2 Tips To Help You Grow Your Way To A More Luscious Vegetable Garden
Posted on: 17 June 2016
Growing a vegetable garden can be a great money saving opportunity for you and your family. In fact, among the one-third of U.S. households that grown their own veggies, 54% do so in order to reduce their food bill. Furthermore, it costs roughly $70 in investments for a garden that is 600 square feet and that garden can provide $600 worth of fresh vegetables for you to eat. In order to get the most out of your vegetable garden, you need to know just how to make it as luscious as possible. The following tips are a good place to start.
Know When to Water Your Plants
For the longest time, people believed that they should avoid watering their plants during midday for fear of burning their plants. Fortunately, it was discovered by a team of researchers that the likelihood of burning your plants by watering them is slim to none. In fact, the researchers found that leaves with smooth surfaces do not experience burns if water droplets are left on them.
There are known tropical plants with hairy leaves that may burn if water droplets are left on them, but given the textures of the leaves, it is believed that the water would roll off before the leaves had a chance to burn. As an added note, researchers believe that you are more likely to cause your plants to sunburn if you water them early in the morning or late in the afternoon.
That is not to say that you should start watering your plants during midday. During the hotter months, water tends to evaporate quickly from the soil, meaning an irrigation system would have to put out 30% more water during the daytime hours. For that reason, you should stick to watering your plants early in the morning before the sun rises of late in the evening once the sun has set.
If you are not the type who likes to be up that early in the morning or if you are unable to water your vegetables later at night, make sure you install an irrigation system with a timer. An irrigation system ensures that your plants stay properly watered. With the help of a timed irrigation system, you can be well on your way toward planting a more luscious vegetable garden.
Know How to Plant Your Plants
Perhaps you are already familiar with how much sunlight your vegetables need. Maybe you even know how much space you need between seeds and how far down into the soil you should plant your seeds. What you may not be aware of, however, is the fact that vegetables may need different amounts of water throughout the day or even the growing season.
For instance, you would not want to pair black-eyed peas, tomatoes, squash, and melons with other vegetables such as broccoli, cauliflower, peas, and kale. Black-eyed peas, tomatoes, squash, and melons are rather drought resistant plants. Since tomatoes, squash, and melons are considered deeply rooting plants, they can seek out moisture far more easily in drier conditions.
Furthermore, it is recommended that you stop the irrigation to your tomato plants during the middle or late summer, which can help reduce other issues such as fungal and bacterial diseases that can affect the plant. Broccoli, cauliflower, peas, and kale require a much higher moisture content since they are not drought resistant.
In other words, if you install an irrigation system, you may want to group your drought resistant plants on one side of the garden and your non-drought resistant plants on the other. Set up your irrigation system so that it provides more water to the side of your garden that needs it and a lower flow of water to the side of your garden that doesn't need it.
When setting up an irrigation system to grow a luscious garden, you best bet is to contact a professional from a company like Hydrotech Irrigation Co. They can assist you in setting up a system that works best for the types of plants you plan on planting. They can help you with the installation of a timer and a water flow controller to ensure that you have the most luscious vegetable garden on the block.
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