How Often to Water Herbs

Maybe there is a question playing in your mind, how often should you water herbs? The answer to this question may also have something to do with the category or type of water herbs. Like for instance, for a moisture-loving herbs type, which includes mint, dill, chervil, and bee balm. These types of herbs usually do better in wet rather than in dry soil. This means to say that it should be watered regularly.

Drought-tolerant herbs types commonly need little water because they are more adaptable in dry soil. They are the so-called drought loving herbs, which include rosemary, thyme, and sage. Some perennials type such as oregano and catnip are said to be a type of herbs which need a little amount of water. In this instance, drought-tolerant types of herbs need not to water regularly because they are most suitable to grow or live in dry soil.

What are the water requirements for a specific type of herbs? This is also another question that may be arising. Find out first into which category a particular herb falls so that you can decide how to water it. You can also water the herbs according to their category as needed as they should be watered.

Rule of Thumb

What is this? Well, a plant needs water and not necessarily based on a schedule. Most of the herbs preferred to water it in a proper way to attain a good result. With regards to watering schedule, it is different to water herbs growing in the yard than planted in a pot. Giving you an instance of herbs planted in a yard like moisture-loving herbs need a half-liter of water for each square foot of soil every week. You can also use that measurement in a potted herbs plant, but you should make it twice watering your herbs plant, especially during hot seasons. Unlike on potted-loving herbs, you can only water them a few days or each week, depending on the seasons.

How will you go to know if you are making the right things in watering your herbs?

There are several signs that you must watch out for over-watering. Here are the signs:

dry leaves
blisters and lesions appear
herbs will wilt when the soil isn’t dry
prone to fungal infection

For under watering signs, these include:

herbs will wilt in the soil but appear to be dry
yellow and curly leaves and sometimes decaying

This situation is very rare to happen, but if you encounter this, you should act quickly, especially during the drought season.

Tips for watering you’re thirsty herbs: Add one drop of biodegradable soap on the water. This allows the dry soil to open and help water to penetrate to reach the roots.

Watch out your watering routine every month. Make it to a more balanced one by increasing or decreasing the amount of water and the number of watering days per month.

There is also such as what you call self-watering herbs garden, and this kind of herb gardening is best recommended for the busy gardeners. This is somewhat popular among gardeners and is open technology now, but it somewhat costly. This means you can grow herbs indoors all year round. But to give you a view of this self-watering herbs garden, it is not suitable for those who have a passion for gardening because they will not experience the gardening method fresh from their own hands. Recommended smart self-watering herbs garden is the so-called click and grow. You can grow most herbs with it, including rosemary, basil, dill, peppermint, and cilantro. Click and Grow has been there for approximately 6 years, and it is constantly increasing in demand.

Once and for all, let us all go back to the different tips and advice to water efficiently. For easy watering, you should avoid clay soil so that it will not trap a lot of water. Second, avoid also using sandy soil because it drains too quickly. Focus your choice on premium-fast draining soil because it traps and a balanced amount of water and allows the roots to breathe.

For moisture-loving herbs, it is best recommended to use an organic substance on it. Any organic matter such as:

compost for it can retain and trap water. In this case, you can only use a little amount of water in watering
shredded bark that might be used to cover the soil. This is also somewhat known or called as a top dressing.

In terms of not measuring the amount of water in watering your herbs, just make sure that you watered in deeply penetrating the roots. Be patient for not stop immediately while you are watering your herbs as soon as you are quite sure that you watered in deep at the base of the herbs.

Phases and weather conditions are also some of the factors that should be considered in terms of watering herbs, most especially how often. In a seedling phase of herbs, it should be watered in a small amount of water once or twice a day because their roots are shallow. With regards then to the weather status, it is highly advisable to require monitoring of weather most especially to growing herbs under unregulated conditions. During the hot season, water your herbs more frequently than usually do because, during the hot season, water is quickly lost at a higher rate by evaporation.

To generalize, how often to water herbs? It has something to do with the relation on the different factors and tips discussed above like the category and types of herbs, water requirements about the type of herbs, type of soil suit for particular herbs the weather condition and, amount of water needed for a particular type or category of herbs.

Source: gardening101.net