Do you want to enjoy your vacation and not worry about how your vegetable garden is doing while you’re away?
You can now take a deep breath and enjoy your time away because you can prepare your garden before you leave for your vacation.
Alternatively, some folks wait until the fall or winter to travel since the growing season will be over. However, if you love to sit out on the beach or kayak in the lake, you don’t want to wait until wintertime.
How to Keep Your Vegetable Garden Watered While on Vacation
If you’re only going away for a long weekend or a week, you can keep your vegetable garden watered using these tips:
- Check the weather forecast for the time you’ll be away. Is rain predicted while you’re on vacation? Then, you can allow Mother Nature to take care of keeping your veggies well-irrigated.
- Have a weeding marathon before you leave.
- Water your garden well if there’s not a lot of rain chances or you’ll be gone for a week. Give your vegetables a good soaking.
- Add mulch around the base of your vegetable plants. However, don’t create a mulch volcano. Mulch will retain moisture, keep weeds at bay, and regulate soil temperature.
- If a neighbor or a friend comes over to water your plants while you’re away, place indicator plants, ones that wilt at the first sign of dryness, prominently. Your neighbor or friend can refer to that plant to see if they need to get the hose out for watering.
- Install drip irrigation into your garden. Drip irrigation has small emitters that give off large droplets of water at the base of the plant.
Drip irrigators emit the right amount of water that goes straight into the root zone—reducing water waste and keeping your plants healthy while you’re away.
- If you don’t want to invest in drip irrigation, then thread soaker hoses around the rows of vegetables.
You can buy a timer to start and stop your soaker hoses. Ideally, it’s best to install soaker hoses early in the season, so you don’t risk breaking any plants later on.
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- Plan your garden around your vacation plans. Start seeds indoors or wait a little longer to plant outside, depending on when you go on vacation.
At the back of seed packets, it’ll tell you how many days until germination. You, then, use that information to determine if the harvest works with your vacation schedule.
- Harvest a few days before you leave. Go through your garden and pick fruits and vegetables that are ripe or will ripen within a few days. Tomatoes can sit on your kitchen counter to mature, and strawberries ripen in the refrigerator.
Better yet, take your harvest with you on vacation. Granted, you might not be able to do this if you’re flying to your destination. Driving to the beach or a house by the lake? Then, take the veggies with you to incorporate into meals or as snacks.
How to Water Outdoor Potted Plants While on Vacation
Potted vegetable plants tend to be tricky since soil dries out faster in containers. Here are some ideas to water your outdoor potted plants while you’re on vacation:
- Like your vegetable garden, you want to give your container plants a good soaking before you leave.
- Keep the humidity high by moving containers closer together.
- Move your plants away from direct sunlight since moisture will evaporate faster in full sun.
How to Water Your Garden While You’re Away for Two Weeks
If you’re going on a more extended vacation, you’ll need to do more preparation before you leave. Here are some tips to help you:
- Gather all of your outdoor container plants together and put them in a kiddie pool. Put the pool in the shade and fill the bottom of the pool with 1”-2” of water.
- Make a self-watering jug out of a milk container or a 2-liter soda bottle. You punch holes in the bottom of the bottle and then place it into the soil (dig a 1”-2” hole) near your plants. The water will slowly drain into the ground.
- Place large stones or wood planks between vegetable rows to keep moisture in the soil.
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- Stake veggies, such as tomatoes that’ll outgrow their cages.
- Deadhead flowers from herbs and other plants. You can even pinch off new blossoms since they’ll die while you’re away.
- Realize that your leafy greens, such as lettuce, won’t make it while you’re gone.
Got a Large Garden? Then, You Need Brinly-Hardy Garden Attachments
If you’re an avid gardener, then you need the tools to keep your garden growing. At Brinly, we have lawn care and garden attachments to help your garden produce prize-winning vegetables.
Our garden attachments include:
- Ground engaging attachments to help you get your garden ready for planting as well as turning over the soil after your last harvest.
- Tow-behind carts will carry soil amendments, mulch, compost, gardening plants, and your garden tools.
You can buy our equipment online or at your local big-box retailer that carries Brinly-Hardy Lawn Care and Garden Attachments. Can’t find your favorite Brinly tool? Then, call our customer service at 877-728-8224 or fill out our contact form.
Sources:
Alamanac.com, “How to Prepare Your Garden before Vacation.”
HobbyFarms.com, “9 Tips to Keep Your Garden Going While on Vacation.”
MiracleGro.com, “Gardening Care Tips While on Vacation.”
