COLUMNIST: NEIL M WHITE
Similarly, there are times of the year which are drier than others. Here in the east of Scotland, we often have a very dry spring whereas July can often be a wet month.
A lot of the veg you grow needs significant quantities of water, not only to survive, but to produce fruit. Drought stressed plants will not grow to their full potential or produce a good crop. They are more susceptible to pests, diseases, and can suffer things like early bolting.
But let's face it, watering is a pain unless you’ve got a teeny little veg plot and it just takes a watering can to soak the soil. But get a few semi-raised beds and you’ve got an evening’s work to water everything properly. If you have a hose, great. But if not, you’ll be carrying a lot of buckets of water to get everything covered.
Watering is a bit like jumping out of a plane with a parachute on your back. You need to be ‘all in’ - go big or go home. What I mean is this: watering half heartedly is worse than not watering at all. That’s because inadequate watering only wets the top layer of soil without soaking right down. Plants are clever - they can sense this and so spread their roots closer to the surface making them more susceptible to drought stress. It’s a whole vicious cycle thing.
The way to water properly is to soak the soil. Here’s a trick for knowing when you’ve done enough - if you water and after ten seconds, the surface of the soil still has a wet sheen, then you’ve done enough. If the shine disappears into a matt, mud then keep going.
If that sounds like a lot of work, it is. But imagine if there was another way - a way that meant you’d never need to water again….
I’ll level with you - I hate watering. If there was a league table of gardening jobs, it would be in the relegation drop zone. If you added up all the time in your life you spent watering, you could have done something more productive. Like anything.
But your veg plot will need water at some point. So how can you avoid watering as much as possible?
Although you can’t see it, the roots on your veg plants take up a lot of space. And when you sow or plant too close together, these roots compete with each other for space, water, and nutrients. Close spacing means more watering, stressed plants, and lower yields.
Instead, try spacing out your plants at least the distance it says on the seed packets, or wider if you are in a dry site, or an allotment where you cannot water regularly. It sounds counterintuitive to widen out the spacing for better yields but I guarantee this works. Wider spaced plants will be more resilient to drought, healthier, and give you bigger crops than stressed, closely planted plants.
You know what soaks up liquid quicker than a pack of Pampers? Weeds. Those little blighters literally make a living out of stealing the water and nutrients from your veg. They might look small but they have extensive roots that instantly compete with your plants and nick their water.
Weeding is like going to the gym. A little bit on a regular basis is better than leaving it for weeks and then having a panicky, day long session. On your regular garden walks, be prepared to pick out even the smallest weed. You’re doing your plot a big favour.
OK, now we’re going on deeper dive into the science of not watering. Stay with me on this - I might just change your life.
When you were younger, did you ever go to the beach? You’d go down to the water’s edge and on the hard sand, you did little steps. The capillary action and the vibration brought the water to the surface of the saturated sand and it make a cool ‘quicksand’ effect.
When it rains on the bare soil of your plot, the same effect is happening. The top layer of soil becomes compacted and the capillary action draws water to the surface making your soil dry out quicker. You need to be able to break that cycle.
Here’s how: after it rains, take a stirrup or Dutch hoe and agitate the smoothed soil so that you break up the crust. After a few minutes, you’ll see this top fluffy layer dry out. BOOM! You’ve broken the chain and your soil isn’t drying out as much. That little job took five minutes vs hours of watering. You can do this every time it rains but at least once a week is recommended. Plus you’ll keep the weeds to a minimum (see point 2).
And the more space between rows and planting positions (see point 1), the easier it is to hoe between rows. It’s almost like this is a near complete system to prevent you watering every again - which it is!
Don’t throw the watering can away though! With all this in mind, I still do some watering. Container grown plants, for example, need watered a lot - sometimes every day. If you grow pumpkin, squash, or courgette, they need regular watering, and fruit trees need plenty of water when they are setting fruit.
But if you’ve taken care of the rest of your plot, you’ll be freer to put energy into the plants that really need it.
Neil M. White lives in Perthshire with his wife and three children. He has worked in horticulture as a landscape gardener and in a tree nursery.
Passionate about growing fruit and veg, Neil's latest book on gardening ‘The Self Provisioner’, was published in April 2020.
Follow what Neil gets up to on his Twitter and Instagram pages.