Cashana's Musings on Life: My Gardening Joys and Woes...

Taken on 6/10/13

Prior to this last graduation trip, I started worrying incessantly about how I was going to water my plants while I was gone. My folks were like have my cousin do it since she would be checking the house for me. And I seriously thought about it, but as the time got closer I really didn’t want to put that on someone else to do, especially someone who only has one plant and it sits under her car port in the same pot it came in two years ago, I am just saying. She doesn’t have plants so why burden her with my menagerie and I have a mess of a raised garden and my containers are less this year but I have 6 pots of flowers and herbs.

Portulaca (Moss Roses) 5/30/13

Marigolds 5/30/13

Zucchini Blossom 5/30/13 (When will I ever get Zucchini?)

Cucumber flower 5/30/13

The Jungle 5/30/13

Zinnias are in the blue green pot 5/30/13

Sunflowers 5/30/13

Zinnias 6/30/13 taken with my Samsung III

So as I started to really stress about the garden situation a week before departure, I googled, ‘watering gardens while on vacation’. And what do you know? I found a great article stating all I needed was a timer, soaker hoses and connectors. So off I went to Home Depot the Saturday before I left on vacation. And in a matter of 10 minutes I had what I needed and was headed to garner snacks for the trip. Of course, I couldn’t install the hoses and timer because it decided to rain that Saturday afternoon. Sighing… However, I woke early Sunday morning and for an hour I attached the hoses and threaded the soaker hoses through my jungle of a garden. Then I realized the one thing the Article didn’t say was I needed a timer in which I could set the times for the watering. I wanted to scream, damn! So I hurriedly dressed and headed to Home Depot to return the egg timer like timer I purchased the day before and get the digital programmable timer I really needed. I also got another connect to add to my existing water faucet to keep the seepage down, which worked by the way. So I hurried home and put on the new timer and guess what? It decided to rain again. STFU! So I couldn’t test the timer that day either.

Timer, soaker hose on the left hose pipe with soaker hose on the right

My crude contraption

Weaving this soaker hose in and out hurt my back...badly!

On Monday before I left that Tuesday, I did a trial run with the contraption. I even moved my containers and a table closer to the water hose so I wouldn’t have to purchase another soaker hose. I set the timer for every 8 hours starting at 8 in the morning and to run for 30 minutes. And when I came home Monday, I had a nice puddle in my backyard where the soaker hose was closest to the house. Ugh! But my raised garden looked great. So I adjusted the timer and changed it to 20 minutes. And Tuesday I was like I hope this thing works because seriously, my time is up. When I got home Tuesday, I realized I had mistakenly turned the timer off while adjusting the time, sighing! But I just prayed over it and hoped it would work for the days I would be gone.

I got home after midnight on Saturday and the first thing I did after I unlocked my front door was run and look at my garden, in the dark. I noticed right off the back my Sunflowers were in deep damn trouble. The containers plants looked fine from my vantage point and the garden was still an overgrown jungle. Sighing in relief, I got my bags in the house and hurriedly ran outside to water the sunflowers.

You would think after all the trouble I went through for the garden I would get up early the next morning and water my plants. Nope, said the timer is still on and I am tired I will look at the plants when I wake up later in the day. Well…that was a colossal mistake. My damn container plants look like they had been in the desert and looked like my Zinnias weren’t going to make it. Man, I was in tears. So in the scorching heat and doing a plant no-no, I water my plants right then and there. Devastated is the best word to describe how I felt. My timer’s battery was low and it wouldn’t allow the water to flow and undoubtedly had stop working after Friday morning. FML!

I learned a few things from this situation, one plants are resilient as you will see from the pictures. I can’t use dollar store batteries in timers and expect them to work accordingly. Finally, next time I get one of those sprinklers and set the timer and all the plants can get watered as it goes back and forth. Don’t get me wrong the soaker hoses did their job and did a mighty fine one, but I have too many plants to just use them and frankly you must put your soaker hoses down before you garden becomes an uncontrollable jungle.

Garden woes…only last temporarily as you see the fruit of your efforts.