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In NJ we haven't had rain in forever. I water 2 hours in the morning, 3-4 times a week. I start at 5:30 am. I have annuals and perenniels. I've decided to concentrate on the newish perenniels. I water all the perenniels about once a week, but the newish ones (one or two years old) 2 -3 times a week. Very very deep. I put the hose nozzle on the earth, and let the water drip in right where the roots are. I Used to do that for 5 minutes at a spot, now I do it for 10 minutes. My annuals which are zinnias I also do 2-3 times a week for the special ones that I really like, the others, less so.
It takes me two hours because I move the nozzle from one location to another. I have 2 plots in a community garden, each one 25 feet by 25 feet.
I watch people water from a hose, which loses 70% of the water output to evaporation. And since they do it for 15 minutes, little of the water gets in to the earth.
I was thinking of getting a soaker hose, but the I read that it takes 200 minutes for a soaker hose to provide one inch of water. That would not help in this situation. As one inch hardly is anything under the curent situation.
We need several days of soaking rain, and I don't see that in the near future.
I watch people water from a hose, which loses 70% of the water output to evaporation. And since they do it for 15 minutes, little of the water gets in to the earth.
I beg you, go buy a rain gauge for $3. Place that rain gauge under your sprinkler. Then place it under a hose.
Watering from a hose gets you a TON more water than with sprinklers. More water gets wasted with sprinklers because it doesn't come down onto the earth as heavy and most gets lost with evaporation.
Or do this... Keep sprinkler on for 1 hour.. slice a sample of the soil and see how moist the soil is inches deep.. Then use a hose for 5 minutes in another spot. Slice a sample of the soil there and you'll be surprised.
Location: East of Seattle since 1992, 615' Elevation, Zone 8b - originally from SF Bay Area
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With sprinklers, you should be able to place an empty tuna can on your lawn and water it until the can had 1" in it, that tells you how long you should be watering it. I agree that a hose is far more efficient, with much less evaporation, it's just more labor intensive. The best wat to water a lawn is with a hose no nozzle, thumb to disperse, and walk around for an hour or more. No one wants to do that, however, so the sprinkler was invented. Fortunately I have not had to water yet this year, with rain right up until last week, and temperatures below 80. Currently, it's 59F and overcast here. For other plants such as my bonsai collection and vegetable garden, I use the most efficient watering method, drip irrigation on timers, 1-2 emitters on each plant/tree.
I use watering cans with water from my rain barrel. I pour it at the base of the plants. I figure less waste that way. My raised beds are looking good. My ground plot of potatoes, zucchini and cucumbers I only watered them when they were first planted for a couple of weeks. It has been raining about 1 day per week this summer.
In NJ we haven't had rain in forever. I water 2 hours in the morning, 3-4 times a week. I start at 5:30 am. I have annuals and perenniels. I've decided to concentrate on the newish perenniels. I water all the perenniels about once a week, but the newish ones (one or two years old) 2 -3 times a week. Very very deep. I put the hose nozzle on the earth, and let the water drip in right where the roots are. I Used to do that for 5 minutes at a spot, now I do it for 10 minutes. My annuals which are zinnias I also do 2-3 times a week for the special ones that I really like, the others, less so.
It takes me two hours because I move the nozzle from one location to another. I have 2 plots in a community garden, each one 25 feet by 25 feet.
I watch people water from a hose, which loses 70% of the water output to evaporation. And since they do it for 15 minutes, little of the water gets in to the earth.
I was thinking of getting a soaker hose, but the I read that it takes 200 minutes for a soaker hose to provide one inch of water. That would not help in this situation. As one inch hardly is anything under the curent situation.
We need several days of soaking rain, and I don't see that in the near future.
You might fare better with more mulch, and next year working more organic matter into the soil. Watering that often can create weak roots and plants more susceptible to heat stress.
With sprinklers, you should be able to place an empty tuna can on your lawn and water it until the can had 1" in it, that tells you how long you should be watering it.
Haha at the thumb on hose, been there still do that sometimes and still regret it. lol
You don't need 1 inch of water with each watering though UNLESS you are keeping the grass short?
Filling the tuna can half way or even a quarter of the way is fine and do it everyday. I got low water pressure so it takes me 1.5hrs to fill 1/4 of a tuna can. If Karens saw my sprinkler on for 2 hrs they would have a fit meanwhile it barely used any water. lol
I only keep sprinklers on for 40 minutes so it drops 0.10" each day. Plenty to keep my 3" grass greenest on the block.
Right now it's the dry period here. It's in the mid 90's and 10-15% humidity. Fire season is kicking off once again. We had a pretty normal Spring, albeit a cooler one and the moisture came late, but we didn't need to water anything until about 3-4 weeks ago.
Pretty much everything we have is on a irrigation system. The lawn get hit twice a day, once at 4:30a.m and the second at 7:30p.m. each zone gets 12 minutes. About .10-.15 total each watering. All the irrigation experts claim twice a day in the summer is needed here. I'm going to tinker with it and see if I can go every other day, once, with extended run times. Maybe every third day. I keep my grass long so it's pretty moist the way it set up now.
Perimeter plants and trees get 30 minutes on mist/drip once in the afternoon. Same for our retaining wall garden/plants.
We have porch plants and plants in stock tanks that right now get two manual soakings a day with a hose wand.
Our vegetable garden is on drip, and it receives 2 scheduled watering's, one at 10:30a.m. the second around 4:00p.m. However depending on the weather I'll dial in a 3rd manual watering usually for 20 minutes. Usually in the evening after the lawn is done.
It's monsoon season here and it's raining every day. I had to cover the tomatoes with an umbrella cause they were drowning. They have not had much sunshine at all this year and I doubt if I will have a good crop.
We are in a 1200-year drought. Near Albuquerque, the Rio Grande is dry -- no flowing water. Home irrigation or sprinklers are restricted. The acequias are mostly dry. We are in the monsoon season and get some rain but not enough. People are hand watering. I water my potted plants a little every day and a few favored ornamentals. Most of the yard plants are natives and will survive. Nobody around here has a grass lawn if they have any sense. The sun bakes anything near a wall due to reflected heat even though we have reasonable temperatures at 5000+ feet (hence the hot sunlight) -- you can't keep those plants watered. I hose down the wall and the ground nearby to cool it off a bit. At 3:30 it is 91-degrees and sunny now with 33% humidity (high for us).
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