Ll Diy Home & Garden Centre – Water. The key to life, and arguably one of the most important parts of any garden. It can also be one of the most frustrating and time-consuming aspects of gardening! But maybe it doesn’t need to be… Just because gardens can absorb water, doesn’t mean watering has to absorb your time! There are many ways to improve garden irrigation that save time, energy, and water.
This is a very common question that we receive, so I’ll try my best to answer it! Although it won’t be a straightforward, one-size-fits-all affair! Each climate, garden space, and even plant type may have different watering needs. And for the record, I am not an irrigation expert. We have yet to test a variety of garden irrigation solutions here on this home farm! I will share some information on what has worked well for us, and for our plants. Hopefully you can pick up some useful tips to try at home too!
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This article will discuss various methods of garden irrigation, including: soaker hoses, drip irrigation, ways to convert traditional sprinklers to drip irrigation, clay soil, hand watering, and rainwater harvesting.
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We’ll explore the least toxic, DIY-friendly, and efficient ways to water, including the pros and cons of each option. I’ll show you the garden irrigation methods we use in our garden with the help of a video at the end of this post!
Up to this point, we’ve been loose, mainly watering by hand, building DIY semi-automatic drip systems, and experimenting with various soaker hoses. We’ve gone through lots and lots of watering cans!
Our goal is to use time and water more easily, and most importantly, efficiently. With blogs and other commitments pulling us away from the garden more than ever, we want to spend our time in the garden tending to it, and playing in it, not spending hours and hours watering it.
Some people like to water by hand! I find it therapeutic and fun, when I get time to enjoy it! But that is rare these days. Plus, our garden space has more than tripled in size in the past few years!
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Irrigation map of our front garden. This photo is outdated and we now have two smaller raised beds on either side of the raised beds shown. Those are still watered by hand, along with wine barrels and pots of various kinds. Clay ollas are also in raised beds, which I forgot to mention here. Read more about all of these garden irrigation options below.
Sure, it’s probably not as water-wise as a painted yard, but guess what? Based on historical usage on our water bills, we use about the same amount of water now as the family of four that lived here before we did! They maintained a green lawn in the front and back yards.
By doing away with all the grass and most traditional sprinklers, our current garden irrigation methods are efficient enough to grow more plants (and more beneficial plants!) than the previous owners did – without increasing our consumption.
We will discuss all types of garden irrigation systems, but before we dive into the details, let’s lay the groundwork. How much water do plants like? How often should I water? What kind of watering is better?
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Water requirements will vary from plant to plant, so read up on what you are growing and what they prefer. In general,
Plants like moist soil, but not soggy, flooded, or in standing water. Plants breathe through all their tissues, including their roots. If the roots are too wet for a long time, then it stops them. It also increases their chances of rotting, or developing disease. Certain plants – like succulents, cacti, or even peppers – prefer to be on the dry side of things. Every pot, bed, or container needs enough water!
The average plant is very happy when it gets a good deep drink, but it can get a chance to dry out a bit before watering again. I don’t mean completely dry though! It’s all about balance. It is also usually better to give deep watering less often (e.g. once or twice a week, depending on the weather) over light, deep watering every day – unless you are dealing with hot and dry summers.
Before you start watering, tap the bottom of the soil surface a little. Is it still very humid down there? Or very dry, even several inches deep? Then think about how much you last watered, when, and
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Like Arizona. The schedule will also vary from week to week, with natural weather changes. Even in our hottest times of the year (in the 80’s) we don’t need to water more than twice a week. If it has been cloudy and cooler, a deep watering once a week may do the trick. If we have a wet winter, we can turn off all our garden irrigation for a few months.
You’ll begin to see patterns and set your own schedule, appropriate for your climate, season, sun, mulching habits, and the type of garden you have.
In-ground gardens and deep raised beds like ours (18-24 inches deep) will stay moist longer than shallow raised beds, or many containers. Each type of instrument differs as well. Strong pots and clay pots usually hold more moisture than something like fabric grow bags. We like to use fabric grow bags for many reasons, including improved drainage and their ability to air root pruning. However, they usually require more frequent watering than other types of containers.
Plants, too, encourage the roots to spread further. It also keeps all the soil and its inhabitants alive and happy, including beneficial microbes, fungi, and worms.
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An important consideration when it comes to gardening and irrigation is mulch! Mulch is a layer of material added to the surface of the soil, increasing its ability to retain moisture and reducing evaporation. As a best practice, try to use mulch in your garden as much as possible! Various organic materials can be used as mulch. Some examples include compost, leaves, hay, pine needles, leaf litter, wood chips, corn husks, grass clippings, or even newspaper. Read more about the pros and cons of different mulch materials in this article, and spread 101 best practices here!
In our raised garden beds, we use compost as mulch. We mix homemade compost with a tree-free soil conditioner product, topping the beds with this a few times a year, to a depth of 1-2 inches. Around the yard area, like around our fruit trees and other shrubs, we use redwood bark (in the front yard). Back where the chickens are free-range, we use a soft ground redwood bark known as “chimpanzee hair”. The spaces between our raised beds are covered with green gravel.
Now that we’ve gotten those concepts out of the way, let’s dive into the different options to consider for watering your garden.
Although this method of watering the garden can be time consuming and labor intensive, hand watering has its advantages! Manual watering gives you ultimate control over the amount of water, and when. It also makes it easier to distribute water evenly over the surface area.
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Although we are trying to get more and more automation in our garden irrigation systems, we still use manual irrigation in most cases! For example, watering a tree that is in a corner by itself without permanent irrigation systems nearby. In this example, we drag the hose once in a while (weekly for young trees, monthly for established trees) and put it there for a good drink. We also water our small raised beds, greenhouses, and plants in containers that are not near the drip line.
For people with one or two raised beds, or a few potted plants, hand watering is often still the most manageable and affordable option! I recommend investing in a good adjustable watering wand, multifunctional for ease and comfort, with more controlled watering – easily avoid wet leaves. Also, a quality reel cart makes a world of difference!
Wetting a brand new raised bed, just filled with soil. We don’t have a soaker hose for this bed yet, so we added a large GrowOya in the middle and will continue to water by hand. Obviously, if the plants were in this bed, I would not have to spray from so high. Using a watering wand allows us to place it down between the plants to water the soil, avoiding sprinkling the leaves of the plants.
Who knew someone could love a hose reel cart? Well… it happened. I can’t say enough good things about these Eley hose carts. After competing with other leaky, rusty, bulky, flat-wheeled carts for too many years, we finally invested in two of these Eley bad boys for our front and.
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