My current quest is to help out my vegetable gardens. Last year I discovered square foot gardening, which did better than I had thought they would. This year I have expanded the number of beds by 50 percent.
Watering a garden is often, if not always, the most challenging. Too much water, not good, Not enough water, not good. It’s like Goldilocks, the watering must be just right. I also don’t want to waste water if I can help it, which is why I don’t want to just water using the sprinkler I use for the grass.
However, finding a soaker watering system has been quite the challenge. I know exactly how I want to lay it out. Finding the soaker hose itself has been fairly easy. It’s the connectors that have been stymieing me!
I’ve gone to the local hardware stores in my quest. The Lowe’s in Albuquerque had a fantastic aisle of watering system paraphernalia. Not so here in the Midwest. I’m wondering if the fact we usually get a steady amount of rain, they think we don’t need to put in a watering system. But, there can we a week or more that goes by without any natural precipitation. A garden can’t go a week without some H2O.
I’ve been Googling to see what I can find online. Again with not very much luck. I found something that seems it might work. Unfortunately, the system has some mixed reviews from fantastic, highly recommend, to it will end up in the garbage can within a month, with a few in-betweens. Another strike is it doesn’t have any T-connectors, a must for what I want/need to do.
This evening I decided to go back to what I had started with in terms of hose and connectors. I had bought 1/2-inch connectors, but they didn’t fit in the hose. However, as I was reading a soaker hose article, it mentioned letting the hose lay in the sun to make it a little more malleable. When I tried the connectors the first time, I hadn’t remembered to do that.
Tomorrow I’ll be heading back to the hardware store to buy some connectors again. The hose will be outside all day, hopefully with the sun cooperating to warm it up. I certainly hope that is what does the trick. Otherwise, it is back to the drawing board, again!
May the veggie water spirit be with me.
Personal Reflections of a Middle-Aged Man 