Ep. 152 Creating a water-conscious landscape | #GoodGrowing
Welcome to the Good Growing Podcast. I am Chris Enroth, horticulture educator with the University of Illinois Extension coming at you from Macomb, Illinois, and we have got a great show for you today. We are going to be coming a bit more conscious about how we use water in our landscaping with horticulture educator Emily Swihart. But before we get to Emily, I am joined as always every single week by horticulture educator Ken Johnson in Jacksonville. Hey, Ken.
Chris Enroth:How are you doing? First time I've ever said that today.
Ken Johnson:I'm having a little bit of deja vu right now.
Chris Enroth:I know. I might have forgotten to hit the record button when we did this earlier. So listeners, viewers, you get take two. It's gonna be even better than take one, though I probably won't be. It's always always best when you're fresh.
Chris Enroth:Right?
Ken Johnson:It'll be alright. It's all good.
Chris Enroth:So, Ken, how are things going for you in your landscape? Are you ready for the impending frost that is just knocking on our door here?
Ken Johnson:I am. I am excited for cooler weather. I think we got down to about mid thirties. I'm oh, mid upper thirties here in Jacksonville, so all of our dahlias are still going. I was kinda surprised.
Ken Johnson:So but the last thing I have to do in the landscape is get them dug.
Chris Enroth:My can is still look pretty good, so I'm I'm I'm happy about that. So once we get a little bit of frost, I'll I'll get those out of the ground and hide them away in the basement. I've got all my house plants inside and kind of scattered throughout the garage and driveway, so wherever I can find a a spot for them right now. Eventually, they'll all find a home, but it's it's a lot of ginger that I propagated this year, and I'm I'm working on some disease free stock for next year. So they're in soil free media.
Chris Enroth:They've never touched the ground, and so I'm hopeful and hoping out that I can find space to keep all these plants alive for next March when we start them again.
Ken Johnson:Yeah. Now I think about it. I think I left some ginger in pots outside.
Chris Enroth:They'll be fine.
Ken Johnson:We'll have to check that and see how they did.
Chris Enroth:They'll be fine. You know, they're a tough plant. I've grown them for many years, and they're tougher than you think. Just don't let the rhizomes freeze. You know that the rhizomes freeze?
Chris Enroth:Did you, Ken?
Ken Johnson:It didn't get that cold.
Chris Enroth:Okay. Good. Well, they'll be fine. They'll be fine. No no worries about that.
Chris Enroth:So, yeah, I also have some trees that need to go on the ground, but I haven't done that yet, and I've spent so much time this summer watering stuff. Ken, did you were you watering this summer at all? No. As much you should. As much as you should.
Ken Johnson:So we went on vacation and get really hot and dry and with our our oldest son, one of his friends watching at our house, and we didn't wanna put that pressure on him because it to water our garden and everything properly, it takes a couple hours to do. So we lost amount of plants in the vegetable garden, so we didn't really have to water that much. What we did earlier this fall, late summer, we watered quite a bit so we could get ground soft enough to dig to plant stuff. So now that that rain's returned and this looks like it's going to continue, hopefully, we're we're done with the watering.
Chris Enroth:Hopefully. Yes. Well, I I just recall being out there in the backyard, hose in hand, and it it hurts my soul a little bit to take water, which we've put energy and and and engineering and all the stuff that takes to make dirty water drinkable. And here I am just dumping it on the ground. It it it kinda hurt me a little bit every time I need to do that.
Chris Enroth:I even had to water my lawn the other day. It's so dry in Macomb, which I know I know. Sad, sad, but we'll we'll talk about that. Because I think we need I think we need to talk about maybe ways we can be a bit more conscientious about our water usage in the home landscape. So let's bring in our special guest for today, horticulture educator, Emily Swihart in Milan, which I learned because I've already talked to you today.
Emily Swihart:Hi. Yes. I'm in Milan. We, cover Henry Mercer, Rock Island, and Stark Counties. So, yep, up in the Quad Cities, and I beat you guys to it.
Emily Swihart:We had a little bit of frost in some areas, this morning. So, you know, winter's coming. Ken, you're gonna be in your glory. I'm thinking about hibernating. It's fine.
Emily Swihart:Mhmm. We're all gonna be fine.
Chris Enroth:This is when Ken comes out of his cave. Just rolls around in the snow.
Emily Swihart:He emerges. Yes.
Chris Enroth:Wintertime butterfly. Oh, yes. Well, Emily, thank you for doing this again. And we we we wanna talk to you today about water conscious landscaping that you know, just wanted to to, you know, just ask you. Are are you ready for fall?
Chris Enroth:Are you ready for the frost that you just had?
Emily Swihart:I really wanna say yes, But no. No. I wasn't. Sort of do things in the garden that I'm hoping are gonna make it. You know?
Emily Swihart:I spent so many hours, like you guys, you know, said, watering and trying to get things going in the in the garden was successful in some cases, not successful in others. But the you know, this end of the season here, it feels extra pressure to harvest the food that I was able to grow because I don't wanna have wasted all that time and energy and water, you know, on a food crop that I'm not able to preserve for the winter. So I have a few more things to do. Trees, I've been watering. The soil is is very dehydrated.
Emily Swihart:It it's I need to get some more water into that into that soil going into winter. We'll talk about why, but I've been working on that. And then I have a few new plants that always need water, you know, as they're they're transplanted. And so getting there, never enough time, but we'll we'll do what we can, and that'll have to be enough.
Chris Enroth:Well, in an effort for us to become more better, more conscious of using water in our landscape, we have a series of questions for you. And so, Ken, would you get us started this week, please?
Ken Johnson:I can do that. So our first question is, what exactly is water conscious landscaping? This is just a fancy way of saying xeriscaping or any other those terms out there, and we're just gonna plant a bunch of cactus in our yards now.
Emily Swihart:Well, there's a little more nuance than that. And so while I do love, you know, cacti and I do love the Southwest, that is not the landscape that we are going to be encouraging people to plant today. That I think is oftentimes what people think of when they hear xeriscape. And that term generally is used to describe designing a landscape that is drought resistant. You're planning for the lack of water, which is okay.
Emily Swihart:Certainly, this year that would have been beneficial, you know, to have a landscape that was willing and able to respond to not having hardly any water given to it. But water conscious landscaping, is more of a a well, you're you're just more conscious of how you're gonna be using water in the landscape. You're making decisions for your landscape, for your management strategies and plans based on water use or factoring water use and need heavily into the equation, maybe more so than we have in the past. And so it's just elevating it on your checklist of things that you are considering when you're installing a landscape to be, you know, more priority.
Chris Enroth:You know, we're not the desert here in Illinois. We're the we have prairie. We have we have hardwood trees. We get lots of rain. Should is should we worry about using water in our home landscape?
Chris Enroth:Is that a really worry for us?
Emily Swihart:Well, I think so. And you said we get lots of rain. Sometimes we do. You know, there are are cycles of climate patterns that give us a lot of of water sometimes for a number of years. We get adequate rainfall and snowpack, and so our, you know, our our lakes and our rivers and our groundwater can be recharged.
Emily Swihart:Then we get into patterns like we have been in lately where it's just not happening for us. We are not getting natural water provided. So when we have a landscape that we are caring for, that we have invested time and energy and and finances into, we will need to provide some supplemental water because plants need water. At the like, they all do. Sometimes it's more, sometimes it's less, but at the end of the day, plants need water.
Emily Swihart:And so we need to be conscious of it. You know, in Illinois, there are some folks that have well water. Some get their drinking water, their potable water from lakes and streams and rivers. We have the Mississippi along, you know, many of the counties that I serve. I cross over it every day, get to get to see it.
Emily Swihart:And, you know, in some places in the Midwest, when we have these large bodies of water or we've grown up here and we think, oh, like, we'll get rain. That's what we do in the Midwest. We we take it for granted, and I think that maybe we are reaching a point in our culture and in our you know, in the climate that we really are more aware of water in our landscape. So with this Mississippi, it seems like it's an endless source of freshwater. But this summer, I saw sand sandbars that I've never seen before, and they were larger than we've ever seen before.
Emily Swihart:And so, you know, those water levels have changed, and they they may not may not recover. You know, based on your guys' conversation with Trent Ford a couple weeks ago, he's, you know, telling us we need to consider water conservation because this winter might not give us that moisture back. And so next spring, you know, we might be starting, you know, in a deficit. So, yeah, that that was a wordy way of saying, yeah, we need to consider water. Definitely need to consider water.
Chris Enroth:Most definitely. Yes. I it's very, very important. Yeah. Contamination is a problem, has been a bigger problem in the past, but there's we're doing better at keeping our our water clean for the most part in some parts of the country here.
Chris Enroth:So, yeah, it's important, folks, even though we get lots of rain sometimes.
Ken Johnson:Sometimes. Sometimes. And sometimes we get you know, we may need rain, but we don't get it. You know, we may have you look at the average, you may average enough for the year. But if you get that on early in the year, it doesn't necessarily help you a whole lot towards the end of the year.
Ken Johnson:So timing is important too.
Emily Swihart:Well Yeah. That's an excellent point.
Chris Enroth:Trent even made that point. He said, we got had no rain this year, but we got rain exactly when the corn farmers needed it in July. Like, if that didn't happen, that would've that would've spelled big trouble for grain crops in the Midwest.
Ken Johnson:Alright. So we've kinda talked about why we should be concerned with water or at least think about it a little bit. What are some some ways we can incorporate water conscious landscaping into our landscapes?
Emily Swihart:Yeah. That's a good question. So every time you're approaching, you know, a plant decision, a landscape decision, you know, Chris and I have identified ourselves as having a design background. Don't hate us for that. Hold it against us.
Chris Enroth:Thank you, Will.
Emily Swihart:I know. I know. And that's alright. Let me try to justify why why I think this is an asset. So having that training, every time I get excited about planting, you know, plants and landscape, or I start thinking about how I'm going to use, you know, a garden site that, you know, that we are are using for demonstration.
Emily Swihart:I don't start with the plants. Plants are actually the last thing that I I go to because before you plant something, you need to understand where you're putting them. It goes back to that right plant, right place. Well, this is the right place situation where we need to know what it what the site is gonna give us. So some of the main concerns that are going to impact our decisions when it comes to plant material and water use are things like your slope.
Emily Swihart:So how is this the site sloped or not sloped? Like, where is water draining? When you do get those rainfalls, where is it going? Is it running off of the site? Are you gonna be able to capture it and hold it on-site?
Emily Swihart:Is it going to the plants that you want it to have? Or is it draining away from the plants that you you want that water to be feeding? And so looking at your slope. Soil conditions and a simple soil test will tell you so much about your soil conditions, but sandy soils are going to have a lower capacity to hold moisture. Clay soils oftentimes have a higher capacity to retain water, sometimes to the detriment of plants if you put in the wrong plant there.
Emily Swihart:And so being aware of what your soil conditions are like, high organic matter in your soil, so, like, that four to 5% is going to be optimal for retaining moisture and helping to hold some of that within the soil. So do you have an abundance? Do you have a lack thereof? Sun exposure? You wanna I mean, in the hot summer days, you know, those long days, sun exposure can can significantly affect transpiration and evaporation rates, which is just a fancy way of saying water going away, going up into the atmosphere either through the plants or through, you know, leaving, like, soils or mulches or so and then I guess wind.
Emily Swihart:Wind would be another one. I don't think we pay enough attention to what our wind patterns are, especially in the Midwest. We have some significant wind kind of throughout the year. Winter winds, summer summer winds, and that can be really draining on plants. That can cause some dry out, especially in the winter.
Chris Enroth:Yep. And
Emily Swihart:so pay attention to all of those things.
Chris Enroth:Curious. Can you just explain transpiration real quick just for some listeners who may not know? Like, what are we transfer curating? What what's that? What is transpiration?
Emily Swihart:Transpiration. Well, okay. Let's start with evaporation. So evaporation is water just turning from liquid to a vapor. Right?
Emily Swihart:We're we're kinda used to that. We can see that on the stovetop, like, through steam coming off of a boiling pot of water. That is very evident to us. Transpiration is water turning into vapor, but it's going through plant material to do so. And so plants have, you know, stomata that are gonna open and and, basically, water is always moving around us through our plants.
Emily Swihart:You can't see it oftentimes, but there's so much water movement happening in plants. And a lot of that goes out. It goes up through the plants from the soil, up through the plants, and then out into the atmosphere. You can experience this, you know, in the summer, like, you're walking through a a cornfield. It's often a lot more humid in a cornfield than it is outside of the cornfield that that's transpiration happening.
Chris Enroth:Corn sweat. Yes.
Emily Swihart:Corn sweat. Yeah. Yeah. Wear long sleeves if you're gonna do that, not because the cooler temperature is good. They'll cut you.
Emily Swihart:But so that's transpiration. So water's always it's it's water going up into the atmosphere.
Chris Enroth:Yeah. Thanks. I just wanted to clarify that. Yeah.
Emily Swihart:Yeah. That's a good question. I I take for granted that I we we have these big fancy terms for just basically water going up into the atmosphere.
Chris Enroth:Mhmm. $20.
Emily Swihart:Yep. Yeah. But so what back to your question, Ken. Like, the site considerations, like, you need to understand the site where what you're planting where. So whether that's a vegetable garden, which is gonna be full of maybe annual plants, all the way up to woody plant materials, you know, shrubs and trees that are gonna be there for a lot longer term.
Emily Swihart:Understanding how your site exists already is gonna help you influence is gonna help influence those plant choices. And sometimes we need to be flexible as to what we are going to be putting on that site. This is where, like, that water conscious landscaping really comes into effect, which is maybe I want something here, but the site is telling me it is going to require a lot of supplemental water, or it's this this plant is not well suited for the site conditions, and I cannot modify those site conditions to the to the point where it makes sense to put this plant there. So I need to modify my goals. That can be hard for people.
Emily Swihart:It's gonna be hard for me sometimes, but it is if you're going to be practicing water conscious landscaping, that's part of it.
Chris Enroth:Yeah. The even though maples are to the Eastern Part of The US, especially during the drought this year. I saw a lot of maples, especially have issues with leaf scorch drying out, wilting. Saw that a lot in the maples, out of the oaks and some of the other hickories and walnuts, they looked okay. It was still dry.
Chris Enroth:There's still stress from that that heat, but really started to manifest in that in those maples later on in the summer.
Emily Swihart:Yeah. Well, when you think about maples for the most part, we're talking like sugar maples is oftentimes you know, the ones that we're looking at are red maples. They their origin is in kinda upland woodlands, you know, farther north. They are Mhmm. Native, but they are oftentimes in a plant community that protects them from wind.
Emily Swihart:There's an ample amount of shade in woodlands. There's adequate moisture because it's being kinda cycled in that ecosystem. They don't originate along boulevards or in, you know, turf filled backyards. And that's a lot of times where we're putting our trees are in these challenging landscapes compared to what, their parent material came from, and, and they suffer for it. It's just the wrong plant in the wrong place.
Chris Enroth:Mhmm. So a few other strategies that we might employ, and this is one we had a whole show on the other week, and and and can help even if we maybe put that maple where it shouldn't. It can help to insulate that soil, Mulch. Emily, you know, should we just, like, link to people to that show? Because we really dove into it when it comes to mulch.
Emily Swihart:Yes. I recommend going back and listening to that because probably your best episode. Just all mulch for the
Chris Enroth:whole lot of people. Was the guest.
Emily Swihart:That's true. Well, thank you. But Mhmm. No. Mulch is wildly important in that that episode.
Emily Swihart:In all seriousness does cover a lot of the benefits of mulch. And so, you know, if people are still on the fence about which mulch to use or, why it's important to to mulch and how and and when to apply, that is a good episode. But, from a water conservation standpoint, like, mulch is where it's at, and we're talking about almost always a hardwood mulch. It's gonna last longer in the landscape. It's a hardwood mulch that has variable sizes of, particles is going to keep moisture into the soil.
Ken Johnson:It
Emily Swihart:it does depend. There is some nuance with mulch. Again, back to, like, what you're using your landscape for. So, I kinda most of what I do is either perennial growing or vegetable growing. Those are kind of the two areas, and you can generalize out from there.
Emily Swihart:So if you're not growing vegetables and you're growing annual flowers, the same principles apply. But, you know, in the spring. Right? So people will will be thinking about the spring and planning ahead. With mulch, it can cause soil temperatures to to to be more moderate across the winter, which is great.
Emily Swihart:In the spring though, it's going to prevent the soil from warming up. So on a on a garden where you're planting annuals, you're gonna wanna wait until that soil warms up so that seeds can germinate. And then the roots can get established because roots are gonna help access water. Then you would apply mulch. If you have a perennial landscape or you have woody plant materials, you're gonna wanna keep mulch around the base of those plants kind of all year long.
Emily Swihart:And that is because you want the soil temperature to be more moderated, especially going into the winter months. You wanna make sure that there's a protection between those those temperature fluctuations we can have in the in the winter months. You know, you wanna have some protection. The mulch provides that protection, but then also the conservation of water below the soil or below the mulch in the soil is going to help moderate temperature fluctuations. And it is maybe not common knowledge, but it should be, and that's why we're here, which is that plants still use water in, like, the dormant season.
Emily Swihart:So they're still using even though ours you know, the trees are changing colors and leaves are dropping and we think, oh, they're dormant. The soil hasn't frozen yet. And so there's still going to be water usage happening, and so mulch can help conserve the water that we are putting on the soil.
Chris Enroth:And I I have two evergreens that I planted, and so they especially are gonna be using water this winter because they hold those leaves or needles in this case. So I gotta I have to make sure that if we don't get rain in the next few days, I need to get out there and soak that ground with those. And I put mulch over top to hold that moisture there.
Emily Swihart:Yep. And from how much you know, I don't think we talked about this in the mulch episode, but with trees, you want to go out to the drip line, which can be hard for some people because trees get very big. Right? But that is recommended. So the drip line is the edge of the tree.
Emily Swihart:Right? It's where water would would drip off the the outermost edge of the tree. Ideally, that is how far out you you would mulch. Now the roots are going to go farther than that. Tree roots can go about three times wide as the tree is tall, which is a little bit mind boggling.
Emily Swihart:And so it seems it's unreasonable to expect people to water that size of a root area. But if you are conserving moisture through the use of mulch and then also supplemental water in, you know, times of severe drought around the base of the tree out to that drip line, that can still for some large trees seem seem like a big undertaking, but that's that is what's recommended to help supply these trees with their with ample water and support their growth.
Ken Johnson:So we we can't talk about this, but trees and stuff competing with turf and all that. How does a water conscious landscaping, how does a lawn fit into that?
Emily Swihart:Chris, you can go ahead and jump in here and defend turf. So there are some things some things you can do if you wanna have some, turf grass. First and foremost, I like the term functional lawn. So having lawn in areas where you really need it. So my kids like to play, you know, soccer and football and baseball in the backyard.
Emily Swihart:I have a spot that is going to be functional, and we need that turf grass in the backyard. Other areas, we don't need it. And so we could change out the plant material that is in those locations to be something that is more water conscious. Say, like, a a native prairie area where you don't need to to provide as much supplemental water. Other things that you could do to consider for turf grass is in the summer, letting it go dormant.
Emily Swihart:I saw so many dormant lawns this summer. I don't think we mowed for two months straight. You know, we just Mhmm. Don't water your lawn. And it's okay.
Emily Swihart:It it I think there's a nervousness that people have when their lawn goes dormant and that, like, it's actually dead. But it's not. It's an adaptive strategy. It it's a cool season grass. It greens up in the spring, goes dormant in the hot, dry summer.
Emily Swihart:It'll and right now, we've been mowing like crazy because we have some cooler temperatures and we've had moisture. So it is woken back up, if you will. So choosing to to not irrigate, to let your lawn go dormant. Chris, you will probably jump in here and wanna say, but if you do water, you have to keep watering because it's it's detrimental to lawn health if you you force those cycles of dormancy and in breaking dormancy over and over throughout the summer. So you need to make that decision in advance whether you're going to water or not water.
Emily Swihart:And then using an effective irrigation system when you are choosing to water your lawn. There are some smart irrigation systems that are available. I think, Chris, you probably know more about these. I've I've dabbled, but I choose not to I choose not to water my lawn. So I don't have experience with them.
Emily Swihart:But the long and short that I know is that there are different sensors. You can choose to you can choose to add two irrigation systems that are sometimes based on climate reports or actual on the ground, like, sensors, moisture sensors in the lawn. And that can help. When you do apply irrigation to a lawn, you're doing it so that it is adequate but not too much instead of helping to conserve. Do you wanna add any about any more about the, smart irrigation systems?
Emily Swihart:Have you had experience with those, Chris?
Chris Enroth:I I've had a little bit, and I'll just say, Emily, I think I found the next person to teach all the turf classes. I can retire now. Yes. I'm gonna go to Sunny Cabo or somewhere. Yes.
Chris Enroth:But, when it comes to the smart irrigation controllers, they are very popular out west, where water is is very much a contentious issue out there. And they do work, as Emily described, in a couple different ways, whether you plug sensors into your own soil or rain gauge in your own yard. There's other ones that will actually connect to a database that it has weather stations around that region that monitors not only the weather, but the evaporation, the transpiration rates of plants. I mean, it can get very scientific. I kind of wish we had more of that here in Illinois.
Chris Enroth:There's land grants out west that actually do this. Like, they partner with private companies, irrigation companies, so they can save people water, whether it's a farmer or a homeowner watering their lawn. We don't necessarily we probably could have that here in Illinois. I know U of I doesn't do it, though. So the but, yeah, it the the long of it is smart irrigation controllers.
Chris Enroth:I think they're the future. It can help you save water, and it's it's an important piece of technology to incorporate into our our irrigation systems.
Ken Johnson:And I'll say for irrigation, if you're setting one up, your sidewalk and your driveway doesn't need to be watered.
Chris Enroth:It's true. Don't water those.
Emily Swihart:Yeah. Well and timing too. So whether you have a smart irrigation system or you're just going out with a hose, you know, timing of the application of that water makes a difference. And so early morning, so that that water can get into the soil instead of evaporate, you know, when it's 90 degrees, and midafternoon. You it it in the evening, watering in the evening is gonna let moisture sit on that plant.
Emily Swihart:And so, like, early evening or excuse me. Early morning watering is recommended because then that water gets to the plants for the day, does not sit wet on those plants, plant material to promote, you know, pathogens and fungus and plant health problems. So get up early. I'm a, you know, I'm a morning person, so grab your cup of coffee and go out. It's lovely
Chris Enroth:Mhmm.
Emily Swihart:To to water in the morning. But the other, I guess, part of you know, there's, like, drip irrigation systems versus overhead watering systems, and it does depend on what landscape use you are applying it to. So oftentimes with the turf, you're gonna have overhead watering just because a drip, you can't really have a drip system go through. You know, a turf grass system, but larger water particle sizes will penetrate through. Know, You instead of like misting your lawn, you could have, like, water heavier water droplets that are going to then reach the soil surface with with greater greater odds.
Emily Swihart:Also, finally, back to the sensors, but there's different sensors or just making the choice of paying attention, like, wind. If you're watering when it's windy and it's just blowing away, that's, you know, problematic. If you have a system that's set up just on a timer and it's raining and you're watering, we've I think we've all seen that happen that you make I'll make a judgment and say, like, that looks silly, but it's also not very water conscious. And so and then freeze rain sensors are are available too. But, you know, if it's, you know, frozen, you don't need to be watering necessarily either.
Emily Swihart:So
Chris Enroth:True. And kinda back to on the turf grass selection side of things. You people might be interested in some of the species that are a bit more drought tolerant. In Illinois, there are there are aren't let me back up. There are native turfgrass species.
Chris Enroth:In Illinois, they don't do as well. So I'm thinking of buffalo grass. You can grow buffalo grass in Illinois, but it is a short grass prairie species. It's actually too wet in Illinois for buffalo grass for the most part. So it doesn't do as well.
Chris Enroth:It's a warm season grass, so it greens up in the summer months, and it goes, you know, tan brown dormant in the spring, fall, winter. And so it's maybe not the most ideal turf grass for Illinois yet. No breeders are working on that one. Another non native turf species is turf type tall fescue. That's being bred because it is very drought tolerant.
Chris Enroth:It holds its green color much longer. It has a deeper root system. One and so if you're looking for drought tolerance, good. That would be a good species to incorporate. One thing that I have noticed in my own backyard is that it might tend to stay green longer than it should in the drought like this summer.
Chris Enroth:And instead of going dormant, it actually just dies. So something to be mindful of. That doesn't happen every time. I think we've just had a an odd stretch of drought here in Illinois, like, very unseasonably, very not typical. So in the usual year, it would be fine.
Chris Enroth:This year, did not do well.
Ken Johnson:Embrace nimble will in this part too.
Chris Enroth:I hate nimble will. Me too. But it's here to stay. I'm not gonna spray it or pull it out. So what are we gonna do?
Chris Enroth:So, Emily, I do use a lot of water in the vegetable garden, and I'm just curious. Got any steps or tips for me to help with that? Even if it's something we've already said, I think it'd be important maybe to reiterate that because vegetable gardens are a huge use of of water.
Emily Swihart:Yeah. They absolutely are. Well, what you know, fruits and vegetables are something between, like, 7090% water. So they need water to
Chris Enroth:Mhmm.
Emily Swihart:To develop a a fruit. So I guess a couple of things, and I I've already said these some of them, but I guess first, like, plant what you're gonna use. So when you're planning your garden, make sure that you have a plan for all the produce that you are going to water through a drought so that you can harvest, you know, fruits off of them. So don't plant more than you have the capacity to either use or donate because that's just wasted water. That's a wasted resource.
Emily Swihart:And so, you know, it begins with planning. So make sure that you're thinking, you know, thinking ahead. Then also when it comes to vegetable garden, so mulch, again, you know, this would be more of a biodegradable a quick biodegradable mulch that I would recommend. So things like, like we talked about in our mulch episode, straw, leaves, even, you know, some newspaper, you know, shredded newspaper. You can tell into the soil or you can incorporate into the soil or it will be it will biodegrade quickly.
Emily Swihart:Wood mulch is I've not had great success using wood mulch in the in the vegetable garden. It just kinda gets disturbed every time I try to plant something different when I'm cycling. You know, like, I you have to have that rotation. Maybe you have had a different experience. I haven't figured out quite how to make the investment of wood mulch work, but straw or leaf clippings or grass clippings, untreated grass clippings in the garden applied after seeds have germinated, of course, and the soils have warmed up.
Emily Swihart:We've already said that. The most of the crops that we're growing in the in the vegetable garden are going to like warmer soils. And so just have some patience and apply that. You know, June would be about the time frame I would start looking at applying, you know, after planting season. Then it comes to the design of your landscape, this is something we haven't talked about yet.
Emily Swihart:But doing block planting instead of row planting in your vegetable garden can help minimize and can minimize water use as well as target water use. So, you know, traditional Midwestern farmers and, you know, like, we all like those clean rows, those straight rows. We judge each other for them. But when you when you have
Chris Enroth:you can.
Emily Swihart:When you have, so if you're planting beans, let's take beans for example, instead of planting two rows of, you know, climbing beans, you plant two rows of bush beans right next to each other. They are going to shade each other. You can water in between those two rows instead of watering the row you're walking in where the weeds are gonna be growing. And you're gonna be able to target the supplemental water that you do have to provide during times of drought in a more efficient way. And so I like doing block pattern for for many reasons.
Emily Swihart:I do think it looks nice too. But beyond the aesthetics, it's gonna help conserve water both in targeting where you're putting the water and well shading out weeds, which are competition for water. They're so plants, they require water. They will take up water from your your garden. So also manage weeds in the in the vegetable garden.
Ken Johnson:And I think some of it too is your your plant selection. You mentioned beans. Those are more, I guess, drought tolerant Mhmm. Than others are are cool season grad or cool season vegetables, lettuce, and cold crops and all that stuff, they don't handle dry conditions as well. And so so so considering what what you're growing as well, you know, if you're growing tomatoes, your aroma types are are better than your big beefsteak types.
Ken Johnson:They're they're gonna need more water and stuff.
Emily Swihart:Yeah. That's an excellent point, Ken. And, also, your setup. So you made me think, like, you know, those early season crops. Like, a lot of times we can get away with growing those in, like, raised beds.
Emily Swihart:But the bigger crops that we're gonna be growing, like your tomatoes, often do better in just in a deep soil. And so kind of figuring out your planting system. Also, with it with raised beds or with containers, you can amend the soil more easily. You can add more organic matter. You can you can add things that are going to help conserve moisture.
Emily Swihart:And so it kinda goes back to that soil also, like knowing what your soil profile is too. And it all adds up. I I we kinda rattle off a lot of different things you can do. You know, every little bit helps. Like, start start somewhere, I guess, I would tell people.
Emily Swihart:You know, I I experimented with block planting. I grew up doing rows. I you know, daughter of a farmer. You know, we would we would do rows. And so I transitioned to block, planting and got comfortable with that.
Emily Swihart:You know? And then we'll move on to the next, you know, kind of the next things. And so it's okay to do a little bit. You don't have to do it all.
Chris Enroth:Well, we we might want to address it. You'll probably get the question in the comments about harvested water. And, typically, that is not a recommendation for edible crops, especially anything that you're growing for other people. Home use, I mean, heck, it's your homes, your garden. Can't tell you what to do.
Chris Enroth:Let's just say it's not recommended.
Emily Swihart:It's your gastrointestinal tract?
Chris Enroth:Yes. Ideally, if you are using harvested rainwater, you do not want any of that to come into contact with any edible portion of that crop. So that is pretty much being applied directly to the soil. They do make drip irrigation kits that operate via gravity, but you have to have enough gravity, or enough fall in order for those kits to work. And all all produce needs to be washed with potable water once they're harvested.
Emily Swihart:Though, like, rain barrels or, you know, captured water can be used on nonedible plants. It's a great source of water for, like, trees and shrubs and perennial, you know, ornamentals.
Chris Enroth:Yeah. I I've been on my roof. I've seen what the raccoons and squirrels do up there. I don't wanna put that on my food.
Ken Johnson:Leave people with that image.
Chris Enroth:Yep. I think I have a picture, but I'm not gonna put I'm not gonna share it with you, Ken or Emily. So it's it'll just be up to the imagination. So it's it's that's a different that's a different show where we talk about scat and stuff like that. So show idea, scat.
Ken Johnson:There there we go.
Emily Swihart:Write it down.
Ken Johnson:Mhmm.
Emily Swihart:I'm busy that day, just to be clear. I'm busy that day.
Chris Enroth:We're gonna go through pictures.
Ken Johnson:Yes. I think we had one last question, and we've already covered it, but we can drive it home again. So now that, you know yeah. We're starting to get a little bit of a leaf change here, maybe further north, we're getting more. You know, plants are starting to grow dormant.
Ken Johnson:Do we still need about worry about watering our trees and shrubs, things like that?
Emily Swihart:Absolutely. Especially since we've had such a dry year. You know, the like I said earlier, when the above ground plant material goes dormant until the ground freezes, the roots are still growing and developing and consuming, moisture. And transpiration is still happening even though we don't have leaf material. So, yeah, we definitely need to make sure that those, roots are hydrated going into winter, for a number of reasons.
Emily Swihart:One thing that we haven't, you know, like, really talked about so much is how you would apply water. And I like to talk about this when I talk about watering newly planted trees because when you plant a tree so they're coming from a nursery. They've been watered. They've been well taken care of. They have you know, a lot of, like, times the soil is medium for the root ball, and it's cozy.
Emily Swihart:They've been really well cared for. And then we put them into our landscape, which might have really nice soil, but it's not as nice as what they were getting in the in the nursery. And so what we wanna do is we wanna encourage that root development outside of the planting hole, and we need to do that by watering. And so planting techniques, that's another show too. That helps to encourage root development.
Emily Swihart:We could talk about that. But for the purposes of this, conversation, we'll focus on water, which is that you need to make sure that water, or that root ball stays moist, but you also need to make sure that the the soil around the root ball is hydrated. And the way we do that is by a slow application of water. We need that that moisture to get really deep into the soil. So as opposed to turf grass, those roots are about six inches deep at most.
Emily Swihart:Tree roots and shrubs go about 18 inches deep. And so we wanna soak the soil, which means oftentimes a slow drip. Now I like to do this in two ways. So I will, have a hose running out on a very low, pressure setting. So it just it it comes out, and I I'll actually just leave it laying there because I don't have time to just stand there and watch it, you know, drip out.
Emily Swihart:But I will leave it for, you know, twenty minutes, twenty five minutes depending on how quickly it comes out. You can get very accurate about how long you need to leave it there to apply. About 10 gallons of water is the recommended amount if somebody wants to get real scientific about it or real mathematical about it. About 10 gallons of water every week if there's no supplemental rainfall. But can measure into a five gallon bucket how quickly the bucket fills.
Emily Swihart:Take that time time frame times two, and then leave that your hose on the the root ball for that long. I don't get that scientific about it. I leave it on there until I remember that it was that it was on, and so then I go move it. Because in years like now, it's gonna be really hard to overwater trees, especially in a a kind of a well drained soil that I Clay soils are a different consideration. But so that's one method of just leaving the hose on there.
Emily Swihart:Another method would be to get a five gallon bucket, and you would drill a small hole in the in the bottom of it. And so it'll be gravity fed, you would just blast fill this five gallon bucket. You can fill it up really quickly with a hose, and then you would leave it, by your tree and walk away until it has gravity drained all the way, till empty. Fill it up again, then you have your 10 gallons. That is all.
Emily Swihart:I'm explaining all that because you need that water to get deep into the soil to be available to the entire root ball. It's going to encourage deep rooting, is going to long term help the health of your your trees and shrubs, especially during the winter months. That was your original question, and you let me just go off on this tangent. But yeah. As, you know, as we're heading into winter, like, we need to keep watering, and that's a method that we can use to get some moisture into that soil to help overwinter our trees and and make sure that they come out of of this winter ready to take on whatever next year brings us.
Chris Enroth:Well, that was a lot of great information about becoming more water conscious in our landscape. The Good Growing podcast is a production of University of Illinois Extension, edited this week by Ken Johnson. Special thank you to Emily Zweihar for being here with us today. Again, doing this twice and talking to us about becoming more water conscious in our landscape. Emily, thanks for being here.
Emily Swihart:My pleasure. And if we had to, I would do it a third time, guys.
Ken Johnson:Well, we'll hold you to that. Chris, thank you again as always and let's do this again next week.
Chris Enroth:Oh, shall do this again next week. Have you heard? Spotted lanternfly has been found in Illinois. We're gonna be talking with entomologist doctor Casey Athey. What this means for us Illinoisans.
Chris Enroth:If you're listening to the surrounding states, you too can learn all about spotted lanternfly next week. Well, listeners, thank you for doing what you do best and that is listening or if you're watching us on YouTube, And as always, keep on growing. I knew I forgot something. That was way too easy.
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