Here's Martha Stewart's Hack To Save Water In Your Garden
Gardens are wonderful — they add vibrancy and personality to your home, not to mention that gorgeous fragrance. However, there is the issue of excessive water usage to keep your garden healthy and abundant. Depending on the size of your hose, you could be using anywhere from 630 to 1,860 gallons a day just by watering your plants for an hour. This quickly adds up, as it's recommended you hydrate your plants and vegetables two to three times a week. Sure, you're keeping your garden alive and prosperous, but you're wasting a ton of water that you could be saving.
Martha Stewart is no stranger to gardens, so she has all the tips and tricks on cutting back on the water in your garden. One of her hacks is using a moisture meter. This little device is placed into the soil to give you an accurate reading of its moisture level. On the surface, your garden may look a bit dry, but in reality, it might have all the hydration it needs. This helps prevent over-watering your plants, which in turn means saving a ton of water.
Add mulch or other alternatives
To really cut back on your water usage, Martha Stewart recommends switching out normal soil for gardening mulch. Of course, you still have to water your plants, but because mulch retains moisture, you don't have to do it as often as you would with regular soil. Instead of busting out your hose or sprinkler two to three times a week, you can get away with watering mulch only once a week. As an added bonus, mulch also keeps weeds at bay, so not only are you saving water, but you're preventing your garden from being overtaken by those pesky weeds.
Along those same lines, you can opt for different landscaping alternatives to grass, such as brick and stone. This doesn't mean you have to create an entirely concrete backyard, but it will significantly help you save water on an everyday basis. Plus, adding more textures to your landscaping really amps up the aesthetic.
Switch up your watering schedule
Believe it or not, watering your garden during certain hours of the day can help you save water. The key is to do so before 10 a.m. or after 6 p.m. The reason this hack works so well has to do with the temperature during these hours. Because the sun isn't at its full potential and the temperatures are typically cooling at those times, water has a greater chance of really seeping into the soil. It won't evaporate like it does when the sun is at its peak.
As you can tell, when it evaporates, the water doesn't penetrate the soil as much as it should, so it isn't getting the hydration it needs. Hence, you end up watering your garden more frequently. If you need to, you can always set an alarm to remind yourself to head out to the yard and give your plants a drink of water when it will do them the most good.