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Watering the Garden

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I’m sitting here writing and trying to water my raised flower beds at the same time. It’s not easy doing both at once.

I’ve purchased several sprinklers over the last few years and I haven’t been happy with any of them. Not a one. They either throw the water out too far for my tiny yard, or barely water two or three feet of garden space.

When my parents passed away a couple of years ago, I decided that I wanted some of their sprinklers. So, right now I’m trying out the two I brought back from my parents house.

One is a little round head. It shoots the water upward like a fountain. It only covers at the most about three feet of space. At least with my poor water pressure any way. I used it to water the raspberries. I put it under a few of them and let the water shoot up between the raspberry plants. It seemed to work well enough, but to do all of my raised beds that way will take forever.

So I decided to try out the other sprinkler that I inherited. It has a curved bar that is horizontal. Their are water holes on either end and a couple of water holes in the middle of the bar. The water pressure is supposed to make this thing spin around. Unfortunately when I hooked it up to my hose it spluttered and gurgled and didn’t spin. So I got closer and moved it around myself and then ran away as the water started to pour out the ends.

Spin, spin, splutter, gurgle, spin, spin. Well, that ones covering about three feet of space too, but it’s flooding the flower bed.

I think that if I’m going to continue trying to write and water at the same time it’s going to take all night. Why is it so much faster to water by hand with the hose? Weren’t sprinklers invented so that we could water and do other activities at the same time? Why can’t I find a decent sprinkler?

Do anyone else have trouble with sprinklers?

Have you found one that works for you that you’d care to tell me about?

Ok, well, I’d better go out and move that darn thing over three feet or so.

Update 11:45 p.m. : I gave up with the sprinklers after trying a third one shaped something like the last one … it didn’t spin, it just shot water out the sides. So I ended up hand watering after all that wasted time. Really folks if you know of a good sprinkler that can be used in a small garden let me know!






Rain Dance

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I’m probably going to pay for saying this, but does anyone else need some rain? It’s been so dry here over the last couple of weeks. My poor plants are thirsty.

Yeah, yeah, now that I’ve said that it will rain for the next two weeks right? Then I’ll be complaining that there’s too much rain.

I guess that I’ve been doing a good enough job watering. At least half of my roses are in full bloom and smelling up the neighborhood with their lovely scent. That one branch on the rose that I call the monster, Antique ’89, has reached approximately 18 feet in height. It’s just not supposed to get that big!

I guess I’m going to have to go out and do a rain dance or something. I have another batch of alfalfa tea brewing in two large garbage cans in my driveway. It’s time to put that out on the garden, but I’d love to do it when we’re expecting some rain, preferably a good storm. Did you know that lightning puts nitrogen in the air, and that’s why plants always seem to grow after a good storm? It’s not just the rain, it’s the nitrogen in the air. Well, I want some of that, and some good rain for when I spread that smelly alfalfa tea on the garden.

If anyone has some rain to spare send it over here!

Benefits of using mulch on the garden

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I went out of town this past weekend and I was a little worried about my garden.

You see, we are going through a heat wave here in Toronto. Friday’s temps were 31 Celsius (87.8), Saturday and Sunday were 32 (89.6 F) and 34 C (93.2 F), and yesterday ended up reaching 35 C (95 F). Now those temps wouldn’t necessarily be so bad if it were dry heat, but here in Toronto we seem to get a lot of humidity. If you add in the humidity factor the temps were well over 40 Celsius (104 F) each day. Those temps are enough to make me wilt so it’s no wonder I was worried about my plants, especially all the new ones that I finally planted last week.

I should have watered the garden on Friday seeing as we were leaving early Saturday morning but I was very tired for some reason. Not watering added to my worry. I was sure I’d come home to wilted or dead plants. Lucky for me it did rain sometime on Saturday.

I’m sure the shredded red cedar mulch that I put on the garden helped too. We covered all the bare spots between the plants with two to three inches of cedar mulch. This helps keep the weeds down. Actually- it makes them virtually non-existent. It also helps keep the soil moist too. Well, it won’t if you don’t water at all, but if you give your garden a good watering every two or three days the soil should stay slightly moist and your plants will be happy. As long as I do a good deep watering I don’t have to water every day, even during a heat wave- apparently.

We use the red coloured mulch because 1. we like the look of it, and 2. because in studies it was said to help tomatoes grow faster. We do grow some tomatoes in one corner of our garden and they do do well.

I even put some mulch on my potted plants to help them retain moisture.

Do you use mulch on your garden beds? If you do, what kind do you use? And have you noticed any difference in your garden since you started using it?

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