Drip Irrigation Makes Gardening a Snap
I’m a big proponent of square foot gardening. I like the idea. That’s not to say that it’s an easily successful operation. Quite frankly I haven’t had much luck with the whole deal. But in square foot gardening’s defense it’s not square foot gardening’s fault. It’s mine. I beleive in square foot gardening and I take full blame 100% for the failure of my previous attempts at such conceptual gardening.
Because I didn’t think ahead enough and plant to have drip irrigation installed which would’ve certainly saved my precious crops. And better planning would’ve also provided me with more satisfactory results. No doubt in my mind. But I figure, you learn. It’s certainly these mistakes that teach us to do better next time. Actually the whole issue is that I first planted the wrong seeds a little too late in the season. I planted lettuce when it was already getting too warm. Lettuce does better when the temps are yet a little cool.
And planting lettuce in May would’ve been just fine had I lived in a more northern zone like Maryland–as I once did….but I was living in the South and I forgot. I was planting in Zone 7 where it gets pretty toasty by June. And by the end of June, my first batch of lettuce not only seemed to get a bit of heatstroke but it was also covered in slugs who were looking to stay cool and moist themselves–which wasn’t a pleasant experience at all.
I hated finding those varmints on my edible plants and I certainly didn’t feel like making a salad with slug-infested lettuce. Not even after cleaning the leaves. It just turned me off. Also, I think my tomato plants required double the amount of water that I provided them with. I thought I tried hard. I watered them every morning but since I had no drip irrigation system and I sometimes forgot or became distracted or else went on vacation because what’s a girl supposed to do, stay home in her fenced backyard all summer and watch her garden grow? (admittedly I did like to do that as often as I could)
I had to have a life and if you forget even one watering when you live in the South where the daylight hours peak at about 100 degrees in August, then you’re asking for trouble. My tomatoes were smaller and less juicy than they really should’ve been. And my peppers were small. The pole beans were good. I grew some of those. And I had Italian squash–as much as my little heart desired. But tomatoes are my favorite and so the following summer, I decided to do my tomatoes the lazy man’s way and grow them on my deck. Because I could watch them from my kitchen window and fresh tomatoes are what a woman needs in order to make a fresh batch of homemade salsa every day.
And you don’t need drip irrigation if you grow tomatoes on your deck in decorative pots. You merely walk outside and water them once in the morning. And they thrive just on that and your general admiration. My homemade salsa recipe is chock full of vitamin C and everyone knows that vitamin C keeps away colds and helps manage pain and is just all round good for your body. And so every day in the summer, I make homemade salsa and use it on fish or chicken or else just serve it with chips. I put a handful of cilantro in my homemade salsa that I make with my deck grown tomatoes. No drip irrigation required.