Vegetable Garden Irrigation

When you want to grow something that is tasty and nutritious, your best option is a vegetable garden. Even if you do not have much space in your yard, you can make a small vegetable garden that will still give you the satisfaction of having grown your own food. Growing a vegetable garden is also a fun and relaxing activity that you can do with your whole family. One problem that you will need to address while growing a vegetable garden is how to water the plants. In this area, you have many different options to consider, ranging from simple and inexpensive, to fairly complex and costly.

If you have a small garden and you do not mind watering your plants every day, the easiest option is to just water the plants by hand. This can be done in several ways. Although it may seem old fashion, a watering bucket works well to sprinkle water on your plants. It is low pressure and should not do any damage to the vegetables in that way. If you want to be a little more advanced, you can use a garden hose on low pressure. If you use either of these solutions, do your best to water the base of the plant rather than on the foliage. Watering the foliage can lead to disease.

If you want to be more advanced in watering your garden, setting up an irrigation system can work very well. You can use a basic sprinkler system effectively, but be careful not to over-water the plants. Oscillating sprinklers tend to offer a more even coverage than standard, overhead sprinklers. As mentioned earlier, water on the foliage can lead to disease, which is a problem with sprinklers. This can be avoided if done in the early morning rather than in the afternoon.

Finally, the most advanced and efficient solution that you can set up is a drip-irrigation system. The benefits of this system is that is gets exactly the right amount of water to the plants. This reduces waste and helps keep down disease among plants. The main problem with this system is it is much more difficult to set up and also more costly. If you want to go with the drip irrigation, head to your local sprinkler store and get advice on how to set one up.