The new garden area we created this year is really doing well. But it has added a lot of manual watering to our days. In the new garden area, we have about twenty grow bags of pumpkins and winter squash, 25 bags of summer squash, 4 tomato plants, a 4 foot by 8 foot raised bed of corn, a 2 foot by 8 foot raised bed of sweet potatoes, and in the greenhouse there are 5 watermelon plants, 8 cantaloupes a zucchini, and a couple of tomatoes.
Corn, squash, and pumpkins by the greenhouse
At first I thought I would just run a main line from the back garden timer to the new area, and water everything from that single line. Well, there’s a lot more there to water, and not everything can be on the same zone, so we put in another timer back there.
New Garden Timer
The pumpkins and winter squash run around the outside of the fence, so I ran a line on the fence, about 18 inches from the ground.
Front Fence Pumpkins
They seem to like being watered first thing in the morning.
Pumpkin Corner
Pumpkin
Butternut Squash
I also got the greenhouse set up on its own zone, so those melons get watered in the morning as well.
For most of the raised beds, I only water them every other day, but for the grow bags, I water them daily, as they dry out a lot faster. As the summer heat goes on, if they appear to need more water, I increase it to a morning and an evening watering.
