irrigation in the HOT weather

How about this heat and dry weather!! What a difference from last year. My plants seem to be deep rooted enough to go for 3-4 days without water, even though we have temps well into the 90's (F) all day. Then they need a long deep watering.

This is great for avoiding fungal problems (like last years late blight). I'm hoping for a nice tomato harvest starting soon.

I thought maybe my potatoes would be ready and pulled up a plant last Friday. Not! (I put away potato salad recipe.) There were lots of little marble sized tubers on the roots. No edible sized ones. Oh well. I'll wait.

my side yard garden

Lots of chores after returning home to my gardens:

- To all side yard beds, added composted, turned and buried irrigation lines
- Potatoes planted in far left bed: All Blue, Cobbler, Green Mountain and Butte Russet. I'll leave the irrigation line above the soil for now in this bed.
- Marigolds planted along front of cold frame
- Spread old salt hay between beds (not quite enough - I'd like to get more)
- Admired all the green in the cold frame

my irrigation system

Well, you could almost call this garden work ... even though it only took about 5 minutes.

The first step in turning over my garden in the spring is to pull up my irrigation system and move it out of the way. The tubing mostly came out fine, but there is one area that is stuck in the ground. Frozen. It seems that the soil is still frozen down about 5-6 inches deep. In most areas my irrigation tubes are in the top inch or two of soil, but in the one area they are a bit deeper. I guess I'll just have to wait a few days until it thaws. I wouldn't be able to turn the soil anyway if its still frozen underneath.

Here's some information on my irrigation system: It was professionally installed about 4 years ago and is a grid of about 1/2 inch ID tubes that connect to my outdoor water and are controlled by a computerized panel inside. I have been very happy with the system. It saves me a lot of time (instead of hand watering as I used to do) and has been easy to maintain (the only maintenance is once in the fall year the irrigation company winterizes the system by blowing the pipes dry with a big compressor). My guess is it reduces water use by delivering the water directly onto the soil.

garden structures