Six Garden Bed Irrigation Options for Family Garden (I)

Whether you plant a vegetable garden on a garden bed or multiple garden beds, you want to have a plan to show how to water the growing plants. After growing on the garden bed for ten years, I tried a variety of garden bed irrigation technologies. Depending on your number of beds, budget and other factors, one may be better than the other. Let's look at the options:

• Manual watering
• Overhead watering (sprinkler)
• Soaking hose
• Drip line
• Drip hose
• Garden irrigation grid

Hand watering for garden bed irrigation

If you are just starting to become a gardener and you only have one or two garden beds, you may find that manual watering is feasible for you. Many gardeners like to water by hand and find it has therapeutic effect to some extent.

Another advantage of manual watering is "close contact" with your plants. With this kind of focused attention, you are more likely to find pest or disease problems early so that you can take action before they become problems.

Of course, by relying on artificial watering, you promise to be the only source of plant water when there is no rain. This may be problematic, especially in the summer when the rain is scarce or you leave the garden for vacation, or both.

Benefits of hand watering:

• You can control the amount of water you use
• You can observe your plants closely and find problems early
• You can aim at the root area, limit evaporation and prevent water from splashing on plants, which will aggravate fungal disease
• Some people feel calm

Disadvantages of hand watering:

• Overwatering is common and can harm your plants
• You must take care of it often, sometimes every day

Overhead watering

Many gardeners choose to use sprinklers to water their gardens. Although this may be a reasonable choice for a large underground garden, it is not so reasonable for a garden bed garden. The main reason is that you finally watered the path you usually want to keep open. If your path is on the ground, you will water the grass and weeds, so as to carry out more maintenance to keep the area clean. If your path is gravel, you are wasting water.

However, using overhead watering may eventually become your choice.

Benefits of overhead watering

• You can put it on the timer so that it will not interfere with your daily life so much
• Overhead watering can keep plants cool under high temperature
• Setting is not complicated

Disadvantages of overhead watering

• Water loss due to evaporation (this is waste and may be expensive)
• Can worsen fungal diseases, especially if you live in humid areas
• When you water the sidewalk, you may water the weeds
• The watering may be uneven

Soaking hose in garden bed

Soaking hoses is probably the most common way to irrigate garden beds. They are cheap, easy to set up, and they seep along the entire hose. Because water directly enters the soil, it will not be lost due to evaporation. In addition, there is no water splashing on the leaves, which can help the pressure of fungal diseases.

The main problem with using soaking hoses as my main garden bed irrigation method is that they will lose their function over time. I found that my bed could not be irrigated as before after 2-3 years.

Benefits of soaking hoses

• Cheap
• Easy to set up
• You can buy products of different lengths according to the size of the bed

Disadvantages of soaking hose

• Over time, they become less effective (congestion is common, but not always obvious)
• If you have more than one bed, it may become expensive

Please continue to read the six garden bed irrigation options of family garden (2)