garden:cultivate:tasks:water
Differences
This shows you the differences between two versions of the page.
Both sides previous revisionPrevious revisionNext revision | Previous revision | ||
garden:cultivate:tasks:water [2014/08/14 10:47] – davidbac | garden:cultivate:tasks:water [2015/04/24 10:45] (current) – davidbac | ||
---|---|---|---|
Line 1: | Line 1: | ||
+ | ===== Watering ===== | ||
+ | |||
+ | I can't provide more than a few guidelines here. | ||
+ | |||
+ | Plant needs vary based on soil, maturity, environmental conditions, etc. The only way I know to provide just the right amount of moisture is to stay in touch (be intimate) with soil and plants. | ||
+ | |||
+ | <note tip> | ||
+ | Get intimate with soil and plants. | ||
+ | </ | ||
+ | |||
+ | I don't use any calendar-based metric - once a week, for example. I pay regular attention and water when necessary. With some plants too much water is as bad as too little - both can stunt a plant and reduce its production. | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | ==== Checking moisture ==== | ||
+ | |||
+ | A quick measure of soil moisture is from looking at each plant. There is a slight lack of " | ||
+ | |||
+ | Next I dig a couple of inches down into the soil around a plant to see how much moisture is present. When the soil is dry at 2 1/2 to 3 inches I roll out the garden hose. | ||
+ | |||
+ | ==== Water for the soil at the roots ==== | ||
+ | |||
+ | <note tip> | ||
+ | Water the soil not the plant | ||
+ | </ | ||
+ | |||
+ | Depending on conditions and the type of soil I may not provide additional moisture for weeks. When I do water I water thoroughly intending the moisture to feed the bottom roots of plants, encouraging them to go deeper (into the fertile soil I work to create). | ||
+ | |||
+ | ==== Dry-land techniques ==== | ||
+ | |||
+ | It is nice to depend on regular spring rains but often here in the Pacific Northwest we have less than 3 inches of rain from June through September. There was one year with no rainfall for a 90-day period. | ||
+ | |||
+ | Dry-land farming is the opposite of Permaculture, | ||
+ | |||
+ | Dry-land techniques eliminate weeds, space plants further apart and include a dust mulch to break the capillary action of moisture rising to the top of the soil and evaporation. | ||
+ | |||
+ | Each root system draws from a larger area that is "all its own" so that it draws down the available moisture more slowly than if plants were intensely located. | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | ==== Spring rains ==== | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||