If you’ve arrive here from Google hoping for a method to never water your garden, you’ll be disappointed to hear the answer is Mother Nature.

Here in Chicago, we’ve had a miserable spring for being outdoors but wonderful weather for the outdoors. In the last 10 days, we had an inch of rain (as reported at O’Hare Airport) spread perflectly across multiple days. Since Memorial Day, I haven’t had to pull out the hose at all.

Most plants would like a half inch to inch of water per week at this time of year (around 75 degrees). The weather has been a little cooler — the peppers are anxious for some heat — and the rain has been plenty to keep everything growing. Too much rain at any one time and the water runs off instead of soaks into the ground. Except for May 26th (almost 2 inches of rain), we haven’t had any heavy rains.

Mother Nature: Please keep up the regular half inch per week rain schedule. But maybe move it to the very early mornings.

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Up until now, we have been well above 40 degrees each night and in the 50s, 60s, and 70s each day — a safe zone for plants.

Additionally, just like a baby, the plants need plenty of liquids once they’re out in the open.  Over the past few days we’ve made up for a relatively dry April.

In the past 7 days, we’ve had 2 inches of water in the Chicagoland area.  The general guideline for an average nice week is a 1/2 inch of water a week.  I’d recommend a little more water during the transplant days which we have clearly covered this week.

I’ll have before and after photos soon showing how the plants have done all week.  Look for them this Friday.

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April showers are suppose to bring May flowers.  It is also a bit too early to get the hose out for watering.  Come May, I have an irrigation systems (a soaker hose lining the planting beds to get water directly to the roots) running to compensate for dry days.  In April, I rely upon mother nature and the 4 inches of rain that would adequately start off my lettuces, spinach, and radishes.

This week looks better (except if you’re going to the Cubs home opener today).  According to Weather.com’s Agricultural forecast, Chicago should get a half inch of rain over the next 36 hours and then maybe some more on Saturday.  I’ll have to keep a close eye and maybe this will be an April I need to water.

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1. Monitoring the Weather
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