Watering help

[cherishedtiger]

So, I need some advice for watering my raised garden. I have a drip system installed and it really seems to be working well. That said, it is raised 12" with good dirt and such. Great drainage, that actually is my issue. My garden soil is always nice and moist, dry on top, but under that initial top layer its nice and damp.
However, the lawn around the raised bed is MUD, so anytime I go to garden my shoes are covered in mud. Am I watering too much? I run my watering system 2x a day 7am and 7pm for 20 minutes.
I live in Sacramento CA, our weather has ranged from 70's to 100+ just in the past 2 weeks.
In case you wonder why the raised bed, well our ground here is full of rocks and clay and not the best for gardening, heck half the time its all I can do to grow grass! (that and I rent, so landlord probably wouldn't be all about me tilling up the back yard to plant a garden in though I totally would).
Any thoughts? Too much water, just enough not enough?

Thanks all!!!

[greenstubbs]

I'm over in Vacaville and I'd have to say that you are watering to much. I have a neighbor that has their timer on that goes twice in the middle of the night for about 1/2 hour each for the lawn, and the ground is so saturated that there's moss growing where the water has seeped under the fence on my side. My garden isn't really raised but is lined with RR ties and when I water to much, the ground will get squishy on the grass side of the ties.

[shadylane]

Cherishedtiger, I too started a raised garden this year, which I think is fabulous. We have had high temps of 99 with heat index of 115+ for two weeks with no rain accompaning the high hot temps.
So the end of last week I had to water. It is good keeping a soil check as you have done. You may want to think about using a covering for your garden plants. I use grass clippings, and heap it on the ground around the plants base. You may want to look into straw. It has helped me tremendously in keeping in the moisture, and the plant roots cool.
I think you may be watering way to much. One good 2-3 inch watering per week should be enough so you're beds are almost muddy. I'm sure you will see an improvment, and your garden shoes

[CharlieBear]

If it is nice and moist when you put your finger down in it, why water twice a day? You didn't say what kind of drip and rate of delivery. Generally if it is still moist don't water it, the plants can't use it that fast. I have the same temp swings and I don't run the drip everyday except maybe in 100 degree weather. I asked about delivery rate, because I use a very slow delivery rate and water for 45 minutes once, twice a weeks as the ground begins to dry out.

[cherishedtiger]

Thank you!! Sounds like I maybe only should water once a day... I think I will go with morning so that throughout the day the ground is damp especially with the heat rising!
Thank you! I am tired of squishy lawn! Especially since the puppy loves to go and play in the mud!!

[greenstubbs]

If anything, H2O every other day unless the plants tell you otherwise, it won't kill them! My potted plants that are in huge containers, I have to hit them everyday. Sometines I'll let them dry out a day just so I'm not really drenching them but they are real dry. Better to under than over water, but with the toasty temps we get out here you have to be flexable. Good Luck

[Fig3825]

I have a soaker drip system as well. Before the heatwave, it would run for 90 minutes every 4 days. Since the heat has hit, I have it set to do the same length of time every 2 days. Based on the majority of what I have read regarding soaker systems, less frequency and deeper watering is preferred. Frequent shallow watering will encourage roots to stay closer to the surface which may stunt growth a bit. You want your roots to chase the water deeper into the soil.

I do water some items (already watered by the soaker system above) every day and I water shallowly. These items include my radishes, beets, carrots, potatoes and lettuces - all of the shallow veggies. I also frequently water any new growth.

There is a happy medium somewhere and the only way that I have been able to find it is through trial and error. I've already killed my ENTIRE garden once this year by overwatering, bad bed design (too much water retention) and toxic homemade pest controls... It's doing quite well now, though.

[jal_ut]

If you garden in the ground, the plant roots go quite deep and spread out quite wide also. It is necessary to only water once a week here (dry Utah) growing in the ground.

If your beds are just on the ground with no barrier to separate the soil in the beds from the ground, the plant roots will go deep into the ground under the beds, yes, even if its clay and rock. I would wait until the plants look stressed, then water deeply. You may get by only watering once a week or maybe twice a week. The plants will tell you when they need water. They will start to droop (wilt).

[cherishedtiger]

I guess I wasn't aware of shallow watering versus deep.

Jal - my raised bed is just right on top of the ground, and I attempted last year to dig up and prepare the soil to plant in so I wouldn't be surprised if like you said things were growing into that as well. I may have to go with a deeper watering less frequently.

Thanks for all the advice you all are always great!

[pickupguy07]

I know people frown on overhead watering (from a sprinkler),.. but thats all I do.
It's been 90*+ for two months now. Once a week I water my garden for about three hours... usually late afternoon to avoid scalding the plants.
It's my first garden, and it's done exceptionally well.

I figure if that's the way mother nature does it... it'll work.??

[jal_ut]

I know people frown on overhead watering (from a sprinkler),..

Here the irrigation water comes in a pipe gravity fed. The canal is about 1/4 mile up the hill. The pipeline is sized for running rainbirds (overhead sprinklers). We are not allowed to flood irrigate. There are also rules about how many sprinkler heads we can run and for how many hours. This is necessary so that everyone on the pipeline can get their share of water. So the garden gets a sprinkling once a week. I have not been able to see that it makes any difference whether I water in daylight or at night. Either way I run the sprinkler line for 12 hours once a week. With the 6 gallon per minute rainbirds spaced 40 feet apart it puts about 1.5 inches of water on the whole area.

I only bring this up to suggest that some people may make too big a fuss over sprinkling and especially daytime sprinkling. It works well for me and many others on the canal system. There are thousands of acres of farmland on this canal plus somewhere around 200 homes and the lots. I see water running every day all over the place. (Sprinklers)

[img]https://donce.lofthouse.com/jamaica/sprinkler_system2.jpg[/img]

This is called a wheel line. Twice a day the farmer will move it ahead 60 feet. The rainbirds are 40 feet apart. The system runs constantly, except for the time it takes to move it, day and night until the whole field is watered. The pipeline that feeds it has a riser every 60 feet so as it moves ahead it will be hooked to a different riser each move.

[img]https://donce.lofthouse.com/jamaica/porcupine%205_4_2010.jpg[/img]

The water comes from this reservoir which is filled with melted snow.

[jal_ut]

[img]https://donce.lofthouse.com/jamaica/sprinkle_garden.jpg[/img]

I use a similar system on my lot, but it is not on wheels. That is a 4 inch pipe and the rainbirds are spaced 40 feet.

[img]https://donce.lofthouse.com/jamaica/sprinkler.jpg[/img]

OK now you know what I am doing about watering the garden. I hope this may give you some ideas on what will work in your garden. Like I said, I don't water any more often than once a week and sometimes it goes ten days. Depends on my schedule and what the weather is doing. I know this may seem extreme to some folks who never have to irrigate, but we can't get away with that in dry Utah. If we didn't irrigate we would not grow much. Most summer days the humidity is 25 to 40 % and without irrigation the ground soon has big cracks. Junipers and sagebrush can survive, but that is about it. Everything else is dry and brown by mid June most years. This year we had a bit more spring rain and things stayed green until July.

[rainbowgardener]

We've had this discussion before. I certainly agree with jal re water deeply and less often.

Re the sprinkling/ overhead watering it makes a difference that jal is in UTah, where there is hardly any humidity. Where I live, the humidity right this minute is 94% !! (Any more and you'd have to drink the air, not breathe it) Also jal is careful to give his plants lots of room. I have a small garden and crowd things. So I can't water the same way jal does.

Overhead watering may be natural, but so is powdery mildew and blight! I am trying to grow things in my veggie garden (unlike the rest of my yard) that would not naturally grow here, like tomatoes, peppers, squash, mediterranean herbs, etc. They already don't like how humid it is here.

So I water only the soil, not the leaves.