Garden Maintenance: Watering

If you have been following along on the Organic Gardening series, you now have an idea of how to decide what to plant and where and how to plant it. Now you just have to maintain it.

This means you have to give it the right amount of water and observe how the plants are doing and make sure you don’t let any non optimum condition persist if it crops up. (No pun intended 😊) You also should know how to feed, enhance, and protect the crop you will harvest.

We will start with Watering Your Garden.  Of course everybody knows plants need water just like animals and people, but why? Well to begin with seeds won’t germinate without water, no matter how rich the soil is that they are sitting in. Then as it grows from there on, water gives the plant structure. 

Adequate water makes the structure firm and strong because it creates the correct internal pressure. This pressure is known as Turgor pressure. The stiffness or wilting of the plant comes from the degree to which the cell membranes of plant cells push against the cellulose cell walls. And that is directly related to how much water is in the cells. 

Without the cell walls a plant’s cells would just get bloated and pop if it got too much water. That’s why animals don’t have turgor pressure and need skeletons to hold the structure of their bodies. Animal cells don’t have cell walls.

Water is also necessary to the process of photosynthesis.  Photosynthesis harnesses the energy of the sun and feeds the plant and eventually the majority of life if not all life on planet Earth. It doesn’t happen without water.

Water is also the basis of a plant’s circulatory system. It allows nutrients to be taken in at the roots and be transported to the stem and leaves.

It also controls temperature, just like in animals, only we don’t call it sweating which comes from skin glands. We call it transpiration because it has to do with water being transported from the roots to the leaves and then evaporated into the air. 

On the underside of leaves there are pores called stomata or stomates. Water exits through the stoma/stomate and evaporates making the air cooler. That’s why it is so lovely in nature to sit under a tree. Besides the shade you feel the cooling moisture, but also you feel oxygen too. The stomates take in Carbon Dioxide and release Oxygen. 

If there isn’t enough water, the stomates close, which means they no longer take in carbon dioxide and release oxygen either. This condition can’t be born long, but it’s a lot longer than if an animal body stops breathing. A plant will not die all at once, but will section itself off and have the outer parts die first as the water runs out.

But we don’t want any of it to die. We want the plant to have enough water to push forward and grow flowers and then fruits and vegetables. And that’s why we need to keep the garden watered.

Here are some tricks and tips I have found to make it easier to water garden sized spaces:

You can make a “watering can” out of a large soda or water bottle that can hold more and be quicker and reach further than your normal more bulky watering can. You do this by nailing or drilling many tiny holes into the cap and a few in the side of the bottle neck. Then you can carry it comfortably without spilling anything and just point and squirt. You can also be more precise in aiming water toward the stem so it slides down and lands just where it is needed. And also you can create a light sprinkle for seeds and seedlings that doesn’t disturb the dirt like a solid stream would.

Now suppose you have a busy life or you have to be away from home for extended periods of time. How can you still keep your plants watered? 

Well you can plant your plants in a self watering pot.

Self watering pots allow plants to tap into a reservoir of water underneath the pot. You can make one with a plastic bottle. You can also buy them in different sizes.

To make one just cut the plastic bottle all the way through a little higher than half way up. You put a wick through the top of the water bottle. This could be cotton from an old t-shirt that you rip in strips or a large cotton wick like for a lamp. Imagination is the limit but you want something absorbent and non-toxic that you can stuff in the opening of the bottle.

Then you turn it upside down and place it in the bottom half of the bottle and let the wick hang down into it so a small part of the wick is in the upper part of the container and the majority hangs down into the base. This is where you put the water. In the upside down part you put compost soil where you will transplant your plant to. Or you can grow it in there from the start. This will keep the plant watered for 2 to 3 weeks. An advantage of using plastic is that you can see the water getting lower and lower in the base and you know when to refill it. 

For plants that are in the soil or a large pot, you can make a drip irrigation system.

Basically it is the same as your “watering can” only you make bigger holes in the cap and only make about 4 or 5 of them and a few smaller holes on the neck of the bottle then you cut the bottom of the bottle off. Then you dig a hole 4 to 6 inches from the stem of your plant and bury the plastic bottle half way down with the holes in the cap pour side down. So it’s like a plastic funnel with a cap partially buried that will drip water gradually that the roots of the plant can take up. 

You can do this as many times as you have to to cover all the different plants in your garden. This could keep your plants watered for a few days to a week, or more if you put something over the opening to prevent evaporation.

If you use a wine bottle instead, you don’t have to drill holes, you just put the bottle in the hole opening down and you press the bottle in so it makes kind of a dirt plug in the opening. Of course you have to fill the bottle first and plug it with your finger and shove it into the dirt before all the water spills out. But estimates of this method say you can get 4-6 weeks of watering out of a 1.5 Liter bottle, of course depending on how dry the soil is and how big the plant.

Or you can make what is known as an Olla (pronounced oy ya) which just means pot in Spanish. Ollas in one form or another have been used for centuries all over the world in agriculture.

An olla is an unglazed terracotta pot buried in the ground next to the plants you want to water. It will seep water very slowly into the dry dirt around it. It takes about 2 weeks for the plant roots to gravitate to this new source of water so you have to water normally for two weeks before you can leave the olla to do the job. An olla only flows if the dirt around it is dry, so don’t worry about over watering in those first 2 weeks.

The easiest way to make one is to get a terracotta pot that does not have a hole in the bottom. Bury it up to the rim and cover it with a plastic lid. You can use a terracotta saucer to cover it, but that will allow a bit of evaporation and will have to be refilled more often. 

The cheap way is to get a common terracotta pot with a hole and plug the hole with a drain plug and silicone or some putty on both sides of the hole. You have to test to see if it is water tight before you bury it though.

But If you have the budget you can get huge terracotta containers with fitted lids already made that can be buried deep and wide to cover large areas for months. 

If you have to go away for an extended time it is far easier to get someone to visit your garden every 2 weeks to refill the reservoirs than every day! 

I hope this information helps alleviate any worries about having a garden with a busy work or travel schedule. You can still come home to a big surprise of beautiful fruits and vegetables you can treat your family and friends to. 

We at Herbal Roots hope you have enjoyed learning about these tips and tricks and will put some of them to use.