- Zone
- 7b/8a
As we inch closer and closer to spring/summer gardening season, it's about time to start preparing. Figuring out what to plant, making sure the seeds are ready to go, coming up with a plan for how everything will lay out in the garden, and figuring out how to make sure it all gets enough water.
The Big Focus: Drip Irrigation For me, that last point is the primary thing I'll need to focus on for this year. This year will be my first year going completely drip irrigation (hopefully). I'm not using the drip tape, though, except for maybe on onions and potatoes. I feel like those might waste a little bit of water. I'm actually running hoses and a dripper to each individual plant this year. A lot more work, but a lot more efficient I'd think.
This year I'll be running on up to four drip stations, that will water from a timer. I'll put a pressure reducer on each one, right after the timer. Then we'll go to 1/2" line all the way down the sides of the garden, perpendicular to the rows. Then I'll run a 1/2" line down each row, coming off with a small line and a dripper for each plant. I'll also have a shut off valve on each row, so I can easily turn a row off once that vegetable has run its course.
Why I'm Moving Away from Sprinklers Last year we watered with the timers and sprinklers, but I felt like we were wasting a lot of water on weeds between the rows and everywhere there wasn't a plant growing. Especially once we harvested some veggies, but had to keep the water going there because the same sprinkler was watering something else. We watered the area where we harvested our cauliflower and broccoli for months after harvesting because the same sprinkler was watering the tomatoes. I'm sure all that extra water probably didn't help with fire ants either.
The Re-Usable Row Plan Anyways, the plan is to have the row lines so that we can detach them easily for re-use in the fall and/or next spring. We'll just label what the row lines were for. Once they're rolled up after the season, and labeled, then next time we use them we can just pull out the line we want to put on that row, lay the hose down, and plant the plants where the drippers are. Then we know we're already far enough apart between plants.
New Additions: Trellises and Protein Tubs Another change for this year is that I'm wanting to build a trellis where the cucumbers will grow. I'm probably just gonna use a cattle panel, standing up on the row with the t-posts. This is just so that, hopefully, the cucumbers will crawl up and around the cattle panel, making harvesting a little easier. Last year finding all the cucumbers beneath the foliage was crazy difficult! Not that it made much difference, because we still harvested way more than enough cucumbers, but we were stepping all over the foliage and squashing some of the fruits even. I'm not sure how well this will work, but definitely worth a shot.
Finally, all of our tomatoes will be grown in old protein tubs instead of directly in the ground. This is so we can space them further apart this year without taking up too much of the garden space. They'll still be watered with one of the dripper stations, though.
The "In-Between" Strategy The only exception to the dripper watering will be the onions and potatoes (if we do them). I'll still hit those with the sprinkler because:
The 2026 Lineup:
Of course I'll keep everyone here posted on how everything works out. Fingers crossed we have just as good a year this year as last, if not better!
The Big Focus: Drip Irrigation For me, that last point is the primary thing I'll need to focus on for this year. This year will be my first year going completely drip irrigation (hopefully). I'm not using the drip tape, though, except for maybe on onions and potatoes. I feel like those might waste a little bit of water. I'm actually running hoses and a dripper to each individual plant this year. A lot more work, but a lot more efficient I'd think.
This year I'll be running on up to four drip stations, that will water from a timer. I'll put a pressure reducer on each one, right after the timer. Then we'll go to 1/2" line all the way down the sides of the garden, perpendicular to the rows. Then I'll run a 1/2" line down each row, coming off with a small line and a dripper for each plant. I'll also have a shut off valve on each row, so I can easily turn a row off once that vegetable has run its course.
Why I'm Moving Away from Sprinklers Last year we watered with the timers and sprinklers, but I felt like we were wasting a lot of water on weeds between the rows and everywhere there wasn't a plant growing. Especially once we harvested some veggies, but had to keep the water going there because the same sprinkler was watering something else. We watered the area where we harvested our cauliflower and broccoli for months after harvesting because the same sprinkler was watering the tomatoes. I'm sure all that extra water probably didn't help with fire ants either.
The Re-Usable Row Plan Anyways, the plan is to have the row lines so that we can detach them easily for re-use in the fall and/or next spring. We'll just label what the row lines were for. Once they're rolled up after the season, and labeled, then next time we use them we can just pull out the line we want to put on that row, lay the hose down, and plant the plants where the drippers are. Then we know we're already far enough apart between plants.
New Additions: Trellises and Protein Tubs Another change for this year is that I'm wanting to build a trellis where the cucumbers will grow. I'm probably just gonna use a cattle panel, standing up on the row with the t-posts. This is just so that, hopefully, the cucumbers will crawl up and around the cattle panel, making harvesting a little easier. Last year finding all the cucumbers beneath the foliage was crazy difficult! Not that it made much difference, because we still harvested way more than enough cucumbers, but we were stepping all over the foliage and squashing some of the fruits even. I'm not sure how well this will work, but definitely worth a shot.
Finally, all of our tomatoes will be grown in old protein tubs instead of directly in the ground. This is so we can space them further apart this year without taking up too much of the garden space. They'll still be watered with one of the dripper stations, though.
The "In-Between" Strategy The only exception to the dripper watering will be the onions and potatoes (if we do them). I'll still hit those with the sprinkler because:
- I don't want to run drippers every few inches for hundreds of onions.
- The potato plant does a good job keeping the weeds under control so I don't have to worry about them being over-run.
The 2026 Lineup:
- Yellow squash
- Zucchini (we won't plant much of this but the wife loves to make zucchini bread so we gotta have some)
- Tomatoes (cherry, roma, and the big beefy ones for fried green tomatoes!)
- Potatoes (still debating on whether to try the stackable potatoes this year)
- Broccoli (planting a lot more than last year)
- Cabbage (we need more!)
- Cauliflower
- Onions (purple and white, definitely some 1015s)
- Okra (I can almost smell the fried okra cooking already!)
- Jalapenos
- Bell peppers (maybe)
Of course I'll keep everyone here posted on how everything works out. Fingers crossed we have just as good a year this year as last, if not better!
