Without water, many vegetables grown in the home garden are unlikely to be successful. It is of course essential to water the garden regularly, and to satisfy the needs of each family of vegetable plants according to the season, the temperatures, the frequency of the rains… Having a well-stocked vegetable garden can be quite expensive in irrigation water if the rainy episodes are rare because you have to take out the watering can and the hose often. However, if you think about it more closely, you can quickly come up with excellent ideas for saving water in your vegetable garden without jeopardizing your productivity. Here are 10 leads to follow for a reasoned watering and that thrifty and green gardeners will certainly appreciate.
1 – Water your vegetable garden wisely
We need much less water over a season if we water copiously once a week rather than a little every day or every other day. And it benefits the vegetables much more. And when it is very hot, we water at night to limit evaporation which leads to a significant loss of water. If you have a sufficient budget, do not hesitate to invest in a programmable watering system.
2 – Collect rainwater to water the vegetables
The water that falls from the sky is a absolute wealth for the garden because it is not calcareous, unlike that of the tap. But that’s not all. Collecting rainwater is a solution increasingly used by gardeners because it allows the use of a renewable water et free unlike that obtained from the drinking water network. It is up to everyone to choose the rainwater collector with sufficient capacity both to water your vegetables and for domestic use (showers, baths, toilets, washing clothes, dishes, the car).
The tank volume is chosen depending on the area of the cultivated plot a you number of persons who make up the family. So here is which rainwater collector to get to have free water in the garden and at home.
- Vegetable garden of less than 200 m²:
- Family of 2: 1,600 liters,
- Family of 5: 3,700 litres.
- Vegetable garden of 400 m²:
- Family of 2: 3,700 litres,
- Family of 5: 6,500 litres.
- Vegetable garden of 600 m²:
- Family of 2: 4,500 litres,
- Family of 5: 9,000 litres.
Given the price of a cubic meter of drinking water, the budget devoted to the purchase of the recuperator will quickly pay for itself.
3 – Protect your garden from the wind
It is recommended, when creating your vegetable garden, to choose an area of the land little exposed to the wind. If you have not taken this precaution, you can always plant a windbreak hedge. It is particularly useful when drying winds are frequent.
4 – Eliminate weeds in the vegetable garden
Those commonly referred to as weeds offer strong competition to plants in the vegetable garden. Eliminating them as soon as they come out of the ground is an excellent solution so that they stop drawing the water which the vegetables have a crucial need for. The roots of weeds should be removed to prevent them from growing back but also because they absorb water from the soil through them. Weeding is done by hand (with gloves) or with a hoe.
5 – Never plow in dry weather
The work of the soil of the garden must be carried out in overcast weather but especially not if it has not been more for a long time. In the same way, it is not judicious to put oneself there in period of strong heat. Turning the earth leads to its dehydration. No need to multiply the drying factors because it would be necessary to water accordingly so that the soil regains a suitable level of humidity.
6 – Choose the location of your vegetables well
To save water in the vegetable garden, it is important to plant species sensitive to drought and strong sunlight in partial shade. Moreover, certain products from the vegetable garden develop much better in the shade, which makes it possible to moderate watering. In a well-shaded vegetable garden, we plant without hesitation cabbage, radishes, turnips, chard…
7 – Limit the cultivation of water-intensive vegetables
In this category we find lettuces, celery, melon, zucchini, eggplant, tomato, pepper… It is necessary to be reasonable at the time of planting in order to cultivate only what is necessary to meet the needs of his family. It is absurd to have to water excess vegetables that you will have to throw away because you can’t eat them all.
8 – Favor vegetables that are satisfied with little watering
If you want to drastically reduce your water consumption while having a well-stocked vegetable garden, the ideal is to select species whose water demand is quite low. The icing on the cake, these are generally plants that require little effort from the gardener. These include, for example, purslane salad, parsnips, rhubarb, Japanese crosnes, leeks, orach, Jerusalem artichokes, beets and to give flavor to cooked dishes, onions , garlic and shallot.
On the other hand, some plants in the vegetable garden needabundant watering only at the start of cultivation and are satisfied thereafter with very moderate and spaced out waterings, as is the case with green beans and carrots. We can therefore reserve a place for them in the vegetable garden without fearing for our wallet!
9 – Put a mulch at the foot of the vegetable plants
Mulching your vegetable garden consists of depositing natural elements such as flax and hemp in flakes or even Fragmented Raméal Wood (BRF) on the ground. In addition to keeping vegetables clean, slowing the development of weeds, and adding a decorative touch to the vegetable garden, good mulching considerably limits water loss due to evaporation. It constitutes a protective screen for the floor which no longer undergoes direct sunlight. During heat waves, the soil in the garden is less hot, and the humidity is better preserved.
With a grinderthe gardener can create his own BRF to mulch his vegetable garden in order to save money.
10 – Invest in a drip system to water the vegetable garden
Almost 20 liters every 60 seconds pour into the garden when using a garden hose. If this is the only means available, it is absolutely necessary to equip it with a gun in order to reduce the flow of water.
However, there is better way to save water in the vegetable garden without making your crops thirsty. It’s about drip system. No more unnecessary runoff. This device distributes just what is necessary and since it does not wet the foliage, the risk of disease is reduced. Note that the porous pipe is another good solution for not wasting water. Gardeners with a do-it-yourself soul who are not close to a D system can transform a conventional pipe into a drip and connect it to their rainwater collector. Smart no?
As for hoeing the vegetable garden regularly, it is very useful for weeding but it is not what saves water in the garden. Contrary to what many gardeners say, good hoeing is not necessarily worth two waterings! Admittedly, hoeing facilitates the penetration of water into the soil since the crust which has formed on the surface is broken up following successive rains and waterings, but the earth being loosened by the passage of the hoe, evaporation water is facilitated.
Hoeing can only save water if you lay mulch in the vegetable patch right after. Finally, as far as possible, it is by combining several of the solutions that we have just discovered that the gardener can see his bills drop considerably.