WATERING THE GARDEN
Tips and advice for proper soil moisture levels, including soil and water, when to water, how often and how much, tools, water-saving tricks, strategies for conservation.
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Staff Photo (Better Bush Tomatoes Courtesy of Geo W. Park Seed Co.)
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"Be sure to realize you are watering the soil,
not the plant. "—John Jeavons
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By Susan Glaese and MOTHER's staff
At this very moment, somewhere on our vast planet, it's
raining. But at MOTHER's EcoVillage garden, we're in the
middle of a typical summer dry spell . . . so I've been
busy soaking the bases of our tomato plants with a watering
wand. I feel that I'm doing my part to carry on a long and
valuable tradition, because we humans have always
intervened on behalf of our cultivated crops.
And throughout history, that aid has often involved drastic
efforts—such as performing rain dances to the
heavens, creating miles of hand-dug ditches, or hauling
buckets of water great distances. Fortunately, watering a
vegetable plot is much easier today than it was for our
forebears. Most of us—with the twist of a
spigot—can turn a garden hose into an umbilical cord
linking us to vast (yet not inexhaustible)
underground rivers. And since many of us don't need to
worry about the availability of water, being blessed with
adequate supplies, we can often afford, instead, to fret
about when to water . . . how much moisture to put
down . . . what implements and techniques
are most appropriate to use . . . and how to conserve as
much water as possible while still nurturing the crops.
These are the concerns we'll address in this article. But
first, let's review some fundamentals about . . .
SOIL AND WATER
Water provides more than just liquid to a plant;
it's also the medium that enables nutrients and minerals to
enter the roots. (Roots don't digest dirt—they're not
"woody earthworms"—but instead obtain their nutrients
only in solution.) What's more, through the process of
photosynthesis, some of water's hydrogen is split off to
become a constituent of the carbohydrate compounds that
make up most of the body tissue of growing plants.
Interestingly, water also enables plant roots to obtain
nutrients that are beyond their physical reach. At varying
depths below our feet lies the water table. Above that is
soil containing minute, air-filled vestibules. When enough
moisture surrounds each soil particle to create a
continuous film from roots to water table, plants can, by
capillary action, draw water and thus food from places far
beneath their roots. (When this happens, the soil is said
to have reached field capacity.)
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