Geez, I would trade you conditions. The heat is not much different (low 90s here) but almost every day it rains, usually .5-1.5" of rain. I can't get into my garden to till it or even hoe weeds. Been like this for the past two weeks. Some of my potatoes have rotted - not good.

Mike

Me too, I have to water most things every morning or they looks sad. The plants that have 4 inches or more of mulch i can wait every-other day. But i use it as an opportunity to spend quality time with the plants, i enjoy the cooler mornings in the garden :)

I'm hauling water too. My zuchini plants still look wilted everyday when I get home from work-so they are getting watered twice a day.
Worth it though since I just picked dinner tonight-and tomorrows will be ready when I go out to the garden after work tomorrow.

I guess the leaf mulch I put on all my beds are doing their job, since I haven't had to water more than once a week even with the mid 90s temp here. It helps that we get some rain at least once a week too.

While every garden is unique it's probably better to not water every day. Try watering for longer amounts of time 2-3 days per week to encourage deeper roots. And of course mulching and adding compost will help retain moisture.

I am in NJ and it has been 85+ for the last 2 weeks or so, 95 today and 97 tomorrow.

I set up a drip system this year for my 50x25' garden. I only deep water once per week for about 3 hours set on a timer. I have newspaper down with straw over it. Nothing is wilting.

The only issue I see with this is that since everything is automatic, I dont get out to the garden as often :(

I gave up and bought two hoses yesterday. I had planned on hauling water so not to annoy anyone with adding spigots, tapping into already established pipelines, trying not to rot the floor out of my house with leaks created by installing them.

Today I have to put in an outside spigot, or I'll be hauling water again. I bought a nice handy tool, can't recommend it for steep hillsides like what I have, but if you only have a moderate hill to climb or no hill at all with flat ground, you might consider the H2GO bag, holds 20 gallons of water, it's a bag that sits inside a wheelbarrow, wheelbarrow gets real tippy when it full, so halfway at 10-15 gallons is the best way unless you have a garden cart with two wheels instead of one.

There are kits for making your wheelbarrow into a two front wheeled barrow, kits for two wheels in the back even making it 4 wheel, I'm almost there, but I didn't buy the wheel, but only the kit to make the 4th wheel. It worked fine and I can carry 10 or 15 gallons at a time, better than carrying them with arms.

You might look into a water bowser, or one of these gems,a water hog, not the same water hog as the electric one:

{{gwi:73578}}

There are lots of ways to haul water.

Here is a link that might be useful: water carrier

It's been high 80s low 90s here and only a half hour or so of rain in the last couple of weeks. I'm using the sprinkler in the main garden every other day or so and hand watering containers every day -- they're drying out so fast.

I have to keep checking the calendar because it feels like August :)

Caryl

Same here! Temps in upper 90s, weather typical of Aug, not June. Also, very little rain. If there's a quick summer storm, it never hits us. Breaking my back trying to keep things watered. Oh...and last year I complained about too much rain!!!!
Maybe next year will be a happy medium?

sounds like a lot of watering, migth need some latteral thinking? mulching heavily with hay type mulches even straw will help a lot on retaining moisture, with too much water you run the risk of the plants developing shallow root systems which then are more prone to the effects of the heat, also leeches away nutrients.

look to collecting rainwater in tanks not drums this takes your dependency away from the town supply usually restricted. learn to use the second hand water in the house as well, target use all water twice. good gardeners are also responsible and good water managers.

there is a bit to it but with practise it comes easy. check teh urine related thread in the organic section more info' there.

len

Here is a link that might be useful: lens straw bale garden

I kind of like it because it forces me to pretty much look at every plant ~3 times a week. I have one area on soaker hoses and almost missed that the artichokes were making artichokes until they were almost ripe.

Without mulch I'd be watering every day. It's just so dry here in summer that the plants transpire a lot and get no dew in the morning, ect.

We're on a well with a very slow uptake, so I'm really aware of water usage. Fortunately will all the snow and rain this past winter (well above average) the aquifers are in fairly good shape. Fingers crossed there since it's been really dry recently.

Right now, a thunder storm is moving in -- second one this week. Hope we get a half hour or so of rain. Then I won't have to water until next week.

I live in southern California where it doesn't rain any measurable rain for seven months straight. This year I am only watering once a week and my plants all seem to be doing fine. So far no disease. I made a depression around each plant and only water that depression, maybe an inch or two of water. I try my best not to get any water in the spaces between plants to hinder weed and bermuda grass growth. I bought a special watering wand that lets me put the water only where I want it. It takes me almost a whole hour to water my garden and fruit trees.

I was just away for a week and a half but drip system did the job. I had to hustle to lay it down before I left  usually watering isn't an issue until July. It's been a strange season  spring greens are gone, tomatoes off to an early start, lots of slugs.

Its hard to say whats worse...

My problem is too much rain... Over 7 inches of rain since the start of the month. More in the forecast the next 2 days (possibly inches). We are very close to breaking record rainfall totals for the month (around 10 inches)...

I can't remember the last time i had to hand water my tomatoes... probably never. I use a lot of mulch the way it is and up here rain is very reliable during the summer months (we seem to sit between the heat to the south and the cool to the north). Lots of fronts move through here during the summer months.

I do have to water my container plants if we go more then a few days without rain. They seem to rapidly dry out sitting in the sun on the driveway. The one thing about that is the well water here is very cold, and high in pH, so i tend to fill up a 30 gallon bin and let it sit before using it on my plants (it warms quickly in the sun)...

I'm in Wisconsin too, and there's way too much water. We had flash floods twice this week. My tomatoes had a river going through them for an hour. Usually the spot they're in doesn't need to be watered much since it doesn't dry out very quickly, but I think I might need a raised bed there next year or plant the tomatoes somewhere else. Too bad I can't ship all this rain to someone who needs it. I set up a drip system three years ago and haven't used it since that year. It needs to be repaired but so far it looks like I might not need it again.

We are right at 100 degrees with no rain for months. Our rain catchment tanks have been empty for months. The ground has very large cracks where there are no beds or mulch. We removed all the lawn in order to plant edibles and even with mulch, I'm watering every day.

Have new trees at the front of the house to hopefully shade the south side of the house...in the last 80 years since the house was built no one ever planted trees there, just on the east and west and north...go figure! Those new trees need the water to get them going. And we have fruit trees covered with fruit so gotta see to it they get what they need to produce.

Praying for rain!