We must stop wasting water because we don’t have much of it to go around. One area of the home we don’t think about often is the garden. It’s easy to take a shower instead of a bath, but what are you doing to save water when it comes to watering your plants? Here are a few things you could do to stop wasting water in your garden.
1 – Water when the sun is gone
If it’s sunny outside, it’s not a good idea to water your plants in the middle of the afternoon because the heat from the sun will dry the water up much quicker. Water your plants in the morning so the water won’t evaporate within hours, or you can water them once the sun disappears and they’ll have all night to soak up the water. This doesn’t matter so much when it’s not hot outside because the water won’t disappear in a hurry.
2 – Mulch the soil surface
Do you have a compost heap in the garden? If you don’t have one at the moment you should set one up because you’ll be able to mulch the soil surface with your disgusting creation. A pile of compost might not look pretty, but it does help your garden in a few different ways. The one we’re interested in today is the fact it will reduce the moisture loss in the soil plus it will also help suppress weeds.
3 – Take out the weeds
If you don’t keep on top of the weeds, they can become a nuisance as they’ll try to take over your garden. How do you think weeds grow in the first place? They’re just like plants and they need water to grow, but when you have lots in your garden they will steal all the water for themselves. They don’t like to share, so the easiest solution is to pull them out whenever you see them shoot through the soil.
4 – Apply water directly to soil
There is a smart way to water your plants and there is also a reckless way. The reckless way involves throwing the water around in any direction and hoping the plants get enough. The smart way is to apply the water directly to the root of each plant. When you start blasting the plant with water, you will end up losing a lot of it because it will get blocked by the leaves.
5 – Collect the rainwater
Rainwater is going to fall in your garden whether you like it or not, so you should choose to take advantage of it. If you have ornamental bowls in your garden, they will catch a lot of water as it falls from the sky. You can even collect water inside a huge barrel if you can find a way to siphon the water into it. Have you thought about adding a gutter to your shed roof?
6 – Don’t water paved areas
If you’re lucky, you’ll have a sprinkler system set up in your garden which makes it much easier to water your plants, but you must make sure everything is set up correctly. There is no reason why you should be watering the garden path, so make sure the sprinklers aren’t hitting any useless areas. It might take you a while to get everything right, but it’s better than wasting water for years to come.
Don’t be careless
Does anything look glaringly obvious to you? Everything we’ve spoken about is so simple to implement and it’s all common sense. If you follow everything we’ve talked about today you’ll save a huge amount of water over the course of a year.
This article is authored by Ted Williams, an employee at Rhodes Pump Service, leading providers of well water filtration services in Connecticut. Ted is an avid comic book reader and is a regular feature at the local comic conventions.
