With your plots prepared and your supports in place, now’s a good time to plan for your plant’s water needs – before you get that first veggie plant in the ground. Even if you live in a region with regular precipitation throughout the growing season, natural rains may be sporadic and can require you to take up the slack by irrigating your drought-prone plants. And gardeners in areas that experience long periods without rain must continually provide water in order to have success with vegetables.
Row plantings with parallel furrows on a flat site can be watered easily. Just apply water to either end of the row and allow the water to spread down the furrow, irrigating your plants.
Photo Credit: ©2002 Dolezal Publishing/Tim Butler
The simplest watering system, applicable to most level sites with row or hill crops, is to furrow watering channels beside the plants and build circular moats around each hill. Using a garden hose, you can fill these irrigation channels with water that’s allowed to slowly be absorbed into the soil around the growing plants’ roots. If this is the way you’d like to go, these furrows should be installed at the time of planting.
Two other commonly used methods of irrigating crops are drip irrigation and watering with weeping soaker hoses. Because both methods may be automated using economical components, they’re a boon to labor-saving for those with limited time, and they provide your vegetables with reliable, regular waterings in your absence.
Drip systems are usually connected to existing waterlines using a timer-controlled valve and delivery hose system that strings through your plantings. At each plant, a short spur terminates in an emitter that applies water to the plant’s roots. With typical water pressure at the hose bib, a single watering circuit may serve as many as 32 plants. Drip systems have the advantage of limiting the growth of weeds outside the watered area and, when used with a covering of mulch, will generally eliminate the need to cultivate.
Soaker hoses are ideal for providing water to rows of vegetables, and since they’re flexible, they can be looped around hills or large perennial plants. Choose hoses that weep water, limiting spray that wets the plants’ foliage.
So gather a hose-bib Y-connector, a battery operated timer/valve unit, hose clamps, a standard garden hose and a soaker hose, choose which option watering option best fits your needs, then follow the steps shown in the pictures and described in their captions.
Easy Drip Irrigation - Step 1
Choose drip irrigation to spot-apply water to plants. Attach a battery-operated automatic timer and a valve assembly at the hose bib closest to your vegetable garden.
Photo Credit: ©2002 Dolezal Publishing/John M. Rickard
Easy Drip Irrigation - Step 2
Connect a ½-inch feed line to the valve unit with a hose clamp. (To serve two areas, place a Y-fitting connector between the valve and each feed line.)
Photo Credit: ©2002 Dolezal Publishing/John M. Rickard
Easy Drip Irrigation - Step 3
Attach several ¼-inch lateral lines to the drip feed line using couplers, each leading to a group of vegetables. Serve up to four plants with T-connectors.
Photo Credit: ©2002 Dolezal Publishing/John M. Rickard
Easy Drip Irrigation - Step 4
A variety of drip irrigation emitters offer spray, bubbler and drip options. Choose the emitter that best suits your plants, noting their flow rates.
Photo Credit: ©2002 Dolezal Publishing/John M. Rickard
Soaker Hoses - Step 1
Use soaker hoses to apply water slowly to row and hill plantings. Attach a battery-operated automatic timer and valve assembly at the hose bib.
Photo Credit: ©2002 Dolezal Publishing/John M. Rickard
Soaker Hoses - Step 2
Attach a standard garden hose to the valve, running it to the start of the soaker hose.
Photo Credit: ©2002 Dolezal Publishing/John M. Rickard
Soaker Hoses - Step 3
Couple the soaker hose to the feed line, laying it at the base of your vegetables.
Photo Credit: ©2002 Dolezal Publishing/John M. Rickard
