When is the best time to water my plants?

While it's always good to plan wisely about watering your lawn and garden, I find it particularly important in times of drought, when our plants rely on us for hydration.

The best time to water -- be it hand-watering or using an irrigation system -- is in the early morning, before the temperature gets warm. During this time, the air is still cool, and therefore you won't lose a lot of water to evaporation. More water is penetrating the soil and not being wasted, which is especially important if you're using a sprinkler system that sends water droplets through the air before hitting the soil where the moisture is actually needed. This also gives plants the water they need throughout the day, and won't have to spend the first part of it dry and wilting. As the temperature gets hotter, the water is already available and the plants are better able to combat the heat. If any water got on the leaves, it has the whole day to dry out before the air gets cool again at night.

If you have an irrigation system with a timer, watering at the correct time of day is a no-brainer. Set it for the early morning, and you're good to go. (Though you should still look below for some other water-savings tips.)

However, without automatic irrigation, it's not always possible to water at the preferred time. What are some second-best solutions?

Particularly if we're in a drought situation, the honest answer is that watering any time is better than skipping watering altogether because it isn't the best time of day (but I'd make a case against the lawn -- see below). If late afternoon or early evening is the only time available, then it's better than nothing when your plants are thirsty. However, there are a few things to keep in mind:

Please, stop watering the air!

• Sprinklers: Water the soil, not the air! This rule applies no matter what time of day you water, but it's especially important when it's hot out. The roots are the part of the plant that needs water, so your goal should always be to get the most water into the soil. Realize that when you use a sprinkler system during the hot afternoon sun, a significant percentage of that water simply evaporates, and another portion of it just wets the leaves and doesn't get to the roots. This will vary depending on the type of sprinkler head. Some release a fine mist, which means a higher evaporation rate. Others are a little more water efficient, spraying larger droplets to reduce evaporation. Nonetheless, it's still unwise to use sprinklers at the hottest time of day, as there will always be some amount of evaporation happening. 
• Hand watering: Again, water close to the soil. The same idea goes for using the hose or watering can. Keep the water as close to the soil as possible. Many hose nozzles have different settings, from powerful jet to fine mist. If it's hot and you're spraying a wide area, just remember that any water droplets traveling through the air will partly be lost to evaporation. It takes a little more effort to move the hose closer to the plant roots, but less water will be wasted.
• Keep the leaves dry. If watering later in the day, avoid getting the leaves wet, as there won't be enough heat left for this water to evaporate. Cool, moist leaves will encourage fungal problems, such as powdery mildew.
• Let the lawn go brown. I know this can be difficult for many people who have a hard time accepting a less-than-perfect lawn. But the truth is, keeping the lawn green during drought months requires a lot of water, and it's worth it to evaluate how necessary this is, and lower your tolerance. The grass will go dormant, but it's not going to die. If your area has a particularly long stretch without rainfall, you can give it some water to keep it alive, but don't overdo it. Every year water is becoming a scarcer resource (just look at what's already happened in California and in other parts of the world), and it's time to reconsider the importance of a perfect green during the summer months.
• Avoid installing new plants during the summer. New plantings require a lot of TLC. Regular watering is necessary during the first couple of years to get your plants (even the "drought-tolerant" ones) established, and this is even more challenging during long, hot, dry days. In the spring and fall, when rain is abundant, it will be much easier to get these plants going without stressing them out during the hottest months.
• Mulch. In your garden beds, use a top layer of mulch to retain moisture.
• Check for leaks. Evaluate your plumbing, hoses, and irrigation equipment for leaks, and make repairs as soon as possible.

No one wants to waste water. It's an urgent environmental issue, but also a personal one. Whether you buy your water from the city or have your own well, you don't want to waste your money or finite water supply on inefficient irrigation.

New Name for a CPH

A little late to be updating this, but I've been distracted with building houses. I love our new last name, which Caera and I created for ourselves, and couldn't possibly be sappier. (Grá is the Irish word for love, and amore is obviously the Italian word for love.) If you're unsure how to pronounce it, just sing a little Dean Martin.

When the moon hits your eye like a big pizza pie, that's... :)

Here's the Awesome Part of 2016

The previous post was really a bummer, but last year wasn't all bad. In fact, some pretty incredible things happened. Here are my gratitudes:

I started the year off getting ibogaine treatment, which deserves a post all of its own (in fact, I've got a whole website about it if you're curious). It was a phenomenal experience that helped me break through some of my depression and anxiety.

In February, I was feeling energized and decided to volunteer again at the Northwest Flower and Garden Show in Seattle.

    

After the show, I really wanted to donate some of my time to a gardening project, and Caera's new workplace at Compass Health provided the perfect opportunity. I thought an herb/flower spiral would fit nicely in a long-neglected 10'x10' space outside her window.

   

I didn't have time to go back to the Red Barn community farm plot, but I did carve out a little time to build some flower and veggie beds at the place where we're renting.

Most importantly, on October 8, Caera and I got married! I'm so happy to be sharing my life with this amazing woman. I think this picture says it all:

And in other good news, we got accepted into Housing Hope's Team Home Building program, which means we're framing houses with seven other families in Arlington. By the end of 2017, we'll be homeowners!

The Curse of 2016

I think it's time for an update. Last year was rough -- unbelievably so. In March, just after I had gotten sick with norovirus, Caera and I were rear-ended by a cement truck, which gave us both pretty bad whiplash. We needed treatment for a few months afterward. I also started having the worst panic attacks of my life -- the kind where I was convinced I was dying. I started going to therapy and tried to find solutions for dealing with the enormous anxiety I was experiencing, which was always worst at night when I was trying to fall asleep. On top of that, Caera kept getting nasty gut infections for months, which involved round after round of increasingly potent antibiotics. We found out after the fact that one of the original infections came from a recalled jar of organic sunflower butter contaminated with listeria!

Unfortunately, that was just the beginning. My mother, a Type I diabetic with a lot of health problems, passed out last August while at home by herself, and when the neighbors found her the next morning, she was still unconscious and near death. When the medics took her blood sugar, it was mind-boggling high -- around 2000. I flew out to Ohio the next day, but she was still unresponsive, and there wasn't anything left that they could do (she had a DNR order). She died the next day, at 66 years old.

I'm not sure that I've even finished grieving, or that I really know how. I've thought about death and mortality a lot in my life, but nothing really prepares you for watching your parent die. My mom and I had a complicated relationship, but I still loved her, and I wish I could have seen her more recently while she was alive.

I don't have the stamina to talk about politics, but let's just say that the country became a much more disturbing place in November. Everything that I care about is under attack, and it scares and angers me to see what's happening every day.

And then there's my own health. Last November, I noticed that my belly was protruding a bit (I was still chalking it up to weight gain), and I was having lots of digestive problems. I was getting more and more uncomfortable bending over, and one day the pain was so bad that I took myself to the ER. Eventually I got an ultrasound and CT scan, and it was clear that I had a big tumor growing in my gut. I was referred to a gynecological surgeon, and he suspected it was an endometioid tumor that seemed to be encapsulating my right ovary, and there was a good chance that I had cancer. Whatever the case, it needed to come out immediately. After discussing my options and the likelihood of this problem returning, we also decided it was best to remove my uterus and ovaries. So on December 12, I had a hysterectomy and bilateral salpingo-oophorectomy. He removed the tumor, several lymph nodes, and scraped a lot of endometriosis off my other organs. The biopsy confirmed that I had had ovarian cancer, but the good news is that it had not metastasized.

The rest of the year, and well into 2017, I've been recovering from my surgery, and trying to figure out my next steps. Because my jobs involved a good deal of physical labor, I wasn't able to return to the nursery or maintenance work. I'm slowly trying to get my strength back, but it's just going to take time. I also wasn't prepared to enter abrupt menopause at age 34, and that's presented additional challenges that I'm still trying to navigate.

I want to say good riddance to 2016, but it wasn't all bad...

iNaturalist

I have to tell you about this new video game I discovered called iNaturalist. Okay, it's not actually a video game. It's a website where you can take pictures of the natural world and upload your observations for identification. If you know the species, great! If you don't, you can identify down to the taxon you know (kingdom, phylum, class, order, family, genus), and other members of the community can help you narrow down the ID. List the date and location, and any other details you find relevant or interesting. It's an exciting activity, and it'll encourage you to get out and explore your surroundings. Go on a hike! Compete with your friends! Discover new species! Join or create interesting projects! Learn things!

As a side note, this is a great alternative to that ridiculous Pokémon Go game that got released a few months ago. Nature is so much cooler.

Check out my observations here: www.inaturalist.org/observations/jamigramore

Certified Professional Horticulturist

It's official. I'm a CPH! I passed the exam in March, and I now have well over 2,000 hours of industry experience. See below.

Homegrown Revival Is Live!

Homegrown Revival is now an official business. It's a sole proprietorship operating in King and Snohomish counties, providing landscape maintenance and installation services. For the time being, I'm running this business by myself, out of my overworked Saturn Ion, so that limits some of the services I can provide, but that's okay, since I would rather focus on fine gardening anyway. I'm starting out small and seeing if owning a business is a good fit for me, and if it is, I'll expand into bigger projects once I can afford a more suitable vehicle.

It's October, and if you're looking for someone to take care of your fall clean-up, feel free to contact me. This is also a great time of year for planting!