You need to water your garden in order to grow things. Don't expect the rain to be enough unless you live in a super rainy place. In Texas, we are in a drought. It seems that we are almost always in a drought here. We just can't get enough rain and it is hot, I mean really hot, so we have to water most of our things every single day.
If you are going to plant a garden, you have to add water or nothing will grow. As soon as you plant seeds, water. Water very gently, but water. Seeds won't sprout without water. Don't be like the customers that come into our farm store saying they won't have a garden unless it rains. What? Get out your hose and do some watering.
Yes, I realize that it costs money to water unless you have your own well but if you want the seeds that you bought to turn into something edible, they need water. There is no use in spending $100 on the best Non-GMO seeds you can buy and then let your plants die because you don't want to spend money watering them.
If you want to have a garden in Texas, you will need to have a way to water it because we don't get much rain here, but we get an awful lot of burning heat from the strong sun. You can use a hose or a watering can. I use old gallon tea bottles for a lot of my watering but for the big gardens that are far from the house, you will need to figure out a good water your garden method like soaker hoses or a drip system. We finally have a good irrigation system with faucets that runs throughout most of the property including the hoop houses and the orchard, as well as our raised beds up front.
I keep reading posts on Facebook that say they don't have nice flowers this year because there is no rain. The tomatoes did not grow because it did not rain and on and on. Have they never heard of a hose? This is Texas. You have to water things for them to grow. We are on the threshold of hell with the hot temperatures. There is no letting things alone until it rains. If you don't water, everything will curl up and die pretty quickly.
Once you have determined how to water your garden, you need to do it often, at least if you are in Texas. Most days in the summer, we have to water our garden. Sometimes, we do not. It all depends on how the soil feels. Better to water in the morning so your plants don't have to suffer and wilt all day long in the severe heat. Once the water hits your wilted plants, it can take several hours for them to bounce back. Some may not make it. Don't overstress your plants. They are busy making food for you. Do your job and give them water.
If you have a well, use that to water your garden. Our well water has iron in it. We filter some of the color (orange) and bad taste and smell out, but it is still not good to drink. However, the plants love it and they are growing nicely. The other years, not all of the plants were being hit by the water because the outdoor guys did not care whether or not all of the plants grew.
Last year, for instance, when David was in the hospital for ten days in June, they let all of our plants die. Yet they told David everything was fine. David told them before surgery that if the garden died they would lose their jobs. Once David got home and recuperated enough to walk out in the back, he saw that some trees and plants were not even hooked up to the watering system. Many of our orchard trees were dead and all of our vegetables were dead. Those guys got terminated immediately. Here we were, paying out big bucks to people who assured us they were taking care of the plants and a lot of the trees did not even have nozzles going to them. We lost all of our vegetables.
Speaking of rain to water your garden, it is Monday, May 23 at 4pm and it is pouring like crazy! This is wonderful because we have had almost no rain at all this spring and we are in a heavy drought. Praise God for the good gifts He gives us, like beautiful, life-giving rain!
Consider collecting rain water in barrels. We have always done this, especially when we lived in San Antonio. We would collect it in clean plastic trash cans and then use gallon tea jugs to water everything inside of our greenhouse.
But that was then when it was easy to water your garden in San Antonio. Now we have four acres of sand to water. We have a deep well that waters everything around the property. The problem is that we have not built watering systems all the way up. We have at least another acre to add water to.
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