Stick a Finger in it

Watering the garden can be a wonderful thing for both you and the plants. Though I strongly advocate soaker hoses and drip irrigation systems as a way to provide the correct amount of water to your garden, there is something cathartic about holding a warm hose and connecting with each plant  as you offer nourishing H2O. Stress and worry seem to flow out of the body at the same rate as the flow from the hose.

During a hot summer or in an arid region like ours, a soothing rain can also provide that catharsis. The cooling and cleansing effect of an afternoon thunderstorm or evening shower revitalizes the air and rivatalizes your inner being. In the same way, a heat-stressed garden will perk up after the irrigation from the sky.

Though I love hand watering my garden, I look upon rain as a natural process to help keep plants alive. After a rain, the trees are green, the flowers are glistening and the birds are singing. It's easy to keep the hose coiled on the ground as you give thanks for nature's processes and for not having to add more to your water bill. For those of you who don't enjoy the watering as I do, it's a nice day off from another gardening chore. But do you stop to analyze whether the rain was enough to actually keep your garden alive?

Without thinking about whether a plant needs water or not, we have our watering schedule planned and often stick to it. We take part in our morning or evening habit. It's time to water, so we water. We know how long it takes to complete the activity and that's how long we take to do it. Each plant gets its regular water on a regular basis.

If it rains we likely cancel that day's chore. Then we wait until the next scheduled watering, unless it rains again. In our Colorado, monsoonal, late-summer weather pattern, it's possible to have rain for two weeks without a break. In that time the hose stays wound up, the weeds explode into life, and the garden is ignored more than usual. We wait until the scheduled watering time before we get back to irrigating our gardens.

Scheduled watering is one of the worst things you can do for a garden. If you maintain a watering schedule it's possible that you'll provide too much water and drown your plants. If rain intervenes, it's possible that you will under-water your plant and kill it by thirst. Unless you use a rain guage you won't know if the water from the sky is enough to nourish your plants; assuming it is can be deadly. I've made both mistakes.

Most gardens don't need watering every day, but some do. With proper soil preparation and mulching, many gardens can go three or four days between watering, and some only need it once a week. When it's particularly hot and dry or if the soil is very sandy, gardens may need daily irrigation. It varies based on your specific plant's water needs, on the heat and humidity, on the wind, and on the growth cycle of the plant. The most common problem plants have in a typical garden is receiving too much water. We want to baby our little green friends so we shower them with wet affection, often killing them in the process. Too much water can actually drown a plant by replacing the oxygen in the soil that roots need to absorb to prosper, especially in clay soils.


Use your finger to fix the problem. Before your scheduled watering or after a rain, stick your finger in the soil near a plant. Use that nifty, fleshy tool as a gauge for how moist the soil is. If it's dry, water. If it's wet, don't. Plants don't like too wet and they don't like too dry; they like moist.

Don't rely on the sign of wilting leaves to determine how much water is needed. In the heat of the day, it's normal for a plant's leaves to wilt. It's part of the cellular process a plant uses to minimize water loss by closing off the normal transpiration of water vapor; the result is what we call wilting. As soon as the day cools, leaves open their stomata, little openings in their leaves, and through the process of osmosis begin to absorb water through the roots. The leaves perk up again. Too much water in the soil can screw up the process.

In a similar way, assuming the rain has provided enough moisture can screw things up. While plants benefit from some water on their leaves by absorbing a little of it and easing the transpiration process, they receive primary moisture from the soil. If the rain doesn't reach the soil or if it isn't enough to saturate the soil, the roots will have nothing to absorb and the plant suffers. In this case wilting results because the transpiration process stops and it may be too late to reverse the process. This is when plants die.

The best way to determine if wilting is normal because of a hot day or deadly because of dry soil, is to stick your finger in. Moist finger is good, dry finger is bad. Use the results to decide whether watering is appropriate. Some experts suggest using a screwdriver to determine the dryness of soil; you stick the screwdriver in the soil then touch it after you pull it out to see if it's wet. As I blogged earlier, I like the feel of the soil. Sticking a finger in gives instant feedback and gives you contact with your garden.

You can buy a water sensor, which is a little probe that measures the water content in soil. You stick it in the ground and a little gauge tells you the degree to which your soil is dry or wet. Cheap sensors can be inaccurate and accurate sensors can be expensive. I'm frugal and don't see a need to spend unnecessarily.

For me, you can best benefit your plants and determine your correct watering schedule by just sticking a finger in it.

Watering the garden can be a wonderful thing for both you and the plants. Though I strongly advocate soaker hoses and drip irrigation systems as a way to provide the correct amount of water to your garden, there is something cathartic about holding a warm hose and connecting with each plant  as you offer nourishing H2O. Stress and worry seem to flow out of the body at the same rate as the flow from the hose.

During a hot summer or in an arid region like ours, a soothing rain can also provide that catharsis. The cooling and cleansing effect of an afternoon thunderstorm or evening shower revitalizes the air and rivatalizes your inner being. In the same way, a heat-stressed garden will perk up after the irrigation from the sky.

Though I love hand watering my garden, I look upon rain as a natural process to help keep plants alive. After a rain, the trees are green, the flowers are glistening and the birds are singing. It's easy to keep the hose coiled on the ground as you give thanks for nature's processes and for not having to add more to your water bill. For those of you who don't enjoy the watering as I do, it's a nice day off from another gardening chore. But do you stop to analyze whether the rain was enough to actually keep your garden alive?

Without thinking about whether a plant needs water or not, we have our watering schedule planned and often stick to it. We take part in our morning or evening habit. It's time to water, so we water. We know how long it takes to complete the activity and that's how long we take to do it. Each plant gets its regular water on a regular basis.

If it rains we likely cancel that day's chore. Then we wait until the next scheduled watering, unless it rains again. In our Colorado, monsoonal, late-summer weather pattern, it's possible to have rain for two weeks without a break. In that time the hose stays wound up, the weeds explode into life, and the garden is ignored more than usual. We wait until the scheduled watering time before we get back to irrigating our gardens.

Scheduled watering is one of the worst things you can do for a garden. If you maintain a watering schedule it's possible that you'll provide too much water and drown your plants. If rain intervenes, it's possible that you will under-water your plant and kill it by thirst. Unless you use a rain guage you won't know if the water from the sky is enough to nourish your plants; assuming it is can be deadly. I've made both mistakes.

Most gardens don't need watering every day, but some do. With proper soil preparation and mulching, many gardens can go three or four days between watering, and some only need it once a week. When it's particularly hot and dry or if the soil is very sandy, gardens may need daily irrigation. It varies based on your specific plant's water needs, on the heat and humidity, on the wind, and on the growth cycle of the plant. The most common problem plants have in a typical garden is receiving too much water. We want to baby our little green friends so we shower them with wet affection, often killing them in the process. Too much water can actually drown a plant by replacing the oxygen in the soil that roots need to absorb to prosper, especially in clay soils.


Use your finger to fix the problem. Before your scheduled watering or after a rain, stick your finger in the soil near a plant. Use that nifty, fleshy tool as a gauge for how moist the soil is. If it's dry, water. If it's wet, don't. Plants don't like too wet and they don't like too dry; they like moist.

Don't rely on the sign of wilting leaves to determine how much water is needed. In the heat of the day, it's normal for a plant's leaves to wilt. It's part of the cellular process a plant uses to minimize water loss by closing off the normal transpiration of water vapor; the result is what we call wilting. As soon as the day cools, leaves open their stomata, little openings in their leaves, and through the process of osmosis begin to absorb water through the roots. The leaves perk up again. Too much water in the soil can screw up the process.

In a similar way, assuming the rain has provided enough moisture can screw things up. While plants benefit from some water on their leaves by absorbing a little of it and easing the transpiration process, they receive primary moisture from the soil. If the rain doesn't reach the soil or if it isn't enough to saturate the soil, the roots will have nothing to absorb and the plant suffers. In this case wilting results because the transpiration process stops and it may be too late to reverse the process. This is when plants die.

The best way to determine if wilting is normal because of a hot day or deadly because of dry soil, is to stick your finger in. Moist finger is good, dry finger is bad. Use the results to decide whether watering is appropriate. Some experts suggest using a screwdriver to determine the dryness of soil; you stick the screwdriver in the soil then touch it after you pull it out to see if it's wet. As I blogged earlier, I like the feel of the soil. Sticking a finger in gives instant feedback and gives you contact with your garden.

You can buy a water sensor, which is a little probe that measures the water content in soil. You stick it in the ground and a little gauge tells you the degree to which your soil is dry or wet. Cheap sensors can be inaccurate and accurate sensors can be expensive. I'm frugal and don't see a need to spend unnecessarily.

For me, you can best benefit your plants and determine your correct watering schedule by just sticking a finger in it.