The area that many small space gardeners go wrong is watering. Watering too much on containers caused waterlogged, while not providing enough water makes the plant dried. Watering less space gardens is a bit different than the usual ones. So this article is all about how to water a small space garden.
When considering how to water a small space garden, first you have to choose the best method to water your plants. Then water them for your own schedule. You can determine how much water they need by mainly, checking the soil moisture. Keep doing water without relying on the rain.
The reason why we are looking small space gardens from a different angle is, most of the time people use containers to grow plants on them.
Also, sometimes they are growing in a basement, indoors and barely in outdoors.
And there are different techniques when you are treating them. So let’s jump in and see how you can water a small space garden in a correct way.
Table of Contents
Choose a watering method for your small space garden
There are various kinds of ways for watering plants, and most of them have been recognized by the agricultural industry.
But you should have to pick the best-matching watering method as to the size of your garden and the plants you are growing there.
And I know that you are not going to grow humongous trees in the small space you have. So let’s find out what method you should have to be used in your garden.
Drip irrigation system
This drip irrigation system is a great way how you can water your small space garden if you have a watering horse nearby.
But if you mowing plants from one place to another, like the sun to shade or shade to sun, this isn’t the one that fits for you.
Any way using drip irrigation systems gives a bunch of advantages to the small space gardeners.
Consistensy
A drip irrigation system helps with consistent watering to a garden.
For example, most of the drip irrigation systems are coming up with a countdown facility. So you can schedule the time when you need to water your plant in your small space garden containers.
It Saves you the time
Many people love gardening. But they have not much time to spend with that because of their busy routine.
And using a drip irrigation system is a great way to manage your time when you come to the topic of watering plants in your garden.
You can set the process for once, and then you can spend your time with your other work.
So you don’t have to worry about thinking you have no time to treat your garden with hand watering.
Also, I would like to recommend you to use drip irrigation systems, with larger containers in your garden and not with tiny pots.
I meant using it for a 5-gallon basket is better than, using it for a little plastic flower pot in your small space garden.
Besides, I would like to say drip irrigation is a recommended method of, how to water vegetable gardens which are maintaining in small spaces.
As to the above information, it’s fair to decide that drip irrigation is a great solution when we consider how to water a small space garden.
Watering horse/nozzle
Using a watering horse is a common way to put the water to a garden.
And I believe that this is the mostly using watering method among gardeners.
Also a using a watering horse is ideal with a small space garden.
If you are also using that nozzle you can do the job smoothly, without harming the roots of the plants.
Watering bucket/ hand watering
I feel uncomfortable if I forget to tell you a method of getting water to a garden without a horse.
Here’s it.
This could be the best-matching solution for watering your plants if you have grown them on containers inside your house.
That’s because you can easily control the water without flooding outside the pots.
Also, when you come up with watering little beautiful pots, you can’t do it well from a drip irrigation system or a water horse.
So hand watering is the best method of, how to water a small space garden which is inside a house.
Water consistently to your small garden
When we consider growing a plant from scratch, how consistently you are treating is one of the main factors that decide the growth or death of the plant.
The same story to your garden also.
You have to water your each plant into a special schedule.
Between 6 AM to 10 AM is the best time to water your garden.
The reason because experts say that morning is the best time to treat your plants is, when you water them in the morning, they have a complete day to get all of the things they need.
Once your plants have adapted to a schedule, you need to water them regularly on that schedule until they need water for their lifetime.
Without consistent watering, you can’t see the best performance from your plants, especially if you grow them in containers in your small garden.
Read how often should you water a small space garden with pot from here.
Determine the amount of water that plants need
This is the most important heading in this blog post.
Your lovely garden will fail to be productive if you don’t master this topic.
In this case, if you couldn’t understand the plant’s needs or does not need water, your plant could be rotted from overwatering, while it drying with under-watering.
There are some different ways that you can determine how much water your plants needed.
Quality of the soil
The main factor when measuring how much water do a plant need is, how good the soil is doing with draining the water.
If your soil is too hardy and not likely to leak water inside easily, that is not the best working soil with your plants.
So you have to use light, loose and drainable soil with your containers in your small space garden.
And that is what earthworms doing when a plant growing in a garden or soil.
Most of the time there aren’t many helpful earthworms and bacterias in containers. Therefore you have to do it on your own.
It’s simple.
Just loose the soil before you start watering the plant. Then it allows colliding with the air for roots.
Finally, I’d like to say that you can check the moisture of the soil at the moment by putting your finger inside the soil for 2 inches.
If you feel wet at the bottom of your finger, you are not needed to water at that time.
Don’t try to water the plants in your small space garden at that time with expecting much better growth from your plants.
Surely it’s an invitation for overwatering root rot or waterlogged.
But if your finger, had a dusty experience down there, your plant is being under-watered.
Especially, when vegetable gardening in small spaces like containers, you have to be more careful about overwatering and under-watering.
Because overwatering in vegetable plants tends to rot the current fruits on the tree, while under-watering vegetable plants caused for stopping the growth of fruits which hanging on the tree at the moment.
As to the above information, when we consider how to determine the water requirement for your small space garden checking the moisture and quality of the soil is an important thing to do.
Size of the pot
This is a very good point to determine how often do plants need to be watered in a small space garden. But many people haven’t realized this.
Many small space garden owners, use pots and containers to grow even highly productive vegetable plants like determinate tomatoes which are dying after the harvest.
So this is the theory. The larger the pot, the less evaporation.
That means when your pot becomes larger, the less the soil is going to be drying out.
It’s a quite simple process. When there are more of them, It’s harder for those evaporate effects to get into the center of the soil.
Now just imagine you have two plants in two pots which are 3 inches in diameter and 6 inches in diameter.
As to the effect of the size of the pot the 3 inched pot’s soil is going to be drying out quicker than the other one.
Therefore, what I’d like to do is water them based on the size of the pot sometimes. Because I already know that the little pot is drying more quickly.
However, in the end, you have to water more often to the 3 inched pot, than the 6 inches pot.
And that’s how you want to consider the size of the pot when you water a small space garden.
Here are some hacks you can use to cut down the evaporation of your plants.
Material of the container is made from
You may be get surprised when you saw this little heading.
How does the material of the container effects to determine the water amount a plant needs?
Here’s it.
If you look over your small garden you can see that there are different types of pots.
Such as plastic pots, Terracotta pots, cast cement pots nylon stockings, and more.
And, if we analyze the popularity, plastic pots and terracotta pots are the most using container types.
When we considering these two types of pots we can see a clear difference between the water-absorbing and drying out process. And it’s so important to note out when you came up with how to water your small space garden.
When you water terracotta pots, water could be drying out way quicker than when you water a plant on a plastic container.
How this is happening?
It’s really simple.
Once you water a plant in a terracotta pot, they absorb some water into the clay.
So, once the evaporation begins, the absorbed water on the clay will also be going to dry out.
Therefore, there too many chances of getting water drying out quickly on a terracotta pot. Because still, the evaporate affects the soil. roots and leaves of the plant.
But when you water a plant that has been planted in a plastic pot, it doesn’t do anything else to cut down the power of evaporation.
Because plastic cant absorb water on them.
Here’s is a special thing.
Terracotta pots are ideal for vegetable gardening.
If you are willing to vegetable gardening in small spaces of your home, terracotta is the best solution. That’s one of well recommended and productive space-saving vegetable garden ideas.
However I’d like to go with terracotta pots with my plants.
When thinking about how to water a small space garden, using terracotta pots to grow plants helps to get rid of overwatering, while plastic pots help you to get rid of under-watering.
Here are some extra benefits of using terracotta pots for gardening.
Don’t rely on rain when you water a small space garden
Raining is a very helpful natural process for anyone interested in traditional gardening.
But not at all for the gardeners relying on a less space.
Here’s why.
Even if your garden is in less space outdoor and if they have planted in little containers, they are not getting enough amount of water.
Because when they don’t have too much area on the container, the chances of rainwater get into that pot are coming down.
That’s why experts always recommend at least a 5-gallon bucket.
Instead a little container if you planted them on the ground and outdoor, you are going to have something more.
But still there’s a cache
If the rain was a light one, you are not going to be ok with watering your small space garden.
Because the leaves of your lovely plant are going to be work as an umbrella at that moment.
And, if the leaves were able to cover the water drops, almost your plant will not be getting enough water from rain.
Especially if your small space garden is situated on a balcony or wherever that has an open surround you’re going to be deceived from the rain.
Here’s the story.
When your plants in containers are open for outdoor, rain showers could get into the plant.
And it can make leaves and the upper surface of the soil become wet.
If you check your plants with not enough boredom, you may tend to satisfied with the rain.
But actually, your plants haven’t got enough water inside to the soil.
So even after a heavy rain, specially check the moisture of the soil on the plants you’ve grown in containers.
You required only two fingers.
So that’s the way how the rain is affecting when considering how to water a small space garden.
Helpful tips to water a small space garden
I know that you’re loving to collect more helpful information about gardening.
So I gathered some additional tips to water a small space garden specially growing on containers.
Water wait water method
Honestly I found this technique from a video on epic gardening YouTube channel.
This method is working well for the plants in containers. You can also try with the other grounded plants.
Here’s what this method contains.
Imagine a situation that you are watering one of your container.
If you keep adding water to that container for longer, they can’t absorb all of water for sometimes and going to overflow.
That’s where this method needs to apply.
As it sounds, you have to water a round into the plant and wait until it absorbs. After it has been consumed, you can put the next round of water into the soil.
This is a so powerful method you can use when you water a small space garden with containers.
Because you exactly know that you have been watered the plant until to the bottom the pot.
Remove the pooling water
If you are using round pots to grow your favorite plants at indoor, you might using saucers under the pot.
And using a saucer is very helpful and have some advantages.
Such as, we can know our plant has been watered through out from the top to the bottom when pools water in the saucer.
Also it helps to keep the ground and the area much more cleaner.
But once you completely satisfied with watering into that plant, you have to dump or recycle that pooled water on the saucer.
If don’t do that you are surely going to have a bad experience with root rot.
Water the plants based on their living cycle
This is a very important tip to remember whether you water a small space garden or any other plant.
It is, you have to determine the amount of water you are putting in by considering the situation of the plant at the moment.
For example, if we took a ginger plant, they are often dying in the warm season and organically regrowing when that season ends.
So we don’t need to water it during the period they are dead.
But when they are regrowing, you have to put some more water on that plant to keep the well-energy to grow some new leaves.
Determinate tomato plants are another example that I can bring in, which is one of the best vegetables to grow in small spaces.
They are growing for a set height and after they produce fruit, they gonna die.
So you have to water those plants well when they started producing flowers.