Severe drought...

Josh wrote:I water my SFGs with this kind of sprinkler, it works pretty good for me, can pretty much reach the entire garden area with it.

Know where you got that sprinkler?

Josh...I am wondering about your overhead watering, and spreading disease? Obviously, you are having NO problems! WOW! I keep hearing not the get the leaves wet??

If you use overhead sprinklers then timing is important. I water between 5 and 6am and again between 5 and 6 pm to allow time for the plants to dry out before the sun gets intense and before the sun goes down. (3 sprinklers on a timer for 15 min at a time) Allows me to be away from home occasionally. I did have some tomato blight but believe it was from airborne potato virus and it is under control with weekly copper fungicide spraying. I'm having more problems with something eating my collards in spite of tulle, neem and bt.

Kay

I think time of day is important too. I water seeds and seedlings with a wand. When the plants are well established, I water in the morning with several sprinklers just like Josh's.

I've wondered for a while if I don't have resulting disease problems because of my temperate climate, but Josh has temps nearly as hot as anyone, and he's never mentioned having problems. Josh, what is your watering schedule?

It hit 100 degrees today but we are getting a little rain tonight but it looks like it will be dry and hot for the next 10 days.

As far as waterring times I shoot for 5-7PM and it has been working so far. It is the hottest June so far as my cauliflower had to be harvested early; was looking pretty sweet.

I have soaker tubing in my boxes, big tubs, and some containers, and I hand-water other things that don't have the irrigation hooked up yet, trying to be careful not to wet the foliage too much.

What time does everyone water? I try to water in the morning, but I'm usually rushing to get ready for work. Evening would be MUCH better but then I'm paranoid because I hear evening is bad (and considering by the end of the day it seems like everything NEEDS to be watered... ). Would love to get some thoughts on this.

Cheyenne so not fun. What is with all the fires!

Plantoid we should find a way to transport all that water, lol! Last year we had a late Winter and so many farmers were a month behind on their farms here. This year we had a mild Winter and insects are very prolific. Can't it just even out?

A new fire started less than ten miles from here by someone who had parked their car over dry grass. Probably the catalitic converter caused it. Some homes lost!

Coelli I try to water in the morning but if it looks like my plants are wilting and won't make it til the morning, I water at night. I have forgotten and looked out and saw my whole bed of broccoli trying to lie down and I had to hurry out and water. I could hear the plants saying ahhhhh!!!

I don't know what's with all the fires everywhere else, poor Colorado seems to be in the worst shape so far. A big problem with our forests are having so many dead bug trees EVERYWHERE! They are not being removed and makes it that much easier for quick ignition and travel.

Coelli wrote:I have soaker tubing in my boxes, big tubs, and some containers, and I hand-water other things that don't have the irrigation hooked up yet, trying to be careful not to wet the foliage too much.

What time does everyone water? I try to water in the morning, but I'm usually rushing to get ready for work. Evening would be MUCH better but then I'm paranoid because I hear evening is bad (and considering by the end of the day it seems like everything NEEDS to be watered... ). Would love to get some thoughts on this.

I'm no watering expert so take what I do with a grain of salt
I generally water in the early morning. About sunrise, just because that's when I go to work, plus I just love being outside that time of day. When I get home later in the afternoon, I water all the young stuff, seedlings, and newly sown seeds again. I typically don't water anything else even if it looks a bit droopy, like pepper and squash, usually it's just the heat as it's just fine in the late evening and early morning. This is what works with my schedule for now. I've also done watering in the evening with fine results too.

I'm no expert either....but I always water around 5:00pm everyday.
Sometimes on the weekend when everyone is home I might water in the day
and then again at around 5:00pm. I've always water the entire plant,
the only time I've ever had any diseases on the plants from watering the leaves or anything like that, last year we had to much rain and that caused a problem with the tomatoes.

For little young plants I would water extra, and maybe give them some shade.

I've read where people say don't water in the heat of the day on the leaves cause it will burn them or something like that, but I sat in on a educational class at the extension and the man giving the class said it will help the plant...cool it down...and I haven't killed or hurt anything by watering in the heat of the day, say like at noon.

If you do a google search for a tripod sprinkler you will find lots of them. We have had ours for a long time, the sprinkler part sometimes stops working right, it unscrews out of the tripod, and I just buy a cheap water sprinkler at say dollar store and unscrew it from the base and screw it on the tripod. They are adjustable height and the sprinkler spray is adjustable too, it can be made to stay in one spot or turn how ever far around you want it to go.

Last year I had so many diseases on my vegetables that I researched and asked everyone I could find how to minimize the diseases. Here are a few of the ideas I found. Don't overhead water because of two reasons. If you do not have mulch under your plant or have not trimmed the bottom leaves/branches, the water will splash fungi/bacteria spores onto the plant that may develop into a full fledge disease. Also, if you get the leaves wet and an airborne spore lands on the leaves it will stick and can then develope into a disease. Also, the reason not to water too late in the evening is because the leaves will stay wet longer. The longer the leaves stay wet the greater chance that the spores will develop into disease. It takes a certain amount of time (can't remeber how much time) for the disease to multiply on a wet leaf. Therefore, if you water early enough in the evening so the leaves dry quickly then watering in the evening will not create this problem because the leaves will dry quickly.

Coelli
I hand water once a day between 6 and 9a.m. and with weeks of 93- 98 degrees then put shade cloth mostly on the west side of the boxes. Still expected the intense heat would kill them cause they get full sun over 13 hrs/day. But it's looking lush and I'm amazed the plants are this tough.

Josh wrote:...I've always water the entire plant,

For those of us accustomed to more rain than sun, the idea of not watering the entire plant is a head scratcher. The plants get wet every time it rains, what's the big deal. Maybe it's different where it gets really hot?

boffer wrote:

Josh wrote:...I've always water the entire plant,

For those of us accustomed to more rain than sun, the idea of not watering the entire plant is a head scratcher. The plants get wet every time it rains, what's the big deal. Maybe it's different where it gets really hot?

Perhaps it is because when it rains there are fewer airborne thingies.

yolos wrote:Last year I had so many diseases on my vegetables that I researched and asked everyone I could find how to minimize the diseases. Here are a few of the ideas I found. Don't overhead water because of two reasons. If you do not have mulch under your plant or have not trimmed the bottom leaves/branches, the water will splash fungi/bacteria spores onto the plant that may develop into a full fledge disease. Also, if you get the leaves wet and an airborne spore lands on the leaves it will stick and can then develope into a disease. Also, the reason not to water too late in the evening is because the leaves will stay wet longer. The longer the leaves stay wet the greater chance that the spores will develop into disease. It takes a certain amount of time (can't remeber how much time) for the disease to multiply on a wet leaf. Therefore, if you water early enough in the evening so the leaves dry quickly then watering in the evening will not create this problem because the leaves will dry quickly.

I agree with this post the most. I do water in the morning, when I get around to it. After the plants are big, the days are long and hotter, I have had to water in the morning and later afternoon, because the squares dried out. This year, I'm sure I'll have to water twice a day too. I never touch my tomato plants when the leaves are wet either, so as not to promote fungal infections.

the overhead watering seems to work for me, here is the tomatoes and beans, no sign of any disease, but so hot for so long is not normal temp for me either...but that is how I always water.

Beans..notice how green the grass is, it crunches when you walk on it.



The tomatoes


The best part about overhead watering...you can do a body check on it to see how much water it's putting out
Watering at 4:00pm...102 temp

haha Josh! Welp, we can't argue, your garden is awesome! I overhead watered ONE time, the next week all of my stuff on the trellis got powdery mildew and croaked!

Hope he remembered to take his phone out of his pocket! I tried to use my grandkids as gauges evening before last. They threw a fit! I think their education has been neglected and made a note to continue with the lessons

southern gardener wrote:haha Josh! Welp, we can't argue, your garden is awesome! I overhead watered ONE time, the next week all of my stuff on the trellis got powdery mildew and croaked!

According to the research I have done, the powdery mildew is not typically caused by overhead watering and getting the plant wet, but by poor air circulation, the high atmospheric humidity and heat create that create the perfect environment for PM.
http://gardening.about.com/od/gardenproblems/a/PowderyMildew.htm

http://www.gardenguides.com/778-keeping-ahead-powdery-mildew-garden-pest-tip.html

Although it rained a little on Saturday night, the grass is still brown and crunches when I walk on it. There is a chance of rain this week but looks like it will be a repeat of the last two weeks.

I water in the evenning between 6-9 PM when it needs it; which is to frequent..

boffer wrote:

Josh wrote:...I've always water the entire plant,

For those of us accustomed to more rain than sun, the idea of not watering the entire plant is a head scratcher. The plants get wet every time it rains, what's the big deal. Maybe it's different where it gets really hot?

Hi Boffer, I suspect that when it rains the air temps drop a few degrees and comes back up to speed gently creating quite an air movement & gently dries the plants .

Whereas if you water with a hose in hot windless or very low air movement conditions it does not , you get a fairly static area of high numidity.

Perhaps this is what may lead to fungal growths in the micro climate of still air around the plants.

It's been very hot and dry here in Northwest Indiana. But we did have some storms over the weekend and got some rain although each rain only lasted about an hour.

I'm fortunate to be on a well so I can afford to water as much as we need. I've been trying to water morning and evening, but I have so many locations that need water and through softball season, which just ended, I was gone most every evening so lost that time to do it. The SFG boxes are doing the best of course! Really love how they hold the water - I'm on a very sandy soil, so in droughts like this it is very hard to keep plants well watered. I've got a soaker hose for the SFG boxes. Not as nice as drip irrigation, but still works very nicely.

Then I have my old beds which I ended up using because I only have 2 SFG boxes and couldn't fit the zucchini and yellow squash. So I run a sprinkler there. And then I was given free watermelon and honeydew melons, so I quickly planted them in a huge old bed I no longer use.

I also have a large flower bed and another smaller one with new plants I was given for free (otherwise I wouldn't have any new stuff there and wouldn't have had to worry so much.) What with them being new starts I've had to water them constantly just to keep them alive and most look fine but they don't seem to really be getting established or growing.

So I have 5 different locations I have had to run the hose/sprinkler to. So, it's been crazy trying to get it all watered. I hope next year we can build a couple more SFG boxes and get rid of the old beds (and the temptation to plant thing there) so all my veggies will be in one area.

Such dry conditions going into 4th of July celebrations with fireworks. Not a good combination. I'm sure sensible people will forgo them but there's always those without any sense.

We almost got some rain yesterday, but it blew by us.

Same here. All around me got severe weather, but we got nothing in the way of rain. Did cool down a bit last night and today is a few degrees cooler only 95.

Kay

We really need it but all the rain keeps missing us as well. It is currently 8:58 pm and 88 degrees with 70% humidity. Our current heat index is still 101F. No rain in sight until Wednesday, supposed to be 96 and T-storms. If we get rain at that temp I will look like this

The upside is that I will be able to pick already-steamed veggies!

GG FrizzHead

PS - it is now 9:06 PM and 90 F. Heat index just went up to 104! Gonna be a miserable night in SD