329 How to Water

This episode is entitled,  How to Water Your Garden. “What!?!” you’re probably thinking. “Of course I know how to water my garden, lawn, and indoor plants, I’m a gardener!” As Farmer Fred Garden Rule #8 says: “If it works for you, fine. But keep an open mind.” 

Join us as America’s Favorite Retired College Horticulture Professor, Debbie Flower, has advice on how to properly and thoroughly irrigate all your plants from newly planted seeds to vegetables to flowers to lawns, shrubs and trees. I bet by the end of our chat, there will be at least one irrigation tip that will have you saying, “I did not know that!”  

We’re podcasting from Barking Dog Studios here in the beautiful Abutilon Jungle in Suburban Purgatory, it’s the Garden Basics with Farmer Fred podcast, brought to you today by Smart Pots. Let’s go!

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Transcript

329 TRANSCRIPT HOW TO WATER

Farmer Fred

Garden Basics with Farmer Fred is brought to you by Smart Pots, the original lightweight, long lasting fabric plant container. It's made in the USA. Visit SmartPots.com slash Fred for more information and a special discount, that's SmartPots.com/Fred.

Welcome to the Garden Basics with Farmer Fred podcast. If you're just a beginning gardener or you want good gardening information, you've come to the right spot.

Farmer Fred

This episode is about how to Water Your Garden. “What!?!,” you’re probably thinking. “Of course I know how to water my garden, lawn, and indoor plants, I’m a gardener!” As Farmer Fred Garden Rule #8 says: “If it works for you, fine. But keep an open mind.” 

So, open your mind and join us as America’s Favorite Retired College Horticulture Professor, Debbie Flower, walks us through the yard and house, with advice on how to properly and thoroughly irrigate all your plants from newly planted seeds to vegetables to flowers to lawns, shrubs and trees. I bet by the end of our chat, there will be at least one irrigation tip that will have you saying, “I did not know that!” And that includes one of the  first comments today: "If for some reason you ever got a job at a nursery, one of the first things they will teach you, and they will spend a lot of time, if it's a good nursery, is teaching you how to water the plants."

It’s all in Episode 329 of today’s Garden Basics with Farmer Fred podcast - How to Water. 

We’re podcasting from Barking Dog Studios here in the beautiful Abutilon Jungle in Suburban Purgatory, it’s the Garden Basics with Farmer Fred podcast, brought to you today by Smart Pots. Let’s go!

HOW TO WATER, Pt. 1

Farmer Fred

If for some reason you ever got a job at a nursery, one of the first things they will teach you, and they will spend a lot of time, if it's a good nursery, teaching you how to water the plants. So let's talk to somebody who's worked at a nursery and has actually taught people too. It must be Debbie Flower, America's favorite retired college horticultural professor. How to water your garden. Yeah. We're talking new plantings of seeds or young plants in containers. We're talking sprinklers versus drip or container watering or in bed watering. 

Debbie Flower

Did you set up the guest room? Because this is a big topic. I'm going to be here a while. 

Farmer Fred

All right. I know. Yes. I think if we just cover the hazardous materials part we will be good. And I will start with the seeds. You want to keep a seed bed evenly moist, the directions will tell you that any time you plant seeds.

Debbie Flower

 Yes. Just keep the seed bed evenly moist. 

Farmer Fred

Well, how the heck do you do that if it's a little seed and it's only maybe a quarter inch deep. 

Debbie Flower

A pretty foolproof way is to water from the bottom, put the plants in a container. I've gotten those aluminum roasting pans at the inexpensive store and I put the little containers, six packs or this year I'm using some peat pellets in that container and put the water in the bottom of the container, let it be absorbed, come back later in an hour or two to see if there's still water in it. I want to dump it out. If they've used up the water, I'll add a little more and see if they absorb that. So I want the entire depth of the media to be moist, but I don't want them sitting in water. I have drowned seeds by having them sit in water. 

Farmer Fred

You started them in peat pots. 

Debbie Flower

I did. 

Farmer Fred

Tell me about that. 

Debbie Flower

Well, those are the ones I drowned because I went out of town and I started Zinnias and desert wildflowers, I think, in peat pots because they don't like to be transplanted. They survive it, but they suffer a little bit. So I thought, well, I'll give this a try. First of all, finding reasonably priced peat pots was difficult. Really? Yes. Most of them are now infused with mycorrhizae of some sort and I don't want to pay for that and I don't need that. My seeds are going to do just fine germinating without all that stuff. And peat pots come in different sizes. It's another thing to be aware of. You can get very small ones, you can get bigger ones.

Farmer Fred

 You said you started in peat pellets. 

Debbie Flower

Peat pellets, yes.

Farmer Fred

Tell us the difference between a peat pellet and a peat pot. 

Debbie Flower

Right, sorry about that. A peat pot is a pot shaped like, they're usually round, shaped like a little plastic pot, same size, but it's compressed peat moss. And they're the kind of pot that sometimes you can buy your plants in them. And if you do, they'll say you can plant the pot and everything with it.

I would never do that. At least not without totally slicing down the sides in maybe six places and several X's across the bottom because the compressed peat moss causes water problems around the roots of the plants when you put it in the ground. So I would slice it up as much as possible if I couldn't get the plant out and just plant it without the peat pot. They also come as coir. You can get coir pots, you can get cow poop pots. There are a lot of organic pots. They're all pretty much the same in terms of what you do when you plant them. We tried the coir pots at school for plants we sold at our plant sale. And I would always schedule about nine weeks between the first seeds we would start growing. And those were usually in flats to selling. And so they transplant over time as they needed, to bigger pots and bigger pots. These were about  in four inch coir pots. They didn't make it. They couldn't stand up, physically stand up, long enough to sell them. They would just keel over in the pots themselves.

Peat pots are a little more sturdy than coir pots. But I used peat pellets. Peat pellets are netting with a peat moss, I think it's just straight peat moss in them and they're dried and compressed. And so it looked like a little wafer. With a divot in the middle.  The first things I ever planted from seed I did into peat pellets and I had a little tiny greenhouse that held six peat pellets. 

Farmer Fred

That’s a small greenhouse. 

Debbie Flower

Greenhouse, quote unquote, yeah.

It was a yellow base and then a clear top of rigid plastic. And up until about six months ago, I still had it. I've broke the top finally. This was like 60 years ago that I did this. And you put the pellets in a solid container bottom and put water in and they will expand. They rise up and then as they get hydrated and then you plant the seeds in them. And that's what I used this year was the peat pellets to put things in that don't like to have their roots messed with. 

Farmer Fred

I've never planted with peat pellets. As it expands, does it close at the top and enclose the seed that you put in that divot? 

Debbie Flower

I did what I usually do, which is make my own little divot with  a chopstick, and put the seed in and cover it over with using my fingers. The divot is there. Sometimes it's on a sort of cattywampus because it didn't expand or the divot wasn't in exactly the right spot.

Farmer Fred

But then with the idea, when you buy this peat pellet, it's got a smooth top and you're supposed to put a seed on top of it and then water it from the bottom? 

Debbie Flower

You can water it from wherever you want, but you have to water it from the bottom to get hydrated first. Yeah.  So you water it first before you plant the seed, and it expands. Then I plant the seed.  I put these peat pellets in a container that didn't drain and I put a dome, clear plastic dome over it, but that dome has air holes you can open.

And I opened the top air hole and the sides because I wanted some airflow and put it in the greenhouse. Well, the greenhouse has automatic overhead irrigation. I went on vacation for a week. I came back and they're floating because they got too wet. So, I got two zinnias out of it. 

Farmer Fred

How sad. 

Debbie Flower

Yes, I have to replant. But you know, life is like this and as a gardener, it's like, oh, now I know what I did wrong.  

Farmer Fred

I just happened to get a package of 100 Zowie Yellow Flame zinnia seeds if you want. 

Debbie Flower

Oh wow. Zowie.  Sure, I'll take a few. I just got a cactus mix, one packet. And I have some left. So, I'll try again. I'll just be later. And that's okay. So, watering from the bottom is easy and not very stressful. When I plant in general, if I plant seeds like I did my tomatoes. I did some statice. I decided I wanted some statice to create flowers that you can dry very easily and I wanted a bouquet in the house. The bouquet I had in the house of statice was probably 20 years old. 

Farmer Fred

That's a sturdy plant. 

Debbie Flower 

Yes, they're good dried flowers. I just start in six packs, which I have washed, and put the media in and the media is moist when it goes in. Create the hole for the seed, put the seed in, cover it over. Then I put a layer of vermiculite over the top. Not a thick layer, maybe an eighth of an inch.

Vermiculite helps hold moisture over the seed and that's a critical thing, as you said, keep the seed bed moist after planting. I'll do it if I direct seed, plant it outside, I’ll put vermiculite over the place where I planted the seed out in the field as well. Because of its structure, it's like an accordion. It's made from expanded mica. Mica is a rock, it's been heated and it expands like an accordion, so it has all those ins and outs and water gets trapped in there, it helps keep the soil moist so the seed will germinate. 

Farmer Fred

I wonder if that's the primary ingredient in these packages I see that are labeled “seed coating”. It's like something that you would put on top of a seed that you had scattered, like grass seed or something like that.

Debbie Flower 

Often sometimes for like, if you buy one of those packets to fix a bare spot in your lawn, it's more like a mushed up newspaper.  

Farmer Fred

But this looks just like a seed starting mix really. Oh. But I'm thinking, well, maybe it's primarily vermiculite, which it could be. 

Debbie Flower 

Well, that would work.  And it disappears. It's shiny when you put it on, but over time it gets dirty and it's a rock. It disappears into the soil.

Farmer Fred

 So it protects the seed and hydrates the seed. 

Debbie Flower

I wouldn't say it hydrates the seed as much as it slows down the loss of moisture from the soil and it holds some moisture itself. And then I use a water breaker on the end of my hose.

I have a wand, a watering wand, on the end of my hose and then a breaker. A watering can nozzle is called a rose and it's the thing that's on the end of the watering can. You can unscrew it, but it has a lot of holes in it. A fine breaker has many holes. You can get them 300, 500, 1000.  And I turn the water on fairly strongly and I turn the breaker up in the air and stand back, away from the plants and let the water come down as if it's a rainstorm. 

Farmer Fred

So there's a long stem on this. 

Debbie Flower 

Yes, I have this wand. This three foot wand. Otherwise I'd be under the rain.  Some days that's OK, but usually not seed starting season. So it is less force on that soil by turning that wand upside down and letting the water go up first and then come down. 

Farmer Fred

Theoretically. 

Debbie Flower 

OK, but that may not be true. I haven't done the physics calculations on it, the further the water falls, it may be harder. But that's what I do. Other people probably do other things. You have to create a system that works for you that doesn't cause, and this, I had to work with students on this over and over and over again, doesn't cause the seeds to come flying right out of the soil mix, that's the whole idea. Don't dislodge the seed when you water. So it has to be something gentle. 

Farmer Fred

I've mentioned this before. What I'm using is a dedicated, one gallon sprayer with a spray nozzle on the end that produces a fine spray and it's got like a 45 degree angle to it. And so basically I just use it for water and for new seedlings. And I just easily coat the top of the little seed bed every day or so with that.

Debbie Flower 

That would work great for in the field too, not just in containers. 

Farmer Fred

All right, so we've taken care of seeds as far as keeping them in place and yet keeping them hydrated. What about plants in containers, young plants in containers especially. Again, maybe the six pack you just bought of plants. I don't know how you water a six pack of plants with all the foliage that it might have. How the heck do you get the water into those little tiny containers? 

Debbie Flower

Right, and that's where the training comes in. You learn how to water, correctly. How to water a plant. I would show the students a video from DRAMM, D -R -A -M -M, which is a company that makes watering devices for the horticulture industry as well as homeowners. And they have videos on the internet that you can watch. And there's one where the host is figuring out how much water is needed to be applied to a one gallon perennial. I don't remember the plant. You need to water the entire column of soil, from top to bottom, whether it's a six pack or a one gallon or a 15 gallon, you need water to start at the top and wet the entire media. One point he makes is that you have to water each container. So the video is done in a greenhouse and there are lots of plants on the ground in containers. You have to go to each container. You don't just hold the hose over the top and swing it back and forth and hope everybody gets water. Like you said, there are leaves that are gonna direct the water away from the center of the plant.

That's one of the jobs of leaves and it's so that the plant doesn't rot. You have to get under those leaves or between those leaves. 

Farmer Fred

And again, they're using that rosette sprayer. Yes. That multi -hole contraption that emulates a shower, a gentle shower. Yes. That's the key. Right. 

Debbie Flower 

And in the video, he counts how long he's over each plant. He does a bunch of plants and he just counts to three; and a bunch that he counts to six; and a bunch that he counts to nine, for example. I don't remember the exact numbers. He lets them sit so the water will go in. You want to fill the head space, which is the space between the media and the top of the container. And in most cases, that's enough water to wet the whole column of soil in the container, and you want some to come out the bottom. So after he does his timed thing, his counting thing, he un-pots the plants and of course, the ones done with just the count of three were not wet all the way through. So then he knows that he has to do a siix or nine count over each plant. And you just walk around and you count and you make sure. Now, we didn't do those experiments when I worked at a nursery. I just walked from plant to plant and made sure that the whole headspace was full of water before I moved on to the next plant. And then I'd watch to see that some came out the bottom. The sum of the water coming out the bottom can be a false positive, so to speak, because if the plant has been allowed to dry out too much, the media has shrunk and the water will take the easiest way, which is around the shrunken media and out the bottom holes. In that case, then you need to water from the bottom, like we talked about with seedlings. Put them in some kind of a container that doesn't drain, fill it with water, and allow the plant to suck it up from the bottom and rehydrate.

Farmer Fred

This conversation would also apply then to your plants in decorative containers. Yes. That you have scattered throughout the house or even your house plants. Yes. You would take them to the sink and water them. I mean, I've gotten into the habit of taking my little house plants and sticking them in a Tupperware container that's about two feet long, one feet wide, and maybe six to eight inches tall and just putting an inch or so of water in the bottom and setting the plants in there and go do something else and come back and take them out later, and then rinse them out again. 

Debbie Flower 

Yeah, yeah. When you water from the bottom, if there is a lot of fertilizer in the media, it will come to the top and you'll start to see a white crust on the top. And that's an indication you need to flush this media with fresh water, allow it to drain out the bottom and you don't want the plant sitting in that water. 

I have 40 or more houseplants. So, I don't take them away from where they're settled and to the kitchen, but I make sure everyone has a little saucer underneath. I have a lot. 

Farmer Fred

A Catch basin. 

Debbie Flower 

Catch basin, yeah. And I water them and check that some water has come out into the bottom and then if too much has come out, I get rid of it. Those catch basins have sort of a little raised surface running along the inside edge that the plant container sits on. If it's above the raised surface, I will dump out the water. If it's not, I'll just let it sit there and create humidity.

Farmer Fred

What some people do, as well, is put a layer of gravel on the bottom of those catch basins. To keep the bottom of the pot away from the bottom of that catch basin. So it's not sitting in the water. 

Debbie Flower 

Because if it sits in water, you're going to rot roots. Say that three times fast. 

Farmer Fred

No, I won't. No. This is a good lesson, too, for watering containers as far as when you mentioned that when water comes out immediately, you probably have a problem. 

Debbie Flower 

Yes, and the opposite is true too. You can be standing there and watering that container and counting to a hundred or whatever and if water isn't coming out, you've got another problem. Yes. I have some plants on my front porch in large decorative containers and I sometimes forget which ones don't drain. So the latter happens. I'm watering, I'm watering, I'm thinking why isn't there any water coming out going across my porch? It's because the decorative pot has no drain holes. The grow pot does, but if the water's going through the grow pot into the decorative pot and building up around the plant. So then I have to haul the plant out of the pot, dump the water out of the decorative pot and put it back together again. But that solves a couple of problems. 

Farmer Fred

A lot of people will set those plants on soil in the original container. Mm -hmm. And the roots will tend to grow out of those holes. You'll never get it out of the ground. 

Debbie Flower 

You'll either never get it out of the ground or you're going to drown the plant because there's no way for the water to escape. 

Farmer Fred

And by putting a container around that container, you're giving it sort of a demilitarized zone to avoid that problem happening. 

Debbie Flower 

And it's easier to be able to take the inside pot out and then dump out the water in the outside pot. 

Farmer Fred

So that works. All right. 

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Farmer Fred

Let’s get back to our conversation with America’s Favorite Retired College Horticulture Professor, Debbie Flower, with more tips on how to water.

HOW TO WATER Pt. 2

Farmer Fred

Moving up in the world, maybe you've got a lawn. 

Debbie Flower 

No, you don't. 

Farmer Fred

I sort of do. Do you?

Debbie Flower

Well, I have that lumpy lawn. The  no-mow. Yeah, the no-mow or the mow -free lawn. 

Farmer Fred

I've got a Heinz lawn. 

Debbie Flower 

Heinz? 

Farmer Fred

Heinz 57 varieties of decorative weeds.  That I can keep green in the springtime. It's nice. The newer sprinkler heads, especially the ones made by Hunter, are called MP Rotators and they send out little fingers of water. You're using less water at a time, so there's less waste and less chance of runoff, especially if you have that lawn on a slope, as opposed to the old impulse sprinklers that put out a ton of water, or even the old spray sprinklers that also put out a lot of water at one time. And I think the key, though, is to turn off that sprinkler water as soon as you start seeing it run down the hill. 

Debbie Flower 

Right. Off the lawn. Surge irrigation is a name they give that kind of watering where you water until you see runoff. And you keep track of how long that was. Let's say it was five minutes. Then you turn it off for that same amount of time, five minutes, and then you turn it back on again until you see runoff again. 

Farmer Fred

Ideally, you've set a container like a bunch of cans on whatever sort of turf or ground cover you're watering, and you're trying to get an inch of water. And so you see how long it takes to get that actual inch. I have a report on that, that I will post in today's show notes on how to measure the water from your lawn sprinklers.

Debbie Flower 

 An inch a week is a good number for, I want to say average temperatures. 

Farmer Fred

Ha ha ha, is there such a thing? 

Debbie Flower

Yeah, comfortable human outdoor temperatures. When it gets really, really hot, you're going to need a little more. And when it's cooler, you're wearing a jacket, you need less. 

Farmer Fred

Thank you for that.  There are many forms of drip irrigation and probably the least expensive is drip tape, which can be effective and efficient to irrigate crops. If you're a farmer, by reducing water usage. They can use up to 50 % less water than traditional irrigation methods. However, because they're so cheap and thin, they need to be secured to the ground because they're going to blow all over the place. Little animals like to chew holes in them to go after the water, and they generally only last about a year. And you have to monitor them to look for those breaks while you're using them. So drip tape, I'm not fond of that for the backyard gardener.

Debbie Flower

But any of these soaker hoses, whether it's the ones with the slits in it or the round ones that, so to speak, weep, more water will come out in the low spot than the high spot. So they're only effective if used in a very flat garden. 

Farmer Fred 

I would go with something more sturdy, especially the inline drip emitter tubing, the half inch diameter size. 

Debbie Flower

Yes, I use the quarter inch. Turbulent flow. 

Farmer Fred

OK, and there are limits to how long those runs can be. Usually 10 to 17  feet,  it depends on the the gph, the gallons per hour that the emitters put out. 

Debbie Flower

Yeah, and  so I did a supply line, a half inch supply line, around three sides of a basically rectangular bed and attached my quarter inch lines every foot or so. They had emitters in them every foot, So every foot, away from the existing emitters, I plugged in a new quarter inch line and came out of one side of the supply line about 10 feet, then I had to plug that line into another supply line across from it, on the other side of the bed. and I attached the quarter inch lines at both ends. So I basically had a ladder of irrigation lines all the way across the bed. 

Farmer Fred

Okay, so it looked like a ladder. Okay, I was thinking it looked like a tic -tac -toe grid. 

Debbie Flower

No, you don't have to cross them like that. I've seen people do that and talk about that, but you don't have to do that because there's an emitter every foot. You don't have to cross them going like a Tic -Tac -Toe board. So yeah, you're just basically laying out parallel lines.  

Farmer Fred

And the key though, with either quarter inch or half inch drip irrigation tubing, the water that's emitted is going to go straight down in most soils, especially if it's a raised bed. You're only going to get a footprint maybe eight inches wide if it's a gallon per hour emitters; less than that, if they're half gallon per hour emitters. If you have a heavier clay soil, yeah, it'll be a bit wider. But again, if it's in a raised bed, it's going to be very narrow. 

Debbie Flower

Right. So in my raised bed, I use micro sprays. 

Farmer Fred

Good idea. 

Debbie Flower

And you want head to head coverage. So I have them in the corners. I have them down the side. I have  a row down the middle. 

Farmer Fred

But micro sprayers and drip emitters don't play well together. 

Debbie Flower

Right. That irrigation with the micro sprayers is on its own valve. 

Farmer Fred

OK. Because when you start mixing, if you decide to put a microsprayer on a line that already has emitters built into it, into those pressure compensating turbulent flow emitters, into the tubing say halfway between where those two built in emitters are, you decide, I'll put a quarter inch tube in here and run a microsprayer around this plant. Chances are there isn't enough pressure to run it all because that microsprayer, has no pressure compensation to it. It's just like the end of an open hose almost.  Probably would work best on the end of a drip line. Yes. Although some people connect their drip lines so they form a big circle and keep the water going round and round. But yeah, separate lines are better. 

Debbie Flower

Something I've seen, there's something called an Olla (pronounced OY-uh). O -L -L -A.  Which is made of a red clay like substance, like red clay pots. And you dig a hole and bury it and put water in it and the water oozes out slowly. And now there's one last new one. Kids, I've just noticed and maybe I'm just behind the times, but noticed them this year for the first time. They look almost like water bottles and they connect at the top to I believe it's a drip line and you bury them. So, they're buried six inches.

Somehow they get filled with water in these kits and then they ooze water out and I've considered that not for my whole raised bed. I think the raised bed is too big but maybe for a container like a wine barrel, half wine barrel kind of container. Like you say, it matters what kind of soil, what texture soil you have, how much of the soil is going to get wet by these ollas. So I'm not very knowledgeable about them. I'm very curious about them. 

Farmer Fred

And again, it's spelled O -L -L -A. Even though you're being fancy and saying Oya. Oya. Oya.  Park Seed says this about the Olla: “An Olla is basically a low fired clay vessel with a narrow neck. The pot is buried in the ground with only the neck protruding above the soil. Then crops are planted around the perimeter of the Olla at a distance based on the size of the Olla and the types of plants being grown. The Olla is then filled with water and a cover is placed on the top to prevent soil and other debris from entering the Olla and to minimize evaporation of the water from the jar.” How does the water get out of this clay pot? 

Debbie Flower

It just oozes. It just oozes. 

Farmer Fred

 Is it a thin pot? 

Debbie Flower

No, I don't think they're particularly thin. I have bigger ones and they're as thick as a ceramic grow pot.

Farmer Fred

It goes on to say: “ideally the gardener should only have to refill the Olla with water anywhere from once a day to once a week. Ollas should be refilled when the water reaches the 50% mark as the soil becomes moist. The plant surrounding the Olla will grow towards the water source. In fact, many gardeners report that their Olla is covered with a thick mat of roots by the end of the season.” 

Debbie Flower

That refill part is a little... that makes it complicated. Ollas I already own are much bigger than that and they have a very narrow neck and they don't have a lid on the top. And I haven't used them as much as I thought I might, because I have to dig such a big hole to put them in the ground. I went away for a week after having planted some plants into the ground and you can't just walk away from a newly planted plant and I didn't want to turn on my whole irrigation system because the soil was pretty wet. We were having quite a bit of rain. But what needs to be watered regularly is the media that those plants were in when I bought them. So, I went to my local nursery and got it. it's like an olla in that it's made from ceramic material like an untreated clay pot, but it fits on the end of a bottle, a soda bottle, a wine bottle. So, you put this, it's pointed like a carrot, shaped like a big fat carrot with a point and you stick it in the ground. So, I put it  point down right next to the media my new plants came in and then I filled bottles with water, turned them upside down and put it in. My whole goal was just so they don't die while I'm gone. Because if you don't wet that media they came in, they will die. The roots have not yet gotten into the field soil. 

Farmer Fred

How big were these bottles that you put on top? Like 16 ounce drinking water bottles? 

Debbie Flower

Two of them were wine bottles.  I had to ask my husband for the wine bottles. Do we have any? He said look in recycling. And then one was a big drinking water bottle, not 16, it's probably two quarts. 

Farmer Fred

So, how big was this thing you stuck in the ground? 

Debbie Flower

It was about six inches long. Yeah. And it came in a pack of six or something. It didn't hold much water. So, most of the water remained in the bottle. Which was interesting. I was concerned with how much water, you know, how effective it would be. I hadn't used these before. But I was pleased with the results and I may continue to use this as a way to establish a new plant into the ground. 

Farmer Fred

I'm reading from the Park Seed site about the Olla, O -L -L -A, and they go into high school biology here, to understand how osmosis works: “Ollas work through a process of osmosis. Osmosis in biology is the movement of water molecules through a membrane from a high concentration of water molecules to a low concentration of water molecules.” This will be on the Final, take notes. “Think of the Olla vessel, which is composed of porous clay, as the membrane. The water in the Olla is a high concentration of water molecules. The soil surrounding the Olla has a low concentration of water molecules. The process of osmosis wants the water molecules to be equal on both sides of the membrane and will move the water from the high concentration, which is inside the jar, to the low concentration, which is in the soil. Osmosis theoretically will continue, until the concentration is equal on both sides. The beauty of this system is if it rains, the amount of water molecules on the soil side of the jar is higher, so osmosis will slow or even stop until the soil starts to dry out and then osmosis will begin again. That means it is impossible to overwater or waste water.” It just seems to me, for a garden bed, you'd need a heck of a lot of ollas. 

Debbie Flower

Right. That's why I'd like to experiment with them in half barrels and grow something there and see what happens. To see if that's enough, if one olla is enough. I'm thinking three maybe. 

Farmer Fred

Yeah, you got to consider a half barrel like you would a raised bed. It's going to be a narrow column of water that exudes, if you will, from the olla into the soil. I think you’ll need four. 

Debbie Flower

You think all four, OK. I'm thinking. I don't know, I’ll try it, experiment. 

Farmer Fred

Right. Yes. Send us some Ollas, Park.

Debbie Flower

 Yeah, we'll try it. Yeah, we'll see how well they work. 

Farmer Fred

All right. That's interesting.  So this technology, if you will, goes back to... Oh, it's ancient. 

Debbie Flower

Ancient, yes. 

Farmer Fred

“First used in northern Africa as long as four thousand years ago”. So there's that. All right. So is it a special clay? 

Debbie Flower

Well, they said when they talked about it, something about how it was fired. Yeah. You read it, right? 

Farmer Fred

Good for me. “A low fired clay vessel with a narrow neck.” 

Debbie Flower

 I don't understand clay enough to know what low-fired means. Yeah,  If I do try it, what I'll put it in the ground, put water in it, but  I'm looking at putting it in raised bed type condition and then use a moisture meter to try to find where this water is going. How far away from the Olla is it going?

Farmer Fred

Again, that depends on the soil. 

Debbie Flower

It does. Yeah. Yeah. 

Farmer Fred

So if you have a heavy clay soil, that could be 18 inches.  If it's a raised bed, I'll go with eight. So all right. Let me know how that works out for you. All righty. So we've covered watering seeds, watering young plants and containers, watering mature plants and containers, sprinklers versus drip, in-ground versus raised bed and containers. And then there's good old rain. And that's why if you have an automatic irrigation system, hopefully it's more modern and will turn off when it rains. As opposed to the old ones where you have to go manually turn it off when it rains. So we're coming to that day and it's going to happen - probably sooner than later - where there will be soil moisture meters that will be inexpensive enough and common enough that we will be able to water our entire landscapes by a machine, by a robot, who will be getting the data from all these sensors in the soil.  

Debbie Flower

And then there's rain.  When it rains, we get a nitrogen fertilizer event.  Because nitrogen exists primarily on Earth as a gas in the air. It's the number one component of air. And in order for it to be used by a plant, it has to be what's called fixed. And fixed means  that the nitrogen has bonded with an oxygen or a hydrogen.  N -O -2 or N -O -3 nitrate, nitrite, ammonium, NH4 plus, I think. That happens when there's combustion. In nature, before humans had cars that do combustion or power plants that do combustion. It was lightning primarily, the combustion. But that just leaves molecules of fixed nitrogen floating around in the air. They're not heavy enough to fall to the earth. Then rain comes and rain washes that fixed nitrogen to the earth. And that is what plants can use to fertilize themselves. So when  I lived in Nevada, of course, everybody had to irrigate because you only got six inches of rain a year. If you wanted anything to live, you had to irrigate and things would look OK. And then we'd get a rainstorm, and things would look beautiful and lush and green because of this generalized, obviously generalized water, but also generalized nitrogen events. And it wasn't because of a lightning storm, it was a rainstorm. The rainstorm is washing the fixed nitrogen back to the earth. 

Farmer Fred

Okay, I always thought lightning had to be involved for that nitrogen increase. 

Debbie Flower

Lightning does fix the nitrogen, but so does running your car, and so does running. Any kind of combustion will fix nitrogen. 

Farmer Fred

Okay, you have a lot of GM stock apparently. Talking about internal combustion engines here. All right, find the system for watering that is most comfortable with you, that does the best job, and stick with it.

Debbie Flower

 And visit your plants. Whatever system of watering you use, go visit your plants. 

Farmer Fred

If you have an automatic watering system, especially if you have drip irrigation connected to that automatic watering system. You need to get out there and run the system manually. Look for leaks, look for breaks, look for clogs. It won't fix itself. 

Debbie Flower

Right. And look for plants in distress. That might lead you to the problem with your irrigation. But by then it might be too late. 

Farmer Fred

That's right. Yep. What a sad note to end on. Thank you, Debbie. 

Debbie Flower

You're welcome, Fred.

SPREAD THE WORD ABOUT THE GARDEN BASICS PODCAST

Farmer Fred

OK, here’s your garden to-do list for the day: 

• Spend some quiet time in the yard. 

• Walk, converse, smell and touch all your plants. Enjoy the texture, the aromas, the color combinations, the structure. 

• Admire the natural amazing artwork of plant leaves, and check both sides of those leaves for eggs or insects. 

• If you’re checking for eggs or bugs on your plants, make sure they are the bad guys, not the good guys, before you shoo them away.  

• Take a seat out there, and watch and listen to the visitors to your yard, from insects to birds to four footed creatures, some of whom may be of dubious benefit.

• And, if you would please, help spread the word to your gardening friends and family about the Garden Basics with Farmer Fred podcast. 

• Leave a thumbs up or a comment on the show at Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts, that let you comment or share, including our home page, GardenBasics dot net. And if you subscribe, leave a comment, share and a thumbs up, as well, at our newsletter, Beyond the Garden Basics, which is on Substack. By the way, that’s where you can find the pictures of what the most beneficial insects look like, including their eggs, and that will be in the April 26th and May 3rd 2024 editions of the newsletter, Beyond the Garden Basics. You can find a link to all of these in today’s show notes. And as always, thanks for listening.

Farmer Fred

Garden Basics with Farmer Fred comes out every Tuesday and Friday and it's brought to you by Smart Pots. Garden Basics. It's available wherever podcasts are handed out. For more information about the podcast, as well as transcripts of the podcast, visit our website, gardenbasics.net . And that's where you can find out about the free Garden Basics newsletter, “Beyond the Garden Basics”. And thank you so much for listening.