"How to Protect Your Garden from Drought: 5 Essential Tips For Water Management"
- mp50081
- Apr 12, 2024
- 3 min read
Gardening is an experience that seems to vary year to year like the weather.
Some years you might grow cucumbers, other years you might grow spinach.
Some years the weather is normal or it might be wetter than usual. However there are going to be years where hot, dry weather causes drought conditions.
During a drought, the city or town you live in might impose water restrictions. As a result, your garden or farm might dry out and possibly fail.
If you know how to manage water properly during dryer periods, your garden will still thrive.
Here are 5 essential tips for protecting your garden from a drought.
1. Mulching:
Mulching is a gardening technique that applies a layer of material called a mulch.
A mulch is a layer of material applied to the surface of your soil. Examples include tree bark, wood chips as well as leaves.
Mulch is applied for many reasons including improving the fertility and health of your soil, reducing weed growth and making your garden look nicer.
The most important reason to apply mulch is to help your soil retain moisture. During times of drought, this helps a lot.
2. Adopt Different Watering Techniques:
During times of drought, it helps a lot if you adopt different watering techniques.
Some of these techniques include drip irrigation and using a soaker hose. Also applying water to sections that need it more as well as deep watering.
Drip irrigation is a type of irrigation system.
It involves placing plastic tubing on the ground alongside your plants.
The tubing has emitters that allow water to slowly drip out into your soil at the root zone.
Drip irrigation works best for row crops such as cucumbers and tomatoes, along with trees and vine crops.
Having a drip irrigation system has its benefits. Precise amounts of water go to plant roots and can increase yields with less water.
A big drawback with having a drip irrigation system is that it requires more maintenance than a conventional irrigation system.
Soaker hoses are a cheaper and more flexible alternative to drip irrigation. They are easy to use and can be easier to move around your garden.
Even changing how you manually water your plants helps too.
Apply more water to sections of your garden that need it more. Also apply water directly to the plant’s roots and allow it to go deeper into the soil.
3. Choose Drought-Resistant Plants:
If hot and dry weather is expected, it may help to plan ahead and choose drought-resistant plants for your garden.
If you’re planting fruits and vegetables such as tomatoes, cucumbers or squash, there are varieties that are drought-resistant.
If you’re planting tomatoes but you’re worried about the weather being hot and dry, there are varieties you should consider.
Tomato varieties to consider include ‘early girl’, ‘brandy wine’ as well as cherry tomatoes.
If you’re planting cucumbers, varieties such as ‘straight eight’, ‘Armenian’, ‘lemon’ as well as pickling cucumbers.
If you’re planting squash, you should consider varieties such as ‘zucchini’, ‘mixta’ as well as ‘summer’ squash.
4. Use Rain Barrels:
Have you considered using rain barrels to catch rainwater?
Here’s an interesting fact, a typical rain barrel can help you conserve water during a drought.
Also according to the EPA, a typical rain barrel can save the average homeowner up to 1,300 gallons of water a year.
The rainwater collected can be used to water your garden or lawn as well as your indoor plants. Also at the same time, you’ll save money on your monthly water bill.
However, you should be aware that rainwater can become contaminated with bacteria. Also if the rain barrel is not covered, you’ll have to deal with mosquitoes.
5. Soil Management:
Proper soil management in your garden goes hand-in-hand with protecting your garden from drought.
Managing your soil includes improving the structure of it by minimizing how much you till it, add organic matter including compost and add mulch to hold moisture in the ground.
Healthy soil with a very rich layer of topsoil has been shown to help a garden or farm weather hot and dry weather.
Degraded soil on the other hand has a harder time holding moisture and topsoil can turn to dust.
Focusing on soil management as well as its overall health is referred to as regenerative farming. This process can also work for your garden.
Here’s a link to a previous post:
Have you protected your garden from drought?
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