For people who want to grow more food with less work. 🌱 This is my weekly newsletter loved by 38,000+ subscribers—here's what one of them had to say: "These are not the regular run-of-the-mill garden-based emails. You actually touch on more unusual tidbits that encourage me to keep growing and learning."
this is how long to run your drip irrigation ⏱️
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One of the hardest things to figure out when you have drip irrigation is how long to run it. I was just pondering this question as we're getting ready to restart the drip irrigation in our raised beds and at my kids' school garden this week. Besides determining how much water your plants need (an amount that changes throughout the season), you also have to factor in water pressure, emitter flow rates, number of emitters, and emitter spacing. But guess what? I came up with an easy-to-use calculator that figures it out for you!
This interactive tool helps you calculate how many minutes to set your drip irrigation timer for, based on the irrigation area, water depth, and flow rate (all things I'll walk you through). And I also cover simple strategies to calculate the run time if, for example, you don't know your flow rate. Try it out and let me know if it helps! (If you need a guide for how much you should be hand watering, check out the linked post below.) Seasonal TipsIs it spring yet where you are?After spending last week on the coast, I took my kids up to our local mountain on their last day of spring break. 🏂 All the ski resorts in the western United States have had a terrible (nearly non-existent) winter, and I'm so grateful that our resort is still open and holding on to its snowpack. I've enjoyed around 15 days on my snowboard, much less than I typically get this far in the season, but it's still been so fun playing in the snow and cruising around with my kids. (Can confirm: the day all your kids can finally make turns with you all over the mountain is the best day ever.) Down in town, we have warm days followed by freezing nights, which makes things reeeaaallly tricky in the garden. A few of our fruit trees started budding during last week's heat spell, so we attempted to protect them from the 25°F nights by spraying them with water when it's coldest. It's a technique used by commercial orchards and vineyards, where the latent heat released by freezing water is just enough to protect the blossoms. We're still experimenting with different sprinkler setups and finding the best time for them to come on, but we haven't lost any blossoms yet (we don't think) and still have a few more hard freezes ahead. Stone fruit flowers can generally withstand about 27°F so we're right on the edge of what's survivable. I've also read of people having success with wrapping their fruit trees in incandescent string lights. Have you tried this trick before? Or know any others to protect fruit tree blossoms from freezes? Covering them is not an option for us, so I'd love to know what others are doing this spring. P.S. Use my run time calculator to determine how long to run your drip irrigation this season. P.P.S. Today is the LAST DAY of Amazon's Big Spring Sale! Don't miss my favorite deals here to see if you can use those items in your garden this season. (Pro tip: Also check your "Saved for later" list to see if anything is on sale.) If you're not an Amazon Prime member, sign up here for a free 30-day trial to take advantage of the deals. |
Garden Betty
For people who want to grow more food with less work. 🌱 This is my weekly newsletter loved by 38,000+ subscribers—here's what one of them had to say: "These are not the regular run-of-the-mill garden-based emails. You actually touch on more unusual tidbits that encourage me to keep growing and learning."