Garden Blog

Watering the Garden: How to Water Your Garden Successfully.

Watering the garden can be an overwhelming chore and one that may keep you from having a thriving garden. So, how do you water your garden successfully?

Location

The location of the garden is one the biggest reasons why gardeners fail at their first attempt at growing. Often, the garden is placed too far away from the home and/or too far away from a source of water.

If your garden is 150+ feet away from the house, you are likely to fall behind, not just on watering, but also pruning, weeding, fertilizing, and pest control because it is out of your sight and easily forgotten.

In the same vein, if you have to lug your 100 foot hose stretched all the way out to length to water your entire garden, it is something you are going to resent doing and are likely to give up on.

Make watering easy by having your garden close to your house and close to your water source. Make it even easier by setting up a drip line system to each of your garden beds.

The start of my garden is under 20 feet away from my back door. The longest bed is 50 feet. A 100 foot non-kink hose easily makes it to the end of the garden beds.

Picking the Right Hose

A non-kink hose from Costco. It is flexible and easily moved around the garden.

The hose you use to water can make or break your gardening experience. If you need a 50ft to 100 ft hose, you don’t want to buy your average garden hose from your local box store. Ask me how I know….I spent 2 weeks fighting with an unruly kinking hose before I broke down and bought a non-kink hose from Costco. Best 50.00 I’ve spent on the garden. It is easy to maneuver and rarely ever loses water pressure.

I do advise avoiding the non-kink hose options on Amazon. That was my first hose and while it was functionally great, it did not last an entire season before the hose busted in an unfixable manner. It also was the same price as the one I picked up from Costco. So make sure the quality is there when making a purchase.

Timing/Frequency

It does matter WHEN you water. Watering should be done in the early morning before the sun has fully risen and/or in the evening as the sun is setting. This prevents the soil from boiling the roots of your plants.

How often you need to water is going to depend on the climate. What are your day temperatures like and how much rain do you get? Someone in the valley in Arizona for example would need to water at least twice a day to compete with daily temps that are over well over 80 degrees as well as a severe lack of rain. While a gardener in Central Pennsylvania may only have to water once a day or not at all depending on how much rainfall there is.

Plant Type

Knowing which plants like more or less water will also set you up for success. For example, tomatoes and peppers do not need as much water as cucumbers and zucchini. It is ideal to create a calendar for a watering schedule. Thus, allowing you to mark off how often you watered for each plant type.

Final Thoughts On Watering The Garden

Create a schedule and make it easy. Those are the secrets to watering the garden successfully. If you can’t put your garden close to your house, put the systems in place to make getting water to the garden simple and effortless. You will thank yourself for the up front work and it will be worth every penny.