November Week 3: Winter Irrigation
Posted in Weekly Garden Guide for November by oscar on Wednesday, November 20, 2013
Welcome back folks! If you’ve been keeping up with our weekly gardening “challenges”, that’s great! If this is your first visit, that’s great too! Welcome to the Botanica Weekly Gardening Guide.
This is the third week in November and we’ve already had a little freeze here in central Texas. Anytime the outside temperature is below 33 degrees, there is something you’ve got to beware of. Yes, Jack Frost, but what he will do to your nose is NOTHING compared to what he will do to your lawn irrigation system. If it gets cold enough, the soil temperature could reach subfreezing at the depth of your irrigation pipes. If there is water in those pipes, it will freeze and expand.
Do you see where we are going with this? Water freezing and expanding is what breaks boulders into rocks and it will have no problem turning your irrigation system’s PVC pipes into tiny PVC toothpicks. So, let’s make sure your irrigation system is prepped for winter by purging the water. If you’ve never winterized your irrigation system before, Jason Core at GotScapes, has a great little VIDEO that walks you though the process and could save you lots of hours and dollars.
So… what now? How are we going to water all the great planting and replanting we did early this month? Well, we’re going to do it by hand, my friend. You won’t need to water nearly as much as you did during the warmer months, but even dormant plants and grasses will need a little water to keep going. You will want to pay extra attention to your winter vegetables and help them retain moisture by laying down a nice, organic mulch. Something exotic like newspaper (six layers will help keep the weeds out) and cover that layer with just about anything that decomposes… wood chips, grass clippings, hay straw, compost, even leaves. Your handiwork will also help moderate the soil temperature and keeping your veggies nice and comfortable will actually boost their production but up to 50%!
Well, that’s our tip for this week. Keep up the great work! Next week we will have our Q&A session with me, your gardening guru, Oscar Moraes. We’ll be answering all the questions you’ve submitted for November, so be sure to tune in!
TAGS: irrigation, winter
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