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I have the following plants, each with their own drip feed:

Corn
Tomatoes
Peppers
Squash
Cucumber
Cantalope
Crenshaw mellon
Zuccini
Artichoke
Bush beans

I have a bunch of drip ends that are 1 gallon per hour, would it be good enough use these for an hour a day on all of my plants or do some of the above require more/less water?

Also, should I break up my watering or just do it all at once?

1 Answer 1

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The rule of thumb I've often heard is 1" per week, but I know that some vegetables like more water (e.g. celery) than others. (And yields decline in tomatoes with less water, but the flavor is supposed to be incredible in "dry farmed" tomatoes. YMMV.)

Figure out how long it takes to deliver 1" of water (do the math using your square footage and 1 gal/hour), then run it for that long.

Do it all at once, and do it infrequently. It's better to soak the soil and get the water deep. That encourages the plants to send roots deeper into the soil. Frequent, shallow watering leads to shallower roots.

If you have a moisture probe, use it. Once your plants are established, check to see how much moisture you have deep in the soil. If the soil is moist enough, you don't need to water.

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