How are you keeping your plants hydrated?

I have a drip irrigation system that is doing a pretty good job. But I am out there twice a day in the heat watering my pots as otherwise they tend to collapse. Food prices are going to shoot up due to the drought and farmers are watching the corn crop dwindle. I got no rhubarb this year. Next week will be another hot one.

We are having trouble doing everything by hand / moving the sprinkler around. Toria, did you use a company to install your irrigation system? Any other gardening folks have recommendations of such companies?

We have several hundred feet of soaker hose wound around everything but we have to manually turn it on and off, a system with a timer would be nice.

I use a combination of hand watering, hose sprinklers and soaker hose. We have every other day sprinkling restrictions in my town. As bad as it is, I am dreading what happens when I go away on vacation for two weeks later in the summer, unless the weather changes.

Nope. No service. I am not sure how it was done. I do know we have to hook the regular hose up to it as there is a connection at the end of the irrigation system. It has to be disconnected so you can put the hose end thing on to water the other plants which are in a different location in the yard. We have a very small garden though.

We bought more soaker hose yesterday so that we can now water every bush, plant and tree on our property. We spent a lot of money on new bushes and plantings last year to cover a our fence line. The Park District cleared out that line on their side and put in a walk path which destroyed any privacy we had in back. No matter how much it costs in water I am not letting those bushes die.

LikestoEatout wrote:We have several hundred feet of soaker hose wound around everything but we have to manually turn it on and off, a system with a timer would be nice.

I attached this timer to my soaker hose. It seems to work fine.

If you want to invest some money into watering, it might also be worth looking into installing a sprinkler system. They're not as expensive as you think. I know someone who installed a system in their front and back yards in their typical city lot for about $2500.

I think we are indeed bound for the install sprinkler route, as our yard is on a corner and irregularly shaped, so we have too many zones of soaking and sprinkling and spraying to cover at once. If anyone can recommend a company for the installation, that would be great.