You’ve planted your garden, fantastic! But now you’re left with the task of watering it to keep your plants alive. If you live in a climate that can get very hot without rain for weeks, this is going to become a several times a week task that can take large amounts of time. But you don’t have to go around and individually water your plants. There are easier ways to water your garden that are hands off and give you more time to do other things in your busy life.
Sprinklers
Sprinklers can be a fantastic option to water your garden in a hands off way. There are several kinds that can work well. Most of the time, an overhead lawn sprinkler works best as it can cover a wide area. There are definitely others that work well also. You can get a “high rise” sprinkler that emits water several feet up off the ground to get better coverage. And the best part about sprinklers is that they are relatively inexpensive. Here is a sprinkler with great reviews and the style that I would typically pick up.
The downfall to sprinklers goes along with their benefit. They water everything within a region of your garden. Without discrimination. So this includes weeds along with your desired plants. Now, if you don’t mind pulling weeds… this probably isn’t a big deal.
There’s also other weed mitigation tactics that you can use. These include weed cloth/landscaping cloth and mulch. Both methods provide a barrier to sunlight that makes plant growth underneath them to be inhibited.
So if you’re going to go the sprinkler route, it can be a great affordable option to water your garden. I just recommend that you take other weed mitigation precautions if you absolutely hate pulling weeds or just flat out don’t have the time.
Soaker Hoses
Soaker hoses are by far my favorite method of watering a garden for several reasons. Soakers are a permeable hose that allows water to escape along its entirety at a slow and released pace. The water is then allowed to slowly soak into the ground.
The entire idea behind soaker hoses is that the water pressure that builds up inside the hose allows the water to move through the hose itself in a slow and controlled fashion. The water can then absorb at a slow pace into the ground where the hoses are laying. Whoever came up with this idea should honestly be rich in my opinion…
Benefits to Soaker Hoses
There are several huge benefits to using soaker hoses as your watering method. The first is that you have a very controlled location that you are watering. If you lay your soaker hoses next to your plants or in a very defined area, they will only water that area. They aren’t going to water in between your rows or such. This reduces the amount of weed pressure in your garden which is a huge win.
With soaker hoses, you also are wasting less water. Since everything isn’t getting watered and instead just specifically your plants, less water is used. Water conservation is important and if using soaker hoses to more effectively water your garden is helpful, I’m all for it.
Soaker hoses also allow you to more deeply water your plants. Therefore, if you run your soaker hoses for a couple of hours, you are going to end up really deeply watering your plants. The water is able to slowly be absorbed into the soil without the water or soil flooding quickly.
Downfalls to Soaker Hoses
The downfall to soaker hoses is that they are definitely a bit more expensive than just purchasing a sprinkler. Personally, I think the cost is worth it as the soaker hoses can be used for many years. The key is to store them inside on the off seasons. And they are much less expensive than putting in a whole watering system, that’s for sure!
Types of Soaker Hoses
Now, there are a couple of different types of soaker hoses. The first is a very simple rubber hose. This is a fairly rigid hose material. These are easily found at many garden centers. It definitely does the job but in my experience they don’t last as long as the other type.
I started out using this type of soaker hose and it did the job just fine. What I didn’t particularly like about it was that I couldn’t always place the hose where I wanted it because the hose was more rigid and less flexible.
My favorite type of soaker hoses are the cloth kind. These soaker hoses are the kind that I currently have and love! They roll up very easily for storage and are flexible for placement in the garden. If you take care of them, they last for several years and are well worth the money.
Watering your garden doesn’t have to look like you hand watering all your plants for hours. There are some really easy watering systems that are hands free and extremely easy!
