String Watering System Really Works!
With an average of 60 inches of rain a year (twice Seattle’s rainfall of 30 inches) Ocean Shores is really wet! Until it is not …
Remember the last two Januarys and how soaking wet it was? Ocean Shores received 17 inches during those periods. Just consider for a moment what types of plants can survive a flood like that every year.
Until it is not … Jump to July and August and last year Ocean Shores received an average of 0.42 for July and 0.88 for August – even worse the year before. Under an inch is considered a drought! That is why so many people come here in July and August. No Rain! What plants can survive both our winter deluges and summer droughts? Not many can manage both without our summer watering help.
Most watering advice in Master Gardener references are written for in-landers who have loam and clay mixed into their soil. Out here we have sand, which drains rapidly. Even if you amend your sandy soil, amendments drain through the sand along with water.
The other difference here is that our water table is just barely underground. Look out towards one of the canals or lakes. That is where the freshwater table is. Most of what lies between your plants and that water table is fast draining sand. If you follow that “inlander” watering advice of one inch per week, you are going to be watering the canals and lakes while depriving your plants at the same time.
This April it was wet until we had a beautiful sunny week. I was not expecting it to be so dry and thus did not water in time to save my late blooming daffodils. They dried up before they had a chance to open. They were without rain only 5 days, and then they were gone!
One inch is a good recommendation to allow lawns and plants to develop deeper roots. To guestimate that amount set some empty tuna cans around your lawn or garden and rig up your watering system to provide a sample of how long it takes to gather one inch. If you continue to water more than that, most of that water just drains back into the water table.
Now the problem becomes, how often to water that inch. Water drains through our sand so fast that one inch a week (without any added rain) with leave your plants drying up just like my daffodils did. The best thing I have found is to simply watch the ground around your plants. Most references say to water when the top 6 inches of soil have dried out. I think that is still a fairly good plan, but that happens pretty fast here.
My soil on Lake Minard is fast draining so during July, August and September I water about every other day. I do not often water a whole inch at a time though. Sometimes half an inch leaves my flowering lawn as dry as an inch does in the same amount of time.
At Garden by the Sea, the beds are all raised about 12 inches and filled with near perfect growing and draining soil. During our dry months we check the soil in our Demo Beds every day. If it has not rained enough, we water.
If you plan to take a garden vacation, you might try a “self-watering” system. Master Gardeners Kathy Sandefur and Sabine Price introduced me to this idea. I first saw this in Kathy’s greenhouse. (Her tomatoes still top anything I have ever seen!) For smaller plants, she sets up a container of water next to the plant (see the potted basil on the white lattice chair in the above picture). Then she buries a cotton string in the potting soil and trails it over into the water container. The string acts like a wick, drawing up water and delivering it to the plant, which uses the water as needed. Just make sure the container does not dry out. Kathy used a similar system in the GBTS greenhouse with several strings leading from each seedling to the water source. Her seedlings grew much better than mine did, since I kept forgetting to water mine.
For her tomatoes and larger plants Kathy purchases self-watering kits that fit into the bottom of each container. You fill the bottom of the plant container with water and the kit distributes the water, depending on the type of kit you get. Several types of these are available at Amazon and Gardeners Supply.
Sabine Price showed me a larger outdoor version shortly after she planted her GBTS bed this spring. She was planning on going away for a few days. This is like Kathy’s in that water is wicked from a large water container to individual plants. She has been experimenting with different types of rope and recommends a polyester mixed fiber, like “Omeric self-watering wick cord” available on Amazon. Any cotton rope works too, but Sabine noted that it rots faster.
The water-wicking system will help keep potted plants well-watered rain or shine. For your in-ground plants, just keep an eye on how dry your garden soil looks and use the ½ to 1 inch water plan for those “dry” Ocean Shores days.
For questions, comments about this article or to share your gardening experiences, please contact Dauna at: dauna@gardenbytheseaoceanshores.org
This article was originally printed in The Ocean Observer, May 2021.
