Garden Survival while on Holiday

My three week holiday is coming up very quickly, and since I won’t be around to water and tend for my garden I thought I would share with you a few of my plans to keep the garden alive in this warm weather we are experiencing.

• Mulch: Reducing the amount of water lost to the atmosphere by soil transpiration is the best way stop your plants drying out. A good thick layer of mulch, be it sugar cane, wood bark, shredded paper, gravel, or even lawn clippings will reduce the number of times you need to get your friendly neighbor to water your garden.
• Scrooge Bottles: I find that installing these when I plant new plants is far easier and better for the plant than installing them later. Putting only 4 or 5 pin holes in the bottle will ensure that the water lasts a long time.
• Water Spikes: These plastic beauties work well with 2L soft drink bottles, the only problem can be that the water gets fairly warm inside them on a hot day.
• Water Crystals: Using these when planting helps keep the soil moist for longer periods. You can use a garden fork to carefully poke holes around the root system of existing plants, then tip a quarter of a teaspoon of dry crystals down each hole.
• Drip Irrigation: These systems use less water than a traditional sprinkler setup, as the water gets delivered right to the root zone of the plant. With a setup cost of less than $50 for a small garden and $100 for a large garden, they make a great investment and work well with a water timer system.
• Water Wise Drought Shield: I’ve never used this product yet, but it claims to reduce the plants water usage by 50%, and last for 90 days on the plant.

My plan is to mulch heavily with hay. It’s much cheaper than sugar cane mulch, and I’ve never had issues with seeds in the past. Prior to laying the hay down, a good spread of horse manure or Dynamic Lifter to ensure there is no case of Nitrogen Drawdown and a good soak from the sprinkler to get the water into the ground before the mulch goes down.

I’ve organised with my neighbor to come over and turn the water on for a few hours every three days, just to keep things moist. Also a huge weeding campaign will be in order to reduce the competition to my plants.

All in all I hope by the time I return home, the garden will be in good shape. I will probably spend a weekend getting everything back into shape, but that is to be expected with such a long break!

PS. I will be sure to post some photo’s of my holidays!