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I was watering my garden wrong for 5 years, a drone photo showed me
I always watered at noon because that's when I had time, figured the plants would just soak it up before evaporation. My neighbor flew a drone over the backyard last Tuesday and the footage showed water running straight off the dry soil and pooling in the driveway. That's when I realized I'd been wasting maybe 40% of my water the whole time. Now I'm debating whether drip irrigation is worth the setup cost or if early morning sprinklers are enough. Anyone else have a moment where you found out your basic routine was completely backwards?
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the_angela1mo ago
Last Tuesday I watered my tomatoes at 2pm and watched the water bead up and roll off like they were coated in wax, so I get the panic, but honestly I think you're overthinking this. Plants actually do fine with less frequent deep watering, and morning watering just means the water sits on the leaves longer which can cause mildew in humid areas, I learned that the hard way with my squash. Drip irrigation is expensive to set up and a pain to maintain, all those little tubes clog and leak and before you know it you're fixing it every weekend instead of enjoying your garden. The real problem with noon watering isn't evaporation, it's that you're probably not watering long enough or slow enough, so the soil never absorbs it, which means you need to water in shorter bursts and let it soak in. My neighbor waters at 5pm every day and his lawn looks better than mine, so maybe ditch the morning idea entirely and just do late afternoon, the ground is still warm enough to dry off but the sun isn't blasting it. You said the drone showed the water pooling in the driveway, so the fix might just be making a small berm around your garden beds to hold the water where the plants can reach it, which costs nothing but a little shoveling.
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