So I've been evaluating some of my downfalls this season. One being was in my drip irrigation run time. Initially I was watering for 90mins everyday. I learned that was wayyyy too long. But how long is appropriate? These equations I've been finding are confusing. Please disucuss.
Much depends on your soil and the temperature/wind where you are. But as a general rule,, most vegetables do best with deep waterings every 7 to 10 days. Too much water is as bad as not enough water. In fact it doesn`t hurt vegetables to be slightly on the dry side.
Like Mart said... There are variables for every garden every year. No two years are the same and no two plants utilze moisture the same. It is a learning curve fro you to know what your garden needs. Even those who grow a lot have misses or even failures every season. I have had tomatoes die on me because an emitter didn't work.... Because I didn't look for that. I was looking for a disease. Heat and rain make a huge difference every week in the garden.
No matter how many books you read about gardening or how many years you have been gardening each growing year will be different from any of the ones preceding it and the ones following it will be different. Information on line or in a book is way too general, gardening is pretty much changing the way you do things every year because weather,soil health, health of the seeds or plants that you plant will be different. Also if you have water hungry plants and drought tolerant plants in the same garden bed you will most likely loose one kind or the other by watering the whole bed the same way.
So I suppose perhaps what I should do next year, is break up the different varieties of plants in my garden and focus on the watering needs of each type. The emitters I have are fully adjustable from a slow drip to a full on stream. I guess the bucket test would be the way to go by letting it run and see what I'm putting out per hour and adjust from there.
