Fred wrote:
I have a small (5'x6') backyard garden in Washington DC. Mostly I
have tomatoes and peppers planted. The garden receives a good bit of
sun and has mulch at the base of the plants. Assuming no rain for a
week, how often should I water my garden and for how long? I'm using
a typical yard sprinkler which swivels from side to side but is set to
only pass over the garden area.

What is the best way to water this type of garden? Maybe next year,
I'll set up a better system but I'm stuck with what I have for now.


Overhead watering is not the best way to water the garden. Tomatoes do
not like getting wet. I've heard of some people so obsessed with this
that they have awnings they can put over their gardens when it rains.
That's a little too much effort for me. The best way to water a tomato
and pepper garden is to use drip irrigation with an emitter near each
plant. A timer can be used to turn it on for an hour or two each
morning, and if a finger test of the soil near a plant indicates
otherwise, you can increase or decrease it from there.

An alternative would be a soaker hose. Not the kind that sprays, but the
kind that weeps. A soaker hose can be buried under the mulch to protect
it from UV rays, as can the tubing for drip irrigation. But with drip
irrigation, make sure the emitters are above the mulch so they don't get
clogged.

If you're going to stick with overhead watering for the rest of this
year, do the same thing as you would with drip irrigation: A finger
test. I don't live in the Washington, DC area, but just from what I know
about the geography, there is no one type of soil, let alone find a way
to take into account how you prepared your soil. How loamy it is,
whether there's a shallow hardpan, how much and what type of mulch you
used, and how many hours of the day your garden is in direct sunlight
are some of the factors that go into determining how often, and how much
you need to water.

In the end, how moist the soil is a little more than a finger length
under the surface, plus the visual signs your plants give will have to
be your guide. There isn't such a thing as a watering calculator that
you can plug in a few numbers, and get a set watering schedule. Not
unless you're working in a greenhouse with controlled soil, light,
temperature and humidity. And even then your calculator would only give
you a rough estimate.

--
Warren H.

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