Water, Water Everywhere

"Mom, can I have some water?" That's the stallign tactic at bedtime. your plants will tell you with yellowed leaves when they need water, especially if you have a raised garden bed.

Raised gardens are easier to maintain, but here's a hot raised bed gardening tip: Your attractive beds need more irrigation--the plus: they don't waste water. Raised bed gardening doesn't require the normal gardening technique flooding with the hose. Shirley Brenon, gardening enthusiast and writer of a weekly gardening column for the Palm Springs, California newspaper THE DESERT SUN, says that if you have a large raised bed, you should install an irrigation system right when you're building the bed for raised bed gardening.

Build a PVC hose and spigot inside the bed. An effective raised bed gardening technique is to install a drip irrigation system on a timer. Brenon likes drip irrigation because it delivers water right to the plants. She never uses overhead watering, which is wastefu, especially in hot, dry climates, and causes weeds.

Keep up the watering since raised beds do dry out faster. After all, your four-year-old actually does drink that water she so sweetly asks for.