Watering a garden
When is the best time to water your garden? My first thought is, anytime as long as it gets watered!! But I know that is not the answer you were looking for. There are many thoughts and reports on this question. Some make sense, others don’t. I also could see this making a huge difference based on what part of the country you are in because of humidity, daylight hours, season length, etc.
Here are a couple of the arguments for when to water. The first one is watering in the evening or nighttime. Some people argue that this is the best time because the plant stays wet all night and has less evaporation without the sun. That is a good point until you hear the other side say that because the plant and ground stay wet all night that there is a good potential for mold and mildew to set in.
The other argument is early in the morning. This seems to be the best argument because the plant stays wet for a decent amount of time as the sun comes up, and the sun hinders the growth of any mold or mildew because of it coming up right behind the watering.
Watering in the middle of the day has to be the worst time to water. There are two reasons for not watering during the day. First, the water evaporates very fast with the daytime heating. Second, the water droplets on the plants act as a magnifying glass and burn the leaves very quickly, damaging the plant structure.
Again, it is less important when you water, and more important that you water.
Happy Watering
#1 by briarcat on June 3, 2009 - 12:38 pm
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Oddly enough, I was thinking about this yesterday. I long ago concluded that the prism effect is pretty much tripe. It's a cute experiment, but have you ever seen a leaf go up in smoke after an afternoon shower? If it works in nature, it'll probably work for me. In practice, I water established plants in the late afternoon and sprouting seeds and transplants then and midmorning. Germinating seeds become very unhappy without moisture.
#2 by KevinPigg on June 5, 2009 - 10:39 am
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Agreed, Transplants and new seeds do not need to dry out until established. Thanks for the feedback.
#3 by Kelly Brown on June 12, 2009 - 1:47 pm
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The article is usefull for me. I’ll be coming back to your blog.
#4 by Gabbricha on July 18, 2009 - 1:35 pm
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I've always watered in the early morning, not because of mold, or the amount of sun or any other scientific reason. I water in the early morn because it's more peaceful and as a mom of three it's the only time I can do it without having "helpers" soak everthing in sight, including me!
#5 by squeaky082 on July 18, 2009 - 5:37 pm
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I water in the morning. I too am a mom and watering the gardens is a part of the silence of my "me" time. The disadvantage to evening or night waterings are the many pestering and biting bugs, bees and mosquitos. There doesn't seem to be so many in the morning. I also believe it is better to water longer and less frequently so the water soaks deeper into the ground to get to the way down roots as opposed to more frequent and shorter "surface" waterings.
#6 by KevinPigg on July 19, 2009 - 11:34 am
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You definitely have it figured out…very well said!