Hello, steemians, and welcome to my garden plot, eh!
I planted my hard corn in my community garden plot last week right before it rained, which worked out pretty well. It rained for the next couple of days and then stopped, so I decided that it was time to get my watering system set up. The dirt at the community garden is on the sandy side so it doesn't hold water very well. Over the past 2 years, I've added some amendments to the soil, but it still dries out faster than I would like. I have to water the plot fairly often during a dry spell to keep the plants growing. Right now, I don't want the ground to dry out too much because the corn hasn't sprouted yet. I went up to the garden yesterday to set up my watering system.
I use 10 foot lengths of plastic pipe that I've drilled a row of 1/16 inch holes into every 6 inches or so in a line down the pipe. I hook them up with hoses to a 4 way gang valve to control the water flow. I really need more pipes for this garden because I have to move them to finish the watering. I have 11 rows of corn here and I can easily water 2 rows with each pipe, but then I have to move 3 of the pipes to finish the watering. I'll probably make 2 more, just to make it easier, it's easy enough to move the one in the middle of the garden over 1 row.
It would be nice to be able to water all the rows at the same time, but I'm not sure if there's enough water pressure available for that. I'll probably try it though, to see if it works. As it is now, I water every other row, and then turn the pipe so that the spray waters the other row that the pipes are between. I also am using the grass that I cut around the garden plot for mulch to help slow down evaporation from the ground. I've left the rows bare for now until the corn comes up, then I'll start covering the dirt between the plants with mulch. I grew potatoes in this plot last year so I didn't have as many rows to deal with. I think I had 7 rows of potatoes there last year. I still had to move the pipes though because the rows were further apart.
I'm starting some squash plants right now to plant between the rows of corn once they're ready. Also, once the corn comes up, I'll plant my pole beans along the edges of the corn patch. I plant dry type beans with the corn, they use the corn as the trellis and I don't pick them until fall when the pods are dry. I have to give the corn a head start on the beans so the bean vines don't overtake the corn stalks.
Well, that's all I have for this post, I hope you found it interesting!
Thanks for stopping by my page and checking out my post, eh!
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May the Steem Force be with you!
