JACKSONVILLE BEACH, Fla. – Our vegetable garden at BEAM, Beaches Emergency Assistance Ministry, is flourishing.
We’ve partnered with BEAM’s garden manager to show you how to build a garden bed or box, the soil and fertilizer to use, best practices when planting your veggies, and now we’re showing you the best techniques to use to make sure it gets enough water.
My mother, Mary Ellen Waugh, created and has managed the garden of 60 vegetables boxes for more than a decade ago.
BEAM grows fresh vegetables and fruit to provide healthy produce to its food pantry clients.
She’s learned tricks of the trade to help your veggies grow from seedling or seed.
How do you water your garden?
BEAM uses drip irrigation to water all of its vegetable boxes.
While that might sound too intimidating to pull off in your garden, you can buy a flat drip hose at any hardware store or nursery.
Drip hoses have small holes every couple of inches so help evenly spread water throughout a garden.
If you do not have an irrigation system, you can attach one to a spigot and let it run to achieve the same results. Just make sure you remember to turn it off.
How much should you be watering?
Your vegetables need a gallon of water a day to thrive and when you water is just as important.
“Trying to water the same time every day is important,” she said. “You never put your children to bed with wet feet. So you don’t water late in the day. It causes root rot, it causes bugs,” said Waugh.
Where do you water your vegetables?
Another tip, Waugh said, if you hand water try to focus on wetting the soil and not pouring the water over the leaves since water on the leaves can cause them to brown.
If you’re using a sprinkler head or you have an irrigation system and you’re not sure how much water your garden is getting you can use a rain gauge or small bucket to leave in your garden to collect a day’s worth of water to know for sure.
We planted our garden of broccoli, carrots and lettuce about a month ago in a box at BEAM’s Grace Garden. It’s thriving.
If you have any questions or want to share the progress of your vegetable garden, send me an email with your pictures: jwaugh@wjxt.com.