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dedicated to all of you who love nature , especially the beauty of
gardening. I will be providing gardening tips for both flower
and vegetable gardening with the hope that this will be of help to
you.
Please feel free to e-mail me with your comments or questions and I will try to quickly reply. Thank you for visiting with me and I hope you come back soon.
As we approach summer I thought I would provide a few tips here which have been forwarded to several news sources in Virginia. It is my hope that you will be able to use these tips with the hope that they will beautify your yards.
Summer means many dry days and the necessity to have to water the garden. There are many questions regarding the proper water techniques. When do you water? How much watering is too much? Too little? Is it best to water in the morning or in the evening or both? etc., ect.
Permit me to deal with the proper time for
watering plants: The basic rules of watering are very simple: Never
water ANYTHING in the evening or at the height of the day.
Early morning is always best.
‘Why’ has a lot to do with basic plant physiology. Dew forms as
evening progresses to morning, and plants have developed the ability
to let their cells ‘open up’ to accept some of this water through
their leaves. (This is the basic principle behind foliar feeding,
when you spray something like compost tea directly on plants to feed
them, which you should only do in the early morning). The plants’
roots are also most receptive to water in the morning, and will
utilize any moisture you provide with the most efficiency.
Morning is the only time its relatively safe to wet the leaves of
disease-prone plants like tomatoes, roses and lilacs, because the
rising sun will quickly dry those leaves off before disease spores
can use that moisture to breed. That said, I STRONGLY suggest
you only wet those leaves for a good reason, like foliar feeding.
It’s always better to water plants at the base; with the
disease-prone, it’s often the difference between life and late
blight.
As the day progresses, the physics change. The plant cells that
actively tried to take in as much water as they could in the morning
start to close up to retain that moisture. By high noon on a blazing
hot summer day, those cells are closed up tighter than Dick Cheney’s
wallet at a gun control fundraiser. Watering then makes absolutely
no sense. At the very least, you’re wasting the maximum amount of
water—the plants’ roots are absorbing as little as possible, and
you’re losing the maximum amount to evaporation. And if it’s a
100-degree day and you soak the poor plants with 45-degree water
from a deep well, they might get a little bit stressed, don’t you
think?
Yes, those cells do open up again when the sun goes down, but
this is the worst time to wet the leaves of your plants, especially
those disease-prone ones; and lawns.
Think about it—if you soak your garden down when you get home from
work (when its probably most convenient foryou) those plants
will stay damp for a good 12 or 14 hours before the sun arrives to
dry them off. By then, disease will have had its way with them.
Here’s Watering 101: Get a rain gauge and chart what Nature
provides. An inch of rain a week is perfect for every plant in your
landscape in most climates most times of the year. Yes, if you live
in the deep South, have desperately sandy soil and/or we’re getting
hammered with an Al Gore heat wave, you can certainly move up to two
inches. But one inch or two, be sure and apply it correctly; and
that’s in big lumps, not short spurts.
Frequent shallow sprinklings insure puny root growth, which is bad
for all plants. It’s also the second biggest cause of persistent
weed problems in lawns (the first is scalping). Frequent watering
also risks the plants’ roots staying wet, which can rot them right
there in the ground. Plants need to dry out between
waterings. Here’s the ideal scenario:
It pours rain from 10 pm Sunday night to 8am Monday morning. Then
the sun comes out and dries off all the leaves. Monday the soil is
visibly soaked. Tuesday the soil is visibly soaked. By Wednesday,
the very top inch of the soil will seem dry; but sit on your
hose—those roots are still in saturated ground. By Thursday,
the tops of those roots are finally beginning to dry out a
little. Feels good. On Friday, they’re 100% in dry soil, so they
grow downward in search of water, strengthening the entire plant.
Saturday, they grow a little deeper, maybe find some water, but
basically stay dry, protecting them from root rot. Then on Sunday
night it pours again. Now that’s a happy landscape.
If possible, you do the same. After a week without rain, set your
sprinkler, soaker hoses or irrigation system to come on around
midnight and end around 8am. Your rain gauge will tell you if you
need to adjust the time to achieve an inch ending right as the sun
comes up. (It takes a LONG time to put an inch of water
down). It’s OK to wet those leaves at night if you don’t stop
at night; the moving water will protect the plant and then the
rising sun will dry the leaves. (Although ground level watering is
always better.)
Now, this does not apply to new plantings of big items, like
trees and shrubs. When you put these things in the ground in early
Spring or Fall (NEVER in the Summer; they will die,
guaranteed), let a hose drip water at the base of each new planting
for a full 24 hours, and repeat every few days for several weeks if
rain is scarce. Back off if rain is plentiful, but be ready to
supply a several hour ‘drip drink’ a couple times a week for a full
year when it isn’t. Lack of water early on is the biggest cause of
death for newly planted trees.
And of course, have an inch or two of compost, shredded leaves or
other non-wood mulch around (but never touching) your plants to keep
moisture in the soil.
And finally, if we hit a summer where it never stops raining,
remove the mulch and clap if you believe in Fairies; maybe
Tinkerbell will show up and dry your plants off with them little
wings.
"CSAs": Community Supported Agriculture
| CSAs are organic farms in which you buy a 'share' for the season and
share in that season's weekly harvests. You eat fresh and local,
while supporting local sustainable agriculture in your community. -Here's a list of local CSAs from the Robyn Van En Center -And a different list from Local Harvest (Check both to be sure you find all the farms near you.) |
| For more info about how CSAs work, click here |
This week on...You
Bet Your GardenDo you have insects that look like bees that are nesting in the ground? Watch out - they're probably yellowjackets. This week on You Bet Your Garden, host Mike McGrath explains how to safely eradicate their dangerous underground nests.
| Listen to this week's show |
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