from the sky, irrigation. The technique gets lots of bad press about inefficiency but is common over many acres of cropland. We had flood irrigation when I was a kid on the farm. Terribly inefficient but carrying a shovel over my shoulder still takes me back to those days ...
I tried a soaker hose once but I had three problems. Water tends to go straight down here )unless it appears as ice on this glacial till). I would have needed a great deal of hose to cover all the ground, even in one small garden. I also couldn't separate the soaker hose bed from the schedule for all the sprinkler irrigated ground, nearby. Finally, I had no idea how much water I was putting down!
The amount of water is important, of course. It doesn't help most plants, beyond a shallow-rooted KBG lawn, to only have an inch or 2 of soil wet.
Soil type makes a difference. So does the crop. I can't put too much emphasis on the crop type, however. I'm growing lots of different things, sometimes in every square foot.
Age of plants makes a difference. In my annual vegetable gardens, young plants are pulling very little water out of the ground. Tiny plants also have tiny root systems. They may need that frequent light watering perhaps even more than the lawn grass. If they are to reach some size, a deeper root system would be helpful. Make them go searching for the moisture!
I've never thought wilt is a good thing and I've got the idea that running the sprinklers about every 3 days through our hot, dry summers would be best. Unfortunately, I wasn't in charge when calendars were set up and days were grouped in 7's. A 7 can't be divided by 3, evenly! And, I'm on schedules with everybody else. So, I water twice a week.
How much to put down? Look, summer rain account for very little here. A 1/4" is a big deal but it won't get through the trees, hardly wet the ground in the open, and will evaporate quickly in the sun and wind!
I try for 3 times that much, at least. At 3/4" of water, moisture is going down to plant roots. Consistently adding that water twice a week gives plants the opportunity to grow, up and down.
How do I measure that? By the clock and with an old pan from the kitchen. Set the straight-sided pan about half way from the sprinkler and the distance it's supposed to water. Check the pan about every 15 minutes. Couldn't be easier!
Steve
Hoses : They aren't all that difficult but, of course, it is easiest to have them in their own location for an entire season. In the commercial greenhouse where I once worked, we had 2 hoses in every 2nd path between beds of roses. They were used to throw water over the bushes during the hottest weather when the air conditioning was inadequate to keep the greenhouse temperatures at 85°f or below. We finally had a misting system installed and hoses were no longer needed. Until then, they stayed in place 12 months of the year with a loop across the path for each. In all the years, I never knew of one person stumbling over them. Think about it, a 1/2" hose is only about 3/4" in diameter. How many adults will stumble on something of that size? Oh yeah, if you put one loop an top the other, it's now 1 1/2 inches! Don't do that! Don't coil it and leave it just anywhere. Lay it flat against the ground or moved the rolled hose to some location where you will not walk.
Below is a picture of sprinklers that I have used through the years. The one beside the post isn't really attached and not being used this year. I had it and 2 others for a very small garden in my neighbor's yard at that time. They were attached to very tall posts so that the dahlias would be covered during those years. The 2, 3 sprinkler setups are what I have used and continue to use in my yard. They work fine for the lawn areas which are quite narrow. The height helps with the flower beds along the outside perimeters. The tall sprinkler (one of 5) with a rainbird, impulse sprinkler is what I used in the corn patch when it was beyond the reach of the field sprinklers that were on 4" metal pipes and used to water acres of alfalfa and grass on the property owner's ground. All these in the picture are made with PVC pipe that didn't take much to put together and have lasted for about 20 years.
