Re: irrigation
>>How often do you water? Do you try to get moist soil to a certain depth?
>>We'll be watering manually at first.
>>if you used a sprinkler on your black eyed susans then noticed powdery
>>mildew on them, what time of day did you water? If you're using
>>sprinklers, it's a good idea to sprinkle early in the morning so the
>>plants will have a chance to dry before damp or cool evening. But above
>>all, were I living in Minnesota, I'd find out how you overwinter the
>>system or do you have to replace it each year? Margaret L
Margaret makes two very good points. First, be sure you water early in the
day so that the leaves dry out before fungi and bacteria have a chance to
settle in and cause the kinds of problems you describe. My watering system
is set on automatic timers and goes on just after dawn.
Secondly, I know nothing about overwintering systems, since we don't have
snow and the associated freezing problems, so you should definitely
research that.
In terms of how often we water, it depends on the time of year. The most
we water is in the hottest part of the summer when the perennials get
watered for about 45 min, every third day. Deciduous fruit trees are
watered once a week during growing season, for 2 hrs. This time of year,
I generally turn the system off altogether and monitor the rain. If we
have no rain, I run the water once each week. It is all wired into a
central timer which makes life TREMENDOUSLY easier than having to operate
it all by hand.
Of course how often and how much you water depends on
* the kind of soil you have (sand, clay, how much humus, etc.)
* how much water you feel your plants need
* how much water each emitter puts out.
Don't feel overwhelmed, it's just the learning curve at the beginning that
feels overwhelming. There are alot of factors to consider -- so it is
important to have a good guide and that's why I always recommend Kourik's
book. Even if you work with someone who designs your system for you,
Kourik's book will give you the basics you need to understand what they are
doing and how to manage the system once they turn it over to you.
Hope this helps. If you have more questions, you might want to email me
privately since I expect that others prefer for us to talk about the plants
instead of the support systems.
Nan
**********
'''''''''''''''''''''''
Nan Sterman
San Diego County California
Sunset zone 24, USDA hardiness zone 10b or 11
---------------------------------------------------------------------
To sign-off this list, send email to majordomo@mallorn.com with the
message text UNSUBSCRIBE PERENNIALS
