Reducing your water usage in your garden is almost always a positive thing.

It will lower your water bill and produce healthier plants.

Why Reduce Your Water Usage in Your Garden?

Overwatering is a common mistake among gardeners. However, the truth is that plants have adapted to require less water than most people assume.

And when you reduce your water usage, you will find your soil and plants are healthier.

Signs of Overwatering

One of the most obvious signs that you are overwatering your garden is standing water or puddles. If you’ve noticed this in your garden, it’s time to take a closer look at your watering habits. 

Check these other signs that you’re giving your plants too much water.

Split Fruit

If you pick a lot of split fruit, you are probably overwatering. This is very common with things like tomatoes.

Soft and Rotting Stems

When a plant absorbs too much water, this can cause damage to the parts of the plant cells that help support it and keep its shape. This causes the plant stems to become soft and start to rot.

Root Rot

This degradation of the roots is caused by fungal or bacterial infections that thrive in wet soil.

Changes in Leaves

Sometimes the plants will drop leaves to signal a problem like overwatering. The fallen leaves can be green, brown, or yellow.

Another sign of watering is brown spots on the edges of leaves, which can be an infection of the leave.

Fungus

Fungus appears as white or gray patches of powdery or hair-like structures stretching across the dirt around the plants. Sometimes, it can be on the plant, like powdery mildew.

How to Reduce Your Water Usage in the Garden

There are thousands of ideas for reducing water usage in the garden, but here are a few low-cost, easy-to-implement suggestions.

Mulch

Adding some kind of mulch will keep the ground cooler and reduce water loss due to evaporation.

There are tons of mulch available commercially. If you buy commercial, just make sure to buy some that are safe for vegetable gardens.

But if you don’t want to buy commercial mulch, you can also use compost spread evenly across your topsoil. This will give you the bonus of improving soil quality as well.

Some other popular natural mulches include leaves, grass clippings, pine needles, or straw.

Newspaper

Some people use layers of newspaper to achieve the same effect as mulch.

Plastic Sheeting

You can buy plastic sheets that do double the duty of reducing evaporation and preventing weed growth.

Water at Cool Times

Watering early in the morning, late in the evening, or at night will give the soil and plants plenty of time to absorb water so you can water less.

Drip Irrigation Systems

Drip irrigation systems are composed of hoses with holes along the bottom that release water along the entire line but very slowly, a drip at a time. You can build your own or buy one with options like timers or automatic start.

Conclusion

Reducing water usage in your garden is a great way to save money and produce healthier plants and tastier food.

5 Cheap Ways to Self Water Plants

4 Frugal DIY Drip Irrigation Systems

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Buying a fancy drip irrigation system is one way to go. But it’ll cost you. Instead, consider a DIY drip irrigation system. Either way, you’ll need to spend time installing irrigation, so why not save a few bucks, too?

Benefits of drip irrigation

You’ve got a hose or a sprinkler, so why invest time and effort into building a DIY drip irrigation system?

Here are the advantages of this type of watering system:

• Less water waste. Water doesn’t evaporate as readily with a drip irrigation system.
• Targeted watering. Because the tubing is close to plant roots, water gets right to where it needs to go—which means less waste and higher efficiency watering.
• Less disease spread. With drip irrigation, water is unlikely to splash onto plant foliage. That means fewer chances for contaminated soil to spread pathogens.
• Easy watering. Once installed, an irrigation system makes watering incredibly easy. No more lugging around a heavy hose. You can even install a timer and have the system work completely on its own.
• Fewer weeds. Because water goes right to plant roots, weeds are less likely to grow between plants.

DIY drip irrigation systems

You’ll need to spend a bit of money on materials to build your DIY drip irrigation system, but the initial cost is worth it, considering how much time you’ll save down the line.

Here are some ideas for creating DIY drip irrigation systems:

• PVC pipes: Modern Farmer has a great step-by-step tutorial for creating this kind of drip system.

 

• Soda bottles: This is an easy drip irrigation system for the frugal gardener that costs next to nothing. It’s a great option for small space gardeners. Here’s a video on how to use soda bottles to create a cheap drip irrigation system:

 

• Rain barrel system: Here’s a video that shows you how to use a rain barrel in a drip irrigation system to minimize water waste:

• Bucket: Got a bucket? You’re in luck! You can build a simple DIY drip irrigation system easily. This video shows how you can pair drip tape or tubing with buckets to create a low-tech irrigation system that doesn’t require a hookup to a nearby water source:

This setup is even simpler: