The Best Time to Water Plants in Your Garden
The best time to water plants in your garden is early morning.
This allows time for the water to dry off of your plants and the very top of the soil.
Watering in the late evening after coming home from work is not good for your plants.
Having your plants stay wet throughout the night leaves them open to fungus and other plant diseases.
You'll get into a circle of watering, seeing plant diseases and then having to use commercial fungicides.
This is easily preventable by using a water timer and setting it up to water in the early morning hours.
Water Timer - A water timer is your best tool when watering garden plants.
Combine this with drip irrigation or a soaker hose and you'll have a fantastic garden.
You'll also cut down on the number of diseases and pest insects.
Set the water timer up for about 5:00 am and about 10 minutes per day.
From that base, start watching your plants.
If you see any of them wilting, then increase the time from 10 minutes to 20 minutes.
Coffee Can Trick - After punching small holes in a coffee can or something similar, bury it leaving about an inch of the can above your soil.
Each morning, fill this up with water.
You can not only see how much water each vegetable needs but also your plant gets water where it needs it, the root system.
You will be amazed at how great your plants will grow if you water this way.
By not getting your plants leaves wet, you'll prevent diseases from growing and cut down on insect pests as they'll have to look for water elsewhere.
Insect Pests - By watering in the morning and not late in the evening, insect pests are denied an easy drink of water and must spend more time looking for it.
This helps keep their numbers down and they have less time to munch on your juicy plants.
Since the leaves and stalks of your plants have already had a good drink of water earlier in the day, they will be more dry on the outside and again make pests work harder to eat them.
Excess Watering - Using a soaker hose, drip irrigation or some variation of the coffee can trick, you cut down on the available water that pools around your plants.
If you water in the morning then any pools you do make will dry up during the day.
Well they should unless you are over-watering.
This allows time for the water to dry off of your plants and the very top of the soil.
Watering in the late evening after coming home from work is not good for your plants.
Having your plants stay wet throughout the night leaves them open to fungus and other plant diseases.
You'll get into a circle of watering, seeing plant diseases and then having to use commercial fungicides.
This is easily preventable by using a water timer and setting it up to water in the early morning hours.
Water Timer - A water timer is your best tool when watering garden plants.
Combine this with drip irrigation or a soaker hose and you'll have a fantastic garden.
You'll also cut down on the number of diseases and pest insects.
Set the water timer up for about 5:00 am and about 10 minutes per day.
From that base, start watching your plants.
If you see any of them wilting, then increase the time from 10 minutes to 20 minutes.
Coffee Can Trick - After punching small holes in a coffee can or something similar, bury it leaving about an inch of the can above your soil.
Each morning, fill this up with water.
You can not only see how much water each vegetable needs but also your plant gets water where it needs it, the root system.
You will be amazed at how great your plants will grow if you water this way.
By not getting your plants leaves wet, you'll prevent diseases from growing and cut down on insect pests as they'll have to look for water elsewhere.
Insect Pests - By watering in the morning and not late in the evening, insect pests are denied an easy drink of water and must spend more time looking for it.
This helps keep their numbers down and they have less time to munch on your juicy plants.
Since the leaves and stalks of your plants have already had a good drink of water earlier in the day, they will be more dry on the outside and again make pests work harder to eat them.
Excess Watering - Using a soaker hose, drip irrigation or some variation of the coffee can trick, you cut down on the available water that pools around your plants.
If you water in the morning then any pools you do make will dry up during the day.
Well they should unless you are over-watering.
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