Don't risk losing your summer crop by improperly watering your plants — Follow Carla Emery's secrets for a healthy, well-hydrated garden.
1. Plants can absorb food from the soil only if it is in solution. So in effect, plants must have damp feet in order to eat.
2.
A desert is usually rich farmland that happens to be lacking water. If
you add water by irrigation, those arid lands will bloom. Only land
whose topsoil has eroded or that has poisonous materials in the topsoil
is true desert. Water supply and temperature are the two great
determinants of what plants can be grown where.
3.
The best time to water is in the morning. Plants do most of their
growing during the day and need the water for photosynthesis. Watering
in the morning also allows plants to dry out by evening, which reduces
the chance of mildew and rot.
4.
Mulching helps to keep soil moist as well as to suppress weeds. (But
wait until the ground gets thoroughly warm before putting on mulch.)
5.
Plant species differ a lot in water requirements. Vegetables need a
lot of water; most vegetables are about 85 to 90 percent water.
Flowers, trees, and bushes can all survive longer without water than
vegetables.
6.
Erosion happens when wind or water moves soil. If you garden or farm
on sloping land, you risk erosion. Grass planted in strips across
slopes, summer mulches, and winter cover crops help prevent erosion.
Strategically placed diversion ditches also help.
7. Watering must be faithful. If stunted by water shortage, many vegetables never grow normally again.
8.
Watering needs to be generous. Almost all vegetables produce much more
with abundant water than with a skimpy supply. For a minimum, your
garden needs about an inch of water a week, from either the sky or your
irrigation system.
9. Surface runoff, puddling, and evaporation are all wastes of water.
10.
For newly planted seeds, water often enough to keep the soil
continuously moist—morning and evening, sprinkling every day until they
are up. You want them to come up as fast as possible. The moist ground
also helps discourage wild birds and the family poultry from digging up
the seeds and eating them.
11.
Once your plants are well started, give them a good soaking rather than
morning and evening sprinkles. Light sprinkles encourage shallow root
systems because unless the soil gets wet to the level of the deeper
roots, the shallow roots develop at the expense of the deeper ones. But
those shallow roots can’t do as good a job of finding soil nutrients.
Because the surface of the soil dries out faster than the deeper soil,
shallow watering also creates a vicious cycle in which more frequent
watering is needed to keep the plants from wilting. Deep soakings, on
the other hand, encourage deep root systems, and deep roots don’t have
to be watered as often.
1 comment:
desert is usually rich farmland that happens to be lacking water. If you add water by irrigation...berry plants
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