FOUR Ways To Tell If Your Garden Needs Water 

Luke, I think this needs a sequel for container plants.

I do the "Until I remember" method. When was the last time I watered? I don't remember. Time to water! Ooops!

Going through one of the driest Mays in history here. I go by eye and have started filling a 210 gallon tank in the creek then moving it to the garden and using gravity let it run through soaker hose into two beds at a time. Slow deep watering.

I loved what you said about using the moisture meter to check your work essentially because that's exactly what I use mine for. I'm a first year gardener and I really like to learn the skills instead of relying on crutches but sometimes it's reassuring to have that device that tells me, "Yes! You were right!" 😆

There were sparkling water droplets all along the edges of my cucumber leaves this morning--so stunning.

You're one of the best!! Pleasant, knowledgeable and enthusiastic!!! Thank you so so much for all you give the community. 🤗💜

I'm a knuckle-checker all the way (raised beds and grow bags). Thanks for the tips!

YES! Everything needs water and now! No rain for weeks in WI. Update: we had 5 drops yesterday for our chance. Hope today it hits us even if it will be brief we will take it. 103* on 2 remote sensors in the shade yesterday. The news doesn’t count microclimates and probably the reason they didn’t say anything about frost last Thursday that killed a lot of plants. Put 40% shade cloth up and saves a lot of water as it was still moist after that heat. The temp swings and no rain are a struggle to keep plants alive.

The "Knuckle Test" is a lot cheaper than a water meter 🙂 Luke, would you do a video on shade cloth, please?

My little garden behind the garage takes a scorching with very full sun. This year I have put up a 30% shadecloth and it's made a Huge difference, I've gone out to water when I can before or after work and much to my surprise the garden wasn't scorched! I was leary with only 30% shadecloth but so far it's wonderful!!

Used to be such an overwaterer..as I have become more experienced, I’ve really relied on the “knuckle test” and it’s never steered me wrong. Great video as always!

I have daily anxiety about both underwatering and overwatering.

Luke, your ability to make gardening concepts understandable to the beginner is singular. Everyone starting out should listen to your videos. Thanks so much!😁 One more thing. What is and how did you make your wire fencing around your beds? Would love to keep the critters out of my Ann Arbor garden.

I live in Kalamazoo, MI. This information is perfect for our Read and Seed Community Garden! Thanks so much!

I have mystery curcubits growing on my compost pile lols It could be white or orange punkins, yellow squash or cucumbers... we will find out soon enough!

Thanks for all your help.

I just came in from watering, my cucmbers and beans were calling to me with their wilty leaves... they're mulched but it's 87 and humid here in iowa

My garden soil is very sandy so water twice a week when it's hot and no rain. It could probably handle a deep watering every other day!

I live here in Arizona and i can tell you having a good mulch even on your containers for your garden is an absolute must, i have raised beds without mulch and currently need to be watered every day, however my containers i only have to water maybe every 3 or 4 days, the mulch combined with a good compost and perlite in my opinion gives you a sweet spot for soil moisture (not holding onto too much moisture and not loosing too much) not to mention it makes your garden look alot better with a good mulch on top but dont take it from me my raspberry plants can attest to that 😊 lol

A straight forward guide and more to the point. One of your best videos.

This is so helpful thank you! I'm a newbie gardener from Pontiac, MI

I think this is such an important topic, I find really hard to explain to new gardeners. I use the weight test for plants that are in pots I pick them up and feel how heavy they are. With small seedlings growing in small cells that are in full sun I usually water daily in summer or every second day in winter. For the garden I look and the plants and do the knuckle test. I’m sure i still forget to water or over water sometimes. Watering will make or break your garden and I think even experienced gardeners can always learn more about watering. Ps I think it is very important to check the weather forecast to help decide how much to water.

I bought a rain gauge a couple months ago. It hasn't done me much good these past couple weeks because we're having a dry spell, but it's nice to have when it does rain. If we get an inch of rain or more, I know I won't have to water for the week.

In the desert it's common for plants to wilt due to the heat of the day.. and still have plenty of water.. I just read your book on kindle unlimited & enjoyed it and decided to start watching your channel

I do somethingike a knuckle test! Thank you for another outstanding video!

It is amazing how different bags of soil can be. I bought all organic soil but what came from one company just looks like finely shredded bark. The water runs out the bottom of that container so quickly! It is as porous as sand. My cucumber plant is thriving in it, but I watch the plants in that container and do the knuckle test. With 90° and full sun, I check my plants multiple times a day. So far, this 3rd year of container gardening is my most successful, but it is still early.

Mwa ha ha ha! 🤯 Now i feel like I understand basic soil quality and detailed symptoms to look for proper/improper hydration/moisture. 5th year gardening. Still going. 🤣 (Note: i love the guy who made the moisture meter…i am sad we all buy them early on and create waste.) Use the water meter to learn, but pass it along. Some where there are garages full if those things. 😝

My poor gardens are waterlogged….it is only in the mid 60s in central Virginia….too chilly for this time of year and it’s constantly raining…I wish it would dry out a bit so I could fertilize! All the nutrients are being washed out of my grow bags and GreenStalks! I’m glad I used the fertilizer I got from you! At least the grow bags have some nutrition. I use potting mix and it’s soaked. My regular soil in the yard is clay. At this point I’m praying that I’ll get SOMETHING from my work! I’m not sure what to do at this point! Just waiting for the weather to help me out!! 😢😢😢

This is very helpful! I’ve just been “winging it” by playing a guessing game, with no rhyme or reason to my watering! This video was badly needed! I just learned so much! Super helpful!

This year I added a reservoir under my garden. I took the concept for raised planter beds and applied it to my garden on the ground. I dug a hole then added pond liner and a bunch of rocks, followed with a garden fabric and then soil. It uses wicking method. Just keeping the top moist for the seeds to start. Super excited!

Great video, very important to reduce water consumption wherever possible!

Great video! I would like share my experience with the moisture meters. I have a loam soil and tried multiple meters. I would get down an inch or two and the pin would shoot all the way over to full wet although I hadn't watered in days. It made me thing my soil was not draining properly so I cat back my watering. After a week of no water the meter did the same thing. I searched some online threads and found that these are not designed for sandy, silty, clay soils as thay will give false readings. Apparently they are only for more of a potting type soils. With endless mixtures of soils I'm sure it works with many. But for mine it certainly doesn't

Watching this now! I’d love a video about what to do when there is TOO MUCH WATER, we just got hit with a huge rain storm and my plants are drowning

Off topic: Love the glasses!

I use the '2" knuckle test.' I use a lot of straw and/or dried grass clippings for mulch. I'm always amazed at how moist my soil is underneath the mulch. Even so, I still have a tendency to over-water, especially seedlings. I also mulch my container plants.

Hey Luke, could you perhaps address when leaves wilt in the hot sun, even tho they may not need watering, and will bounce back again when shady? Ty

This is EXACTLY what I needed to know. Luke, you are my favorite gardener. I have learned so much. ???? How soon should you start removing the suckers from tomatoes????

I learned a lot Luke! Thank you! We just installed a drip tape system this past weekend- not much planted yet but it’s doing great for what’s out there.

Very helpful! Thank you! I love your math calculator analogy!!

Thanks Luke.

Great video. Ill be using the knuckle test from now on lol.

I needed this video! Thank you!

I have extremely sandy soil and besides amending with compost and mulching with old pine straw from my property, the moisture just does not stick around in my soil. I end up watering nearly every day when it’s hot out (87 degrees plus). So far the plants still prefer rain water. 🤷🏻‍♀️ The top couple of inches can be dry by the next day! 🥵 Hopefully I’m not overwatering. 😬I’ve noticed some plants like more watering than others. My onions love to be more dry (I learned that by living in onion country out in the NV desert for 17 years lol). Whereas my lettuce and squash like lots of water. 🤷🏻‍♀️

Thanks! This is helpful

I was always wondering about this. Thank you so much for explaining this because i was always confused about the knuckle test.

Very helpful , thank you.

Have to watch the UV index and do your leaf test I’d say somewhere between U.V. Index 4-6 otherwise you’ll over water… get shade cloth

Thank you for posting, really hot and dry now in Upstate NY.. Getting worried everything will die as I work a lot of hours..thanks again!

Been using the knuckle test this year to avoid overwatering like I did last year. The way I was originally told to do it was to plunge the entire length of the index finger into the soil, but that was from a video specifically about growing potatoes in containers

I use a meter it helps me. Thanks video

Thank you

Good video. I do use the knuckle method already. I've also dig in a bit to take a peek.

Holy moly, had to sloooooooooow the speed down to be able to understand. But the soil instruction was very helpful!! I am still getting the moisture meter since I've not been able to tell at all. Finally, I gently ask to retire "dummy" language as an ableist term that harms disabled people. You may not have witnessed how harmful these terms are used on disabled so this is just to express what happens with ghese "seemingly" innocuous words.

I've never had sun scald because i have limited sun and most plants in my yard only get a few hours a day. This year i have sun scald already. But climate change isnt real right? Lol off to buy shade cloth i guess. My watering game will likely be off this year but i did use straw so i hope it works out. In SE MI by the way. We dont usually get "too much sun".

love it.. growing seeds i purchased from you

Trying to get used to the knuckle method. But, one of the things I'm learning is that different spots in the garden that get more or less sunshine/heat have different water needs. That makes using my irrigation system a bit trickier. Also, water meters are just ok, they only help with extreme dryness. I was surprised to discover that when I put it in 100% water it only came back as wet (as opposed to dry). So how the heck can it tell me if there is too much water, when putting it in only water doesn't even do that?!

Funny story, I went to my local garden center today, and I asked the lady if she had anymore blood meal? She said eew gross, you might have to go to a fish store for that. She clearly didn't understand what I was talking about. I politely said thank you anyway, I ended up having to get some from Ace hardware. Anyway just thought it was a funny story have a good one, grow big or go home.

I don't know what to think of my garden. No-dig bed with some small branches above a cardboard layer then topped with both bagged organic raised bed soil and bagged organic compost/cow manure. Almost no rain all month so I've tried to water every couple of days or so. Tomato and lettuce wilt during the day even though soil is moist with knuckle test. I tried to cover nearly all my plants with loose-weave burlap bc that's all I have. Despite being in the ground for about two weeks now my seedlings are not showing signs of new growth despite being planted with bone meal and worm castings mixed into the holes. Also, I have a moisture meter but apparently don't know how to decipher it. Should tomato and cucumber plants have a reading of 6? Should it be higher since they are mostly water and have a soil reading of 7 or higher? Should we just depend on whether it drops down to the "dry" area to water? I suppose I just don't quite know how to judge whether my soil is moist enough or not just using my finger. Suggestions? Comments? Hubby complains I'm a slave to my garden so I promised him I would quit after this year if I'm unsuccessful so the pressure is really on now. 😰

used the leaf test, but I am going to use the others too, now, as I have sometimes overwatered. sometimes underwatered.

We haven’t had rain in weeks. We collect every drop of kitchen sink water (with natural liquid soap) and have been using that almost exclusively the past couple of weeks. Hoping for rain soon.

Great information - thank you.

My wife says 'no watering is too expensive' .. 'no watering is too expensive' ...'no watering is too expensive' ... when she says 'I think the garden needs water' ... THEN it is time to water the garden (although usually half the leaves are shriveled up by then) 🤷‍♂️ ... btw my ground is so bad and dry my finger won't go deeper than half a finger nail ... (no rain in three weeks - and that is Spring not even the heat of summer ... we are 7 inches below normal for the year already and close to the record low for May).

Interesting

I do believe that I am overwatering, as the top inch or so is indeed bone dry, but below is still wet enough to not need watering. My dilemma is that I planted a combination of starter plants from the nursery along with direct sowing of some seed. I am square foot gardening and am having a difficult time making sure that the squares that are seeded stay wet enough to germinate and to sustain seedlings while not drowning the small more established plants next to them. I’m going outside now to wet the seeded squares down with a spray bottle! Guess that I will be doing this many many times a day until everything is germinated!

Hello I am asking for your list of favorite tomatoes, peppers and cucumbers that will always be in your garden.

Luke, do you use the pine/ceder animal bedding as mulch any more?

Hi Luke, do you recommend using a little bit of peat moss in your soil?❌⭕️🙏🏽♥️

I have a 17 inch raised metal bed in full sun. It been in the upper 80s. First year growing after many years of not growing. I set up the bed using hugelkutur. And I used city compost sifting out the larger pieces of wood chips but yet used those chips in one of the lower layers. I’m not sure if I’m overwatering, or if the water is just draining out with all of the un absorbent layers. I see water coming out from the bottom of the bed if I have my soaker hose on for 25 minutes. Yet my knuckle test isn’t particularly moist to me. I am getting tomatoes and blossoms. To complicate it further I have herbicide drift damage so the tomato leaves are curly.

What part of Michigan? We’ve been in a bit of a drought here in the Flint area lately, so I’ve watered the potatoes every day. Didn’t realize I might be overwatering them. Thankfully we got rain today for the first time in weeks!

I watch to see how much rain we get. Write it on the calendar. If we haven't gotten an inch by the end of the week, I water.

@MIgardener random question that has popped into my head as someone who's moved a lot and I'm sure you'd find funny. You ever actually/ ever considered taking your soil with you on a move?

Question: what if you do have bad soil? Like one of my two places I plant in, the soil is relatively silty even with feeding it, and it sounds silly but should I just remove it all next year by digging down and then putting new stuff in? How should I be fixing that? it may be leeched because of location, but I have a small yard to work with. Thanks.

When's the best time to water ? Some people tell me morning and some tell me to water at night . What do you recommend ?

Is grass a good mulching system

Lol Luke the three bad soils you listed are the three main soil types in Michigan.

Just to be technical plants respire all the time, just like animals do. It's just during the day they need more water to photosynthesise than they release from respiration. Great video though :)

So can pine needles go in the garden? New to that.

Can you talk about container garden that the soil stays too wet it doesnt dry out

I could start a brick company with my soil. I've worked a few spots to have good soil over the past decade, and have 1/4 of my yard decently healthy for grass... The rest.. even grass and some weeds struggle to push roots through my backyard of brick when it's not rained for a few days. 😅

10 days of no rain in the forecast as it is we’re going on seven already

I have a guage. Stick it in the ground wait a minutte and it tells you when to water.

I have the opposite problem. Hydrophobic soil… the surface will be wet and half inch underneath it’s bone dry. I water FOREVER. We have composted manure in it, straw, garden soil…. It’s nuts! I don’t understand.

My hydrangeas are floppy and look like they need water BUT the soil is still wet/moist doing the knuckle test and moist meter. Shall I water them?

I put ollas (cheaply made from terracotta pots) to passively water every 9' section, so about 2 ollas per bed there as we've got about the same garden & bed size (but mine are 3x as tall). They're great to top up if you're going on vacation for a week as well as supplemental watering during the driest parts of the summer.

I need help with something. I went to a local nursery and told them how I was building 3 garden beds and had one existing bed, and was asking about soil in bulk. i thought it would be cheaper than buying the soil in bags. They recommended that I get their screened top soil. I asked if it was garden ready and they said yes. Well, we had 4 yards of it delivered, and it took us 3 days to put it all in the beds. I planted all my plants which I grew from seed, but I get up today and half of them are dead. The darn soil is like clay. I called the place I bought it from and I was told that I should have googled what the soil needed. I told her that I asked a ton of questions and specifically asked if it was garden ready and I was told yes. She told me that it was my fault that her employees didn't know what they were doing. My question is, how do I save what is left of my plants? What do I need to add to the so called screened top soil to make it ok for my plants? I called the nursery and asked and all they could say was I should have googled it. Please someone help... I don't want to loose anymore plants.

But what about new direct seeding like carrot or cabbage radishs etx that are on planted very shallow and need moisture?

Hey Luke 😊

looking mr professional today

💚🌞

Help! My soil is hard and cracker.. I layed down a few inches of home grown compost last fall,, how do I amend that?

The leaf test is the only thing that really works for me in the greenhouse. Isn’t that less than ideal, because it stresses the plant?

I'm not sure if you mentioned this, but when you first put plants in-ground (grew by seed indoors) should you water everyday for the first week or so? I'm in Chicago, and have raised beds with some good leaf/wood mulch, and due to my new neighbors putting up a 7 foot privacy fence this spring, I get far less sun now :(

Will bone meal on the stem of a tomato plant kill it

I need help! Striped beetles have invaded my young zucchini plants. I’m new to vegetable gardening. The are chowing through the leaves🥱

Yes I water them way to much love them to death, always trying to get better. Grow Big Or Go Home.❤😊

Are you the same person in the video of Larry’s Orchids I’ve seen before. I’m not sure but it seems you’re look alike

PRODUCT SUGGESTION FOR MIGARDENER: Hi. Here in Omaha, Nebraska, and all around us, we're having a dry spring. After tomorrow, it will be the DRYest May on record here, they say. When I spotted your video title today - about how to tell if your garden is dry - I started laughing. #Humor I don't water my "lawn" - only my garden - so the soil/dirt in my lawn is hard as a rock. We have clay and now it's dry, sort of like fired ceramics. So might it help if I plant some DAIKON RADISHES around the lawn, to help break up the dirt? I'm thinking that's a place to start. Am I wrong? And if it's okay to do that, where can we buy some DAIKON RADISH seeds? I planted some last year, forgot about them, they lasted all winter, and it did help break up the soil. But that was before our current bout of "Sahara Spring." I figure if I can grow daikons here and there to break up some of the dirt, nurse it back to life in the ways you suggest, and plant veggies & flowers all over the danged place, that might help. I am NOT a fan of grassy lawns. So far my neighborhood is okay about gardens, which is nice, too. So do you have any DAIKON RADISH seeds - in stock or accessible? Is there a big demand for them most of the year - I mean will there be big demand, now that our weather is becoming more challenging all over the danged place? Trying to help with any MADE IN AMERICA business ideas I can think of. Wish I were better at it. Oh, another reason to break up some of the very hard dirt now is that this drought will change to heavy rains at some point, and everything will tend to flood if none of the ground is absorbing rain fast enough. Daikons might help ease that? I'm thinking of using DAIKONs for lawn care purposes, but they are yummy, too, for food growing, of course.

I have sandy soil, it has almost no nitrogen in it, I've tried everything to add to the soil the last two years, still no nitrogen, it's going to be June here in a couple of days; What can I do to get a lot of nitrogen into the soil fast? I live on the Oregon Coast, the beach is a 5 minute walk, so sandy soil.

Alexander Hamilton figured out some of these iso zones.

What's the best way to keep skunks and racoons out of my garden