How do you water?

[peteyfoozer]

Wondering how everyone else does their watering. Is your garden pulled in rows? Do you use drip? Sprinkler? Flood irrigate? If you use the rows, are you making them with a power tiller or by hand?
We used to be able to do ours with a tractor but the implements broke and now i have fenced the garden anyway (which prevents him from leaving the tractor in the back yard all year long for me to look at...)
I need to come up with an irrigating plan SOON!

 

[momofdrew]

I do a number of different way to water...we have to rain barrels which we use with soaker hose in the large garden 25-50+...My 2 raised beds 4x8 each I hand water with a watering can...and the rest I just use a hose as it is the farthest from the water source...I pray for a lot of rain... Last summer I hardly had to water as mother nature did a great job of it her self...

 

[so lucky]

I am setting up a sprinkler head on one of my garden fence posts. Got some snap-on hose ends, so it will be much easier to attach the hose to the sprinkler, turn the water on, and go inside and fix supper (or whatever). My DH groused last year about me using too much water, but it only raised our water bill about $7 during the driest month, so that is not a valid complaint.

 

[The Mama Chicken]

I haven't had to water at all yet except when I transplanted (and I used a watering can for that) but if the rain doesn't cut it later this year I'll be using the watering can for the raised beds and the hose for everything else. I have a wand attatchment that lets me do everything from a fine mist to a jet. My favorite setting is flood, I just put the wand below the leaves of the plant and flood the soil around the plant.

 

[peteyfoozer]

I was watering by hose, letting it run and fill the ditches between my rows, but it was taking HOURS out of my day! I need to figure a more time efficient method. We are high desert so rain doesn't make a showing here, and I have to water daily.

 

[897tgigvib]

My garden is completely enclosed for critter protection, and my beds are raised. Up through last year I had been using a single hose and dragging it all through the garden to water by hand. That was getting tiresome. This year I made an extension at the back of my garden, and am finishing up on an extension at the front of my garden, and also extended on the north side some.

Using a single hose with the garden like this to water would be way too much! Dragging around 150 feet of hose through 4 beds in the main section, down and up, then dragging it to the back, then dragging it to the beds on the front. I don't think so!

So I planned a new strategy. Some of my friends were suggesting pvc pipes and to do some plumbing. Same friends who get frozen and burst pvc plumbing every winter. Nope, not me.

I bought 5 fifty foot hoses and a bunch of male and female ends and a bunch of Y splitters. I sank sections in the middle of the beds so that each row has its own short hose to water with, and an on off valve. The front new section has one hose, and the rear extension has one hose.

The hose and the end pieces are made by the same company and the fit was perfect and tight. After doing it all, I had 24 feet or so left of one hose, and about a 4 foot piece left on another.

My water is gravity feed from a spring to a tank.

 

[thistlebloom]

My beds are 3.5 to 4ish feet wide and in most I use a soaker hose ( the black weeping type ). These get watered about 2 times a week. We have dry summers here also. The others get a rainbird setup. Everything gets mulched well to conserve soil moisture.

 

[Ridgerunner]

A variety of ways. I have three rain barrels that supply a lot, but that is only if it occasionally rains. During last summer, that was not nearly enough so I ran a hose to fill one I could use. I also mulch a bunch to conserve water as well as control weeds.

For transplants and areas I have seeded and need to keep damp so they will sprout, like carrots, beets, or lettuce, I hand water. I'll also hand-carry to keep things that should not dry out, like lettuce, once it is growing. Hand-carry in a 2-1/2 gallon bucket I got free at the deli in a local grocery store. I'll use a large plastic yogurt cup if I need to be gentle when watering. Transplants might be dill, tomatoes, pepper, something like that, or it might be young trees or bushes.

I also carry a lot of water to blueberry bushes. Those are shallow-rooted so they need to be kept moist without drowning them out. Those got watered about every other day during the drought last summer.

For rows in the garden, I use soaker hoses, including those Y's Marshallsmyth mentioned. I piece together two 100 foot hoses to get to the garden then use the Y's and a couple of 50' sections with Y's to run two soaker hoses at a time off of that. It is a pain dragging those soaker hoses through the garden. I can control the flow through each soaker hose by using the valves on the Y.

To deep water my orchard and certain other trees, I got a splitter that lets me attach four hoses at a time. Each attachment has a valve so I can adjust the flow. I put 15' or 25' hoses on that four-way splitter and adjust the flow to a trickle out of each of the four hoses.

I've also changed how I water my dogs to keep certain things moist. Instead of filling their water bowl directly from the spigot, I now carry a bucket to use. I overfill that bucket and anything that is left after I fill their water bowl goes on a few select plants as I walk back around to the front of the house.

I wish I only increased the water bill by $7. Last year during the drought it got so bad the water company came out looking for a leak. I started watering several young trees I'd set out to make a wood lot, but finally just quit on most of them and selected just a few to keep going. Several died but some others are budding back out this spring. Most of those just did not grow any last year.

 

[Nyboy]

Indian rain dance.

 

[The Mama Chicken]