Watering Vegetables
In order to thrive and flourish your vegetable plants will need water. The plants require a steady supply of water all the way through their growing cycle from when you first plant them to the day that you harvest them. The most critical times for ensuring that your vegetables are properly watered is when they are fruiting and when they are forming their roots. Unfortunately you cannot solely rely upon nature to provide the necessary amount of rain, particularly at the crucial development times of the vegetables. If your vegetables receive too little water then they will show signs of wilting and if you examine their roots you will notice that hey have poor root development. If you do not deal with this lack of water issue then the vegetable plant will simply give up, wilt completely and die. On the flip side of this issue, too much water can also have devastating results on your vegetables causing the roots to die from drowning. So as you can see it is necessary to create a medium between too much and too little water for your vegetables to flourish. Of the two, under watering is the problem faced by most gardener’s and simply looking at your vegetables will alert you to this. The vegetables will tend to be smaller than they should be, have disease problems, loose colour and brightness and show signs of wilting. All these symptoms should set off alarm bells in your head.
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For watering your vegetables there is a little equipment that you require such as a watering can, hose and sprinkler for basic watering. All of these can be purchased from any decent gardening store or garden centre.
The watering can
By far the simplest and most direct way of watering your vegetables. The watering can is a robust piece of gardening equipment that every gardener must simply have for watering vegetables, shrubs and flowers. Once you have bought one it should last you a lifetime. The watering can proves itself to be very useful when it comes to keeping your vegetable seedlings indoors moist and when you first transplant the seedlings outside. They are direct at watering and can be used in tight and small spaces.
The garden hose
As with the watering can, the garden hose is another essential piece of gardening equipment everyone should have. They prove particularly useful when you wish to water a whole vegetable patch. They are cheap to buy and allow you to monitor how much water is given to your plants. As good as the hose is there are a couple of drawbacks in the fact that it takes a lot of time to water a specific area properly and if this is your main source of watering for your vegetables, then you will not be able to leave your garden alone for more than a couple of days.
Methods For Watering Vegetables
The sprinkler system can be wasteful though as water can evaporate before it reaches the ground. Also on certain plants any water left on their leaves can cause disease. With the tomato plant for instance, moisture left on the leaves can result in blight. And lastly , with a sprinkler system the water may not actually reach the roots of the vegetable plants. With cabbages for example the leaves are large and cover the ground from the water sprinkler.
With the garden hose you can add a sprinkler system to it to replicate a light rainfall effect. Many gardeners favour this method and it is easy to see why. It is a cheap watering method that only requires a tap, hose and sprinkler and is simple to use. Once set up you can leave it be and get on with something else. You can even get yourself an automatic timer so the sprinkler system will turn itself on and off. It is a good method of watering as it will cool off plants in hot weather and can easily be moved around your garden to other locations. The best times to use a sprinkler system are in the mornings on a day where there is no or little wind.
Another use for the hose is as a soaker hose. There are specially made hoses that have pin pricks in them to allow the water to seep out of them in to the soil. But you do not have to buy a special hose. You can make your own by simply making your own holes in a conventional hose. When my first garden hose got punctured accidently I turned to this method of watering my vegetables. All I did was make additional holes in my damaged hose and lay it where I wished to water. I found the method was very good as no water was wasted and the water was added to the soil slowly and continually.
Irrigation
Furrow irrigation is ideal if you have a large vegetable growing area. With this form of watering you dig yourself a trench next to the vegetable patch and place a hose at one end and allow the water to seep in to the ground. This method is particularly beneficial if you are growing vegetables that do not like sprinkling. As said though it is a good method for a large vegetable growing area. For the small or average garden it is not really suitable. It will create a lot of muddy areas, does not look good and you require level ground.
Another form of irrigation is that of drip irrigation. This is where you use flat plastic tubing and when it fills with water the water slowly drips in to the soil. This type of watering is good to use on ground that is not level. It also conserves water, targets specific areas and plant roots and can even be connected to a timer.
However it is not suitable for small gardens and in the winter months you do need to bring the system in if it freezes. It is the most expensive of watering options as you need to buy all the connectors and attachments as well as replacing the tubing when it wears out. Add to this the fact that you have to install the system initially, it proves to be an expensive and labour intensive way of watering your vegetables. Once installed though it works perfectly well except in winter freezing conditions and you do have to be careful not to puncture the tubing with a rake or hoe.