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So, I'm back at it with my watering wand. In this case, I'm going to show you how to
water the raised beds, in the hoophouse. These raised beds are like sponges, and once they
grow dry, they resist watering. They resist absorbing water, so it's really important
that we keep up with the watering, and not get into a chronic, dry situation. Of course
ideally, we'd be watering in the early morning, or the late evening, to avoid transpiration
loss, the loss of water through evaporation, but at this point, we can wash these beds
with the same spray action that we used on the trays, and you don't realize just how
dry they are, under the surface, but these beds can use a second and a third, even a
fourth application, until they're fully saturated. The advantage of the raised bed, of course,
is that once it's saturated, it has the ability to hold that water, longer than just a flat
bearing ground, and you can see, I have a lot of ground to cover, so what I'll do, is
I'll water an area, and then I'll come back, and water it a second time, so that it percolates
downward. The most common error in watering, other than over watering, is under watering,
just a little bit. People see the ground is moist, and they think they've done their job,
whereas the roots underneath might be parched, so in this case, we really have to lay down
a lot of water, to keep these little greens alive. Later on as they get bigger and develop,
they'll need less water, because they mulch their own ground, and they won't be so shallow
rooted, but in the early stage, we want to apply a whole lot of water, to the entire
bed.