How much water do plants need while watering garden plants? It may surprise you

Now that the drought is relieved for this year as least during which all of the water times for plants and lawns were either drastically reduced or eliminated all together. This year we are able to return to a level of normalcy, still we will conserve water while using a little more than the 5 years previous. Some people on metered water were restricted by the increase in rates, which brought on another round of rate increases due to a loss of revenue because of less use during the drought. (I won't get into that, it is bizarre). Which opens up the question I have been thinking about this morning after looking over the garden and checking the soil, "how much water do plants need?" An extremely important piece of being as self reliant as we can be, I think it's a good idea to place garden watering requirements in with our disaster planning, it will enable us in the event of a lack of utilities to keep our gardens in top production.

Yes we had rain this year, now that it's over 100 degrees
the downpour looks inviting. 

  First off lets see how to check to see if the plants are in need of watering. An excellent way to check is to see how dry the soil is around the plant. Place a spade into the soil, close enough to the plant to check the soil and far enough away not to damage the roots. Pull the spade out, being sure it has penetrated 10"-12", flip the dirt over, if it's moist the plant does not need water, if it's dry it does. The results will be a result of the outdoor conditions, if it is a dry, hot environment the soil will dry out rapidly, if it is a low temperature moist climate less drying will result. I garden in raised beds, I tend the garden on my mobility scooter and made the boxes to match the height. I find in the raised beds the plants on the ends of the box have a tendency to dry out faster than the plants further inboard. My garden needs water every other day, if I miss the plants begin to deteriorate rapidly. I water my tomato's no more than every other day for the first month, after that I water every third day. I will sometimes stress the tomato's if they are not performing well. I stress them by not watering them, I skip a day, it causes the plants to set more flowers, I will stress them only when there is no fruit on the plant. Use mulch, it keeps the soil moist, I will use almost any organic material as mulch. I do compost so some of it is usable at a moments notice. Some of the

A fairly common raised bed garden, this is not mine, however
mine are the same. 

materials I use for mulch include: Tree leaves, Corn husk, Lilly pads, Succulents, Hay and recently I started using Tule stems. (Much like cat tails without the tail). I also use the same organic material in my worm farm, creating castings which in turn can easily be converted into nitrogen rich liquid fertilizer with many benefits. The mulch will hold the moisture in the soil for a longer period of time. Click here to learn how to mulch.
  There is a rule of thumb some people use while watering their lawns on the levee with a prevailing wind drying out the soil rapidly. Lawns do well with 15 minutes of water daily. I use a trick that enables me to better understand the amount of water I am giving a plant in gallons. I run the water from the faucet, (we have a well) into a 5 gallon bucket and let it run until it fills up. I record the time then divide the 5 gallon number by the amount of minutes it took to fill it. I now know how many gallons per minute I am using and it enables me to better judge how much I am putting on the plants. Of course this is hand watering out of an open hose, big gardens would take a considerable amount of time which would make it

inefficient. It can still be estimated however by measuring the amount of water being emitted by the sprinkler, determine gallons per minute then divide by the square foot coverage of the sprinkler. The argument has to be made then "why would I even consider doing that, what does it tell me?" I can think of one reason only to measure the amount emitted from the sprinkler. My neighbor told me (I know I know), tomato's need one gallon of water daily, OK, one gallon each plant. He is also the person that told me not to water them with a sprinkler, so my source may not be to the level of "expert". I continue to "deep water" my tomato's every third day, it has served me well for a number of years. I get 15 gallons of water per minute from my well, that's a lot of water for one plant but it serves well. I water each plant for one minute and move on, that's the tomato plants.
  Over all the best goal in watering is to get the water to the roots of the plants, not the leaves it won't be to any benefit, in fact wet leaves can be infected with diseases. Too much water can do as much damage to plants as not enough, automatic watering can be both a blessing and a curse. If an

Notice the drip, just one nozzle of many in this system, the
water is capable of being measured with this method.

automatic watering system is employed when watering a garden during times of rain the watering times should be reduced or eliminated until the rain subsides. As with hand watering only water when the plants need it. Deep water down to 12" that's as deep as the garden vegetable roots go, keep the top 6-12" moist, check it as mentioned above with a shovel. Water in the early morning, if the leaves get wet they will dry out in the sun before any damage is done. Drip irrigation is a good way to water and control the amount of placed on the plant roots, each drip nozzle is designated for the amount of water per minute or hour, they can be strategically placed at each plant to ensure proper amounts are applied. Now we are all the way back to the title of the blog "How much water do plants need while watering garden plants?" There is no set rule or way of knowing outside of experience, I will dig my hand into the soil to about a foot deep and check the moisture. Many times even if the soil is moist I will water, if it is wet I will not, when the plants look stressed, I dig my hand into the soil and check it. I especially keep a close eye on my containers ends where it dry's out quickly, normally I water more heavily in that area.

Display of a simple drip irrigation system, they can be as elaborate or simple
as needed. They work wonders.

The answer to watering garden plants is experience and commitment, all gardeners know persistence, dedication and the want to is required to succeed. I will also mention briefly that I have added earthworms to each raised bed, some live in the mulch (red wigglers) other commute from the surface to six feet below (European night crawlers). The worms move the organic material from top to bottom and distribute moisture to a lesser degree while fertilizing the beds.
  I hope this blog is informative, it more or less outlines how I water, it's all experience, if your plants are doing well you are watering well. Thanks for reading share this blog with your friends I need more people reading it. Thank you!

jacquesandkate  emergencykitsplus.com