Common Watering Mistakes That Are Reducing Your Harvest

At a Glance

Overwatering and underwatering are two of the most common mistakes that harm plant health and reduce yields. Additionally, inconsistent watering schedules and ignoring soil types often result in waterlogging or dehydration, affecting nutrient absorption. Smart irrigation systems, like Harvst’s WaterMate, help automate watering for healthier, more productive gardens.

Avoiding Garden Watering Mistakes for a Healthier, More Productive Yield

Are you unintentionally sabotaging your garden’s growth and yield with improper watering? 

While this may seem too simple a task to get wrong, the truth is that many gardeners, both novice and seasoned, have made garden watering mistakes. 

Plants need a combination of good soil, sunlight and consistent watering to thrive and yield a bountiful produce.

However, it's fairly easy to get confused when it comes to understanding the impact of overwatering vs underwatering. 

Plus, other watering mistakes in gardening, like watering at the wrong time or a lack of understanding of soil types and their water retention properties, can also impact plant growth.

Smart irrigation systems can take the stress out of watering your allotment or greenhouse. These are designed with temperature sensors to automatically trigger extra watering when it gets too hot and allow you to remotely control your system with minimal fuss. This way, you worry less about making garden watering mistakes and save more time and water.

In this article, we discuss 5 common watering mistakes and how you can address them effectively.

How Overwatering Can Drown Your Plants Instead of Feeding Them

While it's true that plants need ample and consistent watering to thrive, it's also possible to overdo it and drown them. 

If you’re wondering why your plants are growing slowly or are suffering from diseases at the root, it may be due to overwatering. However, to avoid this common garden watering mistake, you need to understand the science behind it.

When you overwater your allotment or garden, you keep your soil perpetually saturated with water. This means that small air pockets or spaces in the soil, which oxygenise the roots of your plants, are instead filled with water. This causes your plants to yellow or wilt prematurely and is called plant asphyxiation.

This process can slowly cause plant tissue necrosis, where the plant tissue dies. The best way to prevent this is to ensure proper drainage and avoid overwatering. You can also choose a soil type like loamy soil for your allotment, as it has the right composition and ensures proper drainage while being nutrient-rich.

How Underwatering Thirsty Roots Can Lead to Weak Growth

If overwatering can cause plant asphyxiation, then underwatering can cause chronic stress. While less fatal than overwatering, underwatering can hamper the plant’s ability to transport nutrients from the roots to its stems. This causes the plant to starve even in nutrient-rich soil and impacts your allotment’s final yield.

Plants rely on water for photosynthesis, a crucial process that determines your garden’s harvest. By underwatering your plants, cell expansion and sugar production in plants go down significantly, leading to tough and potentially bitter-tasting produce.

If you’re making this watering mistake in your garden, you’ll also find your fruits and vegetables often show a sunken black patch at the bottom. This happens when plants lack sufficient water to transport calcium.

Finding it difficult to find the right balance between overwatering and underwatering, but still want to ensure your garden thrives? An automatic smart watering system like Harvst’s WaterMate might just be what you need. To know more, get in touch today.

Inconsistent Watering Routines and Their Hidden Consequences

If you’re still debating the effects of overwatering vs underwatering on your allotment, you should know that the phase between these is far more damaging. Consistent watering allows plants to grow reliably and makes them healthier and more resistant to common disease conditions like mildew, rust, and root rot. 

Conversely, inconsistent watering routines can cause fluctuations in soil moisture levels. This can lead to shallow root growth, making them vulnerable to collapse under extreme weather conditions or wilt quickly. 

If you’re noticing cracked skin on your fruits and vegetables, especially on tomatoes or peppers, your plants may benefit from consistent watering or an automated irrigation system from Harvst.

Watering at the Wrong Time of Day

Now that you know the benefits of consistent watering, it’s also important to understand how wrong watering times can affect your allotment. For example, many gardeners make the mistake of watering their allotments when sunlight is at its peak, in the hopes of aiding photosynthesis. 

The truth is that watering at such a time usually leads to rapid evaporation, leaving the plant with little water to soak up its roots. This is not only ineffective but also wastes water. Also, if you think watering in the evening is a better idea, that too has its downsides. This is because evening watering routines leave your plants in damp soil, making it more humid and prone to fungal diseases.

So, how do you avoid this common garden watering mistake? Studies and seasoned gardeners suggest that the best time to water your plants is usually in the early morning hours. This allows the plants to absorb water sufficiently before the heat increases. However, during the summer, the suggested watering period changes to the late-afternoon to early evening period.

Ignoring Soil Type and Drainage Needs

Given all that we’ve discussed so far, it might be tempting to follow a watering schedule that goes by the calendar. While this might seem like a good idea, you should consider your allotment or garden’s soil type, its needs and drainage properties before you set your watering times.

To illustrate, take, for example, the heavy clay soil type. This soil type has tightly compacted particles, excellent water retention capacity and a stable structure. However, they lack good drainage properties and can easily lead to water accumulation on the soil surface if you overwater.

This can be easily fixed by adding organic matter and tailoring your watering schedule according to the required frequency. In the case of heavy soils, less watering is beneficial. By adjusting the frequency of your watering to your soil type, you avoid a garden watering mistake that can hamper the plant’s nutrient absorption.

Purchase Smart Irrigation Systems from Harvst Today

Getting your watering schedule right and avoiding common garden watering mistakes might seem daunting. However, with smart irrigation systems, you can conveniently go back to the joys of gardening.

Harvst’s WaterMate is a smart, easy-to-use irrigation system designed to fit seamlessly into your greenhouse, garden, allotment or polytunnel. WaterMate comes in Mini and Pro models to suit different growing areas. 

Each setup helps you water more efficiently and keep your plants healthy without constant supervision.

At Harvst, we design our products to make growing feel rewarding and balanced. We believe that caring for your plants should bring peace and satisfaction, while our tools handle the hard work in the background.

Place your order now for a healthy garden!