Plant Watering Requirements

When it comes to establish a watering routine for your plants then the first thing that any gardener from a beginner to an expert, is that every vegetable you grow is going to have different watering requirements to the one next to it.

Carrots as an example can just be left to be watered by the rain, and will not need you to intervene in the watering process once they have passed the seedling stage, unless it is very dry. Whereas in a hot summer many plants such as peppers and tomatoes may need watering twice a day, even when it rains. This particularly applies to tomatoes that are commonly planted in containers or grow bags, as both of these will get virtually no rainwater into the grow bag or the soil in container when it rains due to the leaves above, and the leaves will not draw in enough rainwater to feed the plant when it is heavy with fruit.

So the key to good crops is establishing the right watering requirements for each of your plants. It need not be complicated and you do not need to make a list as for the average garden you will soon learn what needs watering and when.

However if you are new to growing vegetables then it can all be a little overwhelming with a lot to learn just by experience. The problem is that experience often comes at a price with dead plants being the common result of watering too much or too little.

Indeed many people new to vegetable gardening do not realise that whilst vegetable plants are prone to attack from a variety of pests and diseases such as slugs or whitefly, that the biggest single killer of plants is overwatering them.

Overwatering a plant literally drowns it in much the same way as drowning a human, we both need water but we both need air to survive as well. Too little of each and your vegetables will die. The problem is an overwatered plant can wilt causing us to think it needs more water so we give it some and in doing so help kill it.

If growing a new variety of vegetable for the first time then use the Internet to look up its watering requirement, as it is rare to find this information, if ever, on the seed packet.

By establishing the correct plant watering requirements you should enjoy a bumper crop of vegetables, and once you have established the right plant watering regime then why not invest in an automatic plant irrigation system, which can mean you never have to remember when to water your plants again.

By Richard Allen -