I water when I can. I am even siphoning bathtub water. This mornings' water did triple duty - my bath, then Honey and now I am siphoning it out the door. Not for the tidy housekeeper. If your plants are still alive it sounds like you are doing the right thing. I would water things like shrubs deeper and longer and less often if I had the water. Shallow newly planted things need water often in this weather. They say not to get water on the foliage, but sometimes I use a forceful hose to knock the bugs off.

I mostly use sprinklers and know it puts out about an inch in a little over an hour. So I try to water just the inch a week. With this heat I think pots will have to be watered at least once and maybe twice a day.

It sounds like you are doing it right.

It the ground looks extremely dry down a row I water it again.
We are on a deep well, so I don't try to converse much.

Lord, Helen, if I had to siphon water out of anything, I would probably quit gardening!

As much as we do laundry I do wonder about some method of draining the rinse to use.....but haven't done anything about it.

Dairy farms have good water. I used to have dairy farms on each side of me. Their wells are 400 + feet deep but sulfur water. If I drill deeper, I'll get sulfur. There may be some treatment for it but I am cheap.

I am the queen of siphoning, but my pond on the hill is dry. I can't siphon rinse water from the laundry room because it is in the basement and even I can't siphon up hill. It would be wonderful to have unlimited water. The saving water in stock tanks has many downsides mainly tadpoles because I make pets of every thing and have to juggle frogs to use my water that I have saved.

You guys up by Springfield are only abnormally dry. I am in a moderate drought.

Here is a link that might be useful: drought monitor map

Thank you for the feedback! I am thankful that we have plenty of water to water with here. I would not be a fan of the additional chore of having to siphon and then haul water.

The drought map and the info about the sprinkler are both very helpful! There is so much to learn about gardening...

I think there is a slight chance of some rain on Sunday. I hope we do get some!

Denise

I am seriously thinking about a grey water system for the garden, think I will have to have my DH crawl under the house and see if there is a way to pipe the bath water, the kitchen sink and the washer out to the garden. Fat lot of good rain barrels do this year.

I noticed yesterday evening that plants outside the kitchen were looking very wilted. My watering now on the ornamentals is just to keep them from dying. They will still not look very good for this year. I do hate to loose perennials I have had for years.

mosswitch, on the previous farm, everything but the toilet drained out on a hillside....some ways from the house. We never did anything with the water. It kept the hillside nice and lush!

I bet there is tons of info on the internet about building a grey-water system.

Every other day sounds about right to me too. That's how often I've been watering newly planted things. I don't think it's possible to over water when it's this hot.
I use a hose with a sprayer attachment. I have one that I got at Walmart that can be turned to different settings and I usually keep it set on "shower". Sounds like a lot of work to use a watering can or to siphon. It's good to not waste water though.

Walmart and Lowe's have Y-Connectors that will let you hook two hoses to one so you can water two things at once and Soaker Hoses that would let you drip water out all along the hose. It's harder to direct the water where you want it and wastes more but it gets done quicker.

We got a really light shower here for a few seconds yesterday. Even right after the "rain" it was still dusty where the ground is bare but it gave me a little hope. Maybe we'll get some more.

Ive been looking at gray water systems on the internet. Not sure I want to get into burying pipes and buying expensive pumps, putting in tanks, etc. I think I might go low-tech with the shower, maybe with a diverter valve I can use in the summertime. We are on top of a hill so everything would gravity drain easily. We already catch our kitchen sink water to use.

No rain here.

I've been watering every other day to every day. It depends a lot on whether I actually SEE my poor plants screaming. Definitely getting more soaker hoses for next year... This watering by hand is for the birds!

I've only got two areas that I'm still using sprinklers on-my pond area, because it's set up to drain toward the thirstiest plants: Louisiana Irises and azaleas, and my butterfly garden, just because it's so densely planted that it's nearly impossible to tell if I get all of the flowers well enough. I've got two soakers- one for my roses and a few vegetables, and another for along the front walk where my impatiens and hostas live.

The rest is getting watered with a wand attached to a hose. When I actually drag myself out into the heat, I spend about 3 hours a day pulling hose around my house and another 4-5 hours running sprinklers and soakers. My plants are fine. It's the dead grass on the outside of the beds that's killing me. DH absolutely refuses to let me water that too though.