I could be wrong, but I consider your thots accurate. At near 3 feet down with roots in place and vegetation atop, it would be wet in clay- for like big plants like bushes (and well established tomato plants).

The problem is the daily fluctuation. I'm finding it gives rise to blossom end rot if I don't water occasionally. Picky turds.

Probably not. I will look at soil moisture maps and check to see the numbers, but I check the soil in my raised bed garden the old fashioned way--by sticking my hand down in the soil (after raking away the mulch with a trowel and making sure no snakes lurk nearby) several inches to see if I can find any moisture in the upper 6" of soil which, no matter how deep veggie roots go, seems to be where the majority of the feeder roots are found. My theory is that the roots don't want to leave the amended clay in the raised beds to go down deeper into more dense clay unless they absolutely must.

I knew my potato beds were dry all Spring because it just wasn't raining and I couldn't even water enough to keep the soil moist. If I dug down a foot with a trowel, I still found absolutely no moisture even just 1 day after watering. It drove me nuts. The raised potato beds have great, fast-draining soil above the hardware cloth---16" of it, but now I'm thinking I need to add clay to them (no! say it isn't true!) to make them hold moisture better. They've driven me nuts all year with their inability to retain moisture. The potatoes produced well, but I'm not sure how or why they did. I have melons and squash growing in those beds now so we'll see how those plants do in soil that drains too well.

The other thing is that your Mesonet station may have soil that is very different than your soil at your place. Our soil is nothing like the soil at our Mesonet station, which is in a part of the county with really well-drained soil, so I take all the soil moisture maps with a grain of salt for that reason too.

For me, the best indicator is how the plants look and how they're growing. If they are thirsty, their color looks off and they just look sad. That's about as reliable of an indicator as soil moisture maps or even sticking one's fingers down several inches into the soil to test the moisture level. That's how I knew the potato beds were staying too dry---the foliage, while healthy, never had good enough color.

Dawn

The tomato plants in beds look really good (knock wood). The ones in containers are less happy, and I probably haven't been watering them enough. Fewer containers next year. In some cases I just want to taste them, so all I need is one. Everything got watered pretty good. I put Tomato Tone out so they had to be watered enough to soak that in. There are other plants in the beds, so they can't go completely without water.

Bon, I've had more BER this year, too, mostly on the dwarfs in root pouches, but some in the beds, too.

Ha, add clay to your potato beds, sounds like a lot of work. I'm sorry.