The nice thing about hostas, bulbs and other perennials is if you water them, they pretty much do the rest. However, until this summer, watering was a 2-hour nightly chore. Not that I minded it – after a day of work and mothering it’s a mindless duty, however, I could do a lot with 2 hours!

Then, Shon suggested I put in soaker hoses. We found several feet of soaker hose at a yard sale a few summers ago for only $5 and it was just taking up space in our garage.

Now, the challenge was getting it to work like I needed it to. Although soaker hoses are easy to install, because the purpose of a soaker hose is to leak water, and I was installing them in the perennial garden which borders our backyard, I needed to be crafty about providing source houses to the soaker hoses. It took me three evenings and four trips to Robson’s Hardware – but I finally got it working! So, this summer I simply turn on the soaker hose for 45 minutes and spend 30 minutes watering the other flower beds with Parker and the hose.

After I finished installing the soaker hose I read a helpful article about the topic from SDSU Extension – it would have saved me some time. If you want to read an article written by an SDSU Extension expert on this topic, visit http://igrow.org/gardens/gardening/managing-vegetable-garden-water-needs-during-dry-weather/.