Efficient Watering Systems
Welcome back! Each summer, my team takes a paid week off around the 4th of July holiday. It’s important to me that we all have some down time after the big spring planting push and before the flowers come on full speed.
Too often, growers miss out on the best part of summer. We get so hyper focused on our work. We work outside here from 8-2pm on a regular work day (full time is 6 hours per day), ending when the heat reaches its peak and the swimming holes are calling us!
While the crew is away this week, I “hold down the fort” on my own as best I can. My goals: enjoy a bit of the quieter pace and don’t let things die. Planting, weeding, and transplanting all fall behind a bit, but that’s OK. We catch back up after the holiday.
Today, I focused on making sure our watering systems are lined up to help me do all the watering well this week.
We use drip irrigation systems for our field. I can turn them on and off just by turning a few mainline valves on or off. I added a drip system our very first season. I felt it was a necessity, and I’m glad I bit the bullet and figured things out early on. The earlier you can demystify systems, the stronger and faster you can grow.
For our potted plants, we use nursery pot sprinklers and dripper devices. These simple tools help us keep our potted plants well hydrated. Wondering what kinds of plants you might grow in pots? Check out my next post to learn which plants are grown in pots on our farm and why.
Both systems save us a tremendous amount of time and ensure there is even watering for our plants. But I have to admit— getting started with each kind of system was intimidating. They took some time to figure out. And I definitely made some mistakes. If I wasn’t ordering the wrong kind of parts, it was the wrong number of parts, or the wrong size parts, or the wrong quality, or the wrong style for our soil type—-haha. There are always more things to consider than you initially think, am I right?!
Anyhow, I’m very grateful for those lessons learned now!
I took some time and assembled detailed how-to videos, instructions, and shopping links for the tools and supplies we use for each of these kinds of systems. Those materials are available in our Pro Platform, a subscription service that comes with weekly video tutorials and a monthly live session.
Learn how to set up a custom field drip irrigation system for your field, and/or potted plant nursery watering systems today.
The Pro Platform is THE resource that I was always looking for when I was entering flower farming. REAL, THOUGHTFUL, EXPERIENCED suggestions, support, and advice.
