I grew up in  New Jersey – the “Garden State”.  We always watered our garden.  But when I moved out to Indiana, I was shocked that few people watered their gardens.  My neighbor (an avid gardener) let his garden die the summer we had a drought rather than water it.

So if you don’t water your garden, this isn’t the post for you.  But if you do… this is how I handled the water in my dream garden. While we were constructing the beds, we laid down blue water lines to all of the beds.

These come up through the bottom of each bed and are attached to a spigot.

Each spigot in each bed gets a black “drip” hose.

During the summer, the spigots are all left in the “open” position.  They are all connected to a central location that has a timer.  The timer is set so that the water goes on in all of the garden beds for 30 minutes to one hour (depending on how rainy it has been) every morning.

Sometimes it is rainy and the watering is unnecessary.  We try to remember to turn the timer off, but we often forget.

When we plant something new in the garden (such as the sweet potatoes below), we can turn the hose on so it gets some extra water.

We generally water every morning before the sun rises.  This allows the water to absorb into the ground and not evaporate away.  Then when the sun comes up, it dries out the plants (if they even get wet) to make sure that they don’t get moldy or rot.  The bottom of each bed is rock, so the water can drain away from the beds as well.

The blue water lines were all buried in the concrete aisleways.  They were  not buried below the frost line, so every Fall, we have to drain the lines for the winter so nothing freezes.

This is just one more example of how I simplified my garden maintenance.  Small and steady watering helps ensure a bountiful garden harvest!