Watering - Soaker Hose or Sprinkler?

[digitS']

Can't do it.

For nearly 20 years, I've had a garden that is about 1/2 acre. That is total and it is in 3 locations, not counting the greenhouse and small beds in my backyard. For a half dozen years, my larger veggie garden was a triangle. Yeah, permanent paths & beds on a triangular piece of ground. I've moved across the road where my garden is U-shaped .

All this ground is on other people's property, except my backyard. I've been 1 place for 15 growing seasons so, you can see that it's been hard for people to get rid of me .

Anyway, I haven't been willing to invest in soaker hoses and all the thinking that would go into their use on this ground. It would be better for the foliage to stay dry, generally. I do have the "good fortune" to live where summer is arid and, often, there's quite a bit of wind. We can sometimes go right thru the 3 months with only 1" of rain. Even if I water fairly late in the day (not a good idea), the plants will be dry by morning.

Steve

 

[NwMtGardener]

Yeah, Steve, I've come to the conclusion that I don't need to worry so much about getting foliage wet on my plants here either. I have my tomatoes upside down, so I just hung my misters and sprinklers down lower than their foliage for the rest of the garden, and the tomatoes get water by drip from the top, and everything else gets soaked all over. But I do try and water in the AM, and it sure dries out plenty fast! One thing I've been pondering this season is if I could fertilize with my drip system - I've seen those inline fertilizer dispensers you can get, but it seems to me that they would be hard to regulate who is getting how much, and when?! My method last summer was to hand water with fertilizer once a week or so...