I have been a vegetable gardener in my humble suburban lot for nine growing seasons,
and I’m just now discovering the wonder of soaker hoses. It’s embarrassing to
give the reason. By chance, I planted a banana pepper bush in the exact spot
where the sump pump drains during a heavy rainfall, and the crop of peppers has
been phenomenal.
All these years I have been under-watering my poor
vegetables! I could rationalize my ignorance by noting that Silver Spring
Maryland is lushly green, and that I always harvested enough the last five seasons
to fill three shelves of our vegetable freezer. I conscientiously used
rain barrel water to soak everything that seemed to need it. Also, over
watering is evil. But the pepper plant spoke to me, so I purchased enough
Gilmour flat soaker hoses to cover all of my back yard beds: 375 feet of
“gentle, even and efficient watering,” as stated on the label.
This is an eccentric and inefficient task for September, as
all the hoses need to be drained and put away before a hard frost. But note:
there are cover crops of winter rye and legumes planted for soil enrichment. Kale,
collards, beets, turnips and Jerusalem artichokes will be harvested until cold
weather. Anyway, it’s been in the 90’s this week, and I need those hoses now!
After laying the hoses, there was such a surge in the growth
of turnips and kale that the first harvest is imminent. It was fun to
put the hoses down, trying to figure out the configuration. It was even
more fun to turn the spigot a quarter turn, and watch the beads of water spread
foot by foot.
This brings up an important point about gardening for me:
every task is equally interesting and absorbing. Interesting and absorbing
equals calming; calming equals happiness. The humble and ordinary soaker hose caused me to ascend to delight.
I got my happiness, then it rained 7/10 of an inch last night: gentle, even, and efficient watering.
Here are some pictures from after the rain
I got my happiness, then it rained 7/10 of an inch last night: gentle, even, and efficient watering.
Here are some pictures from after the rain
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| The banana pepper with white sump hose pipe behind. |
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| 75' soaker hose, view 1: good view of the cover crops in the foreground. |
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| Two 50' soaker hoses: collards, broccoli, and cover crops from front to back. |
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| 75' soaker hose, view 2: turnips, cover crops. The bed in the middle was just seeded. |
2 comments:
Comment problem solved. I have to use Chrome not Firefox to view your blog. Is Google planning to take over the world that it won't allow anything but its own browser?
Anyway I used a soaker hose on my far more humble plot in Fairlington. I think it is a more efficient and ecologically responsible way to water than spraying water all over the place, AND of course it's much less work!
Thank you for your comment. Let's see if browsers other than Chrome can be used in the future.
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