Question
I'd like to grow tomatoes, cucumbers, corn, sweet peppers, sugar snap peas, watermelon and cantelope in a 60ft by 10ft raised bed. The watermelon likes to run out onto my lawn but that's ok. There is a blueberry shrub and chives in this bed already. I might move the corn to a second garden to give it more space.

In the second garden I will have strawberries and raspberries mulched over with wood chips and straw. If corn doesn't like this I might not be able to do corn (gotta have my fruit first - veggies next).

My yard is south facing. It gets very hot in summer. The soil is improved sandy/organic (I can't say loam because it has no clay/silt content). I'm limited to about 1-1.5 hours  of watering every other day after the lawn, flower beds etc.

What groupings should I place these plants in for best benefit and watering requirements? I can double up soaker hoses in high demand plants and sparse it out for hardier types. My water pressue seems good but I can't give an exact gpm of the top of my head - (maybe 12gpm)

Answer
Dear Paul:

The most important cultural practice for a healthy and productive home vegetable garden is irrigation. During years of normal rainfall (12 inches or more), winter rains usually wet the soil to 6 feet, getting us off to a good start with a supply of deep soil moisture. What happens later on will depend upon your watering skills, and the efficiency of your irrigation system.

Deep rooted crops such as watermelon, tomato, and canteloupe require a minimum of 36 inches of root depth and an ample supply of water throughout the growing season.  Because of this, I would plant them in the same bed for efficiency sake.  

All the other crops you listed are shallow depth root systems and I would lean toward planting them in the 2nd garden bed.  

You will probably need to water your vegetable garden one or two times a week in summer, depending on crop, soil type and the temperature. Wet the soil to a depth of at least 24 inches at each watering. If you only keep the surface of the soil moist, most of the water evaporates to the air and is lost to the roots, which are deeper than the top 3 or 4 inches of the soil.

There are a couple of measurements you can make to assure that you are applying adequate water. If you use a garden hose, turn it on to the force you commonly use and time it to find out how many minutes it takes to fill a one-gallon can. This gives you the rate of water flow per minute. In general, one gallon of water will wet 1 square foot of ground to a depth of 1-1/2 inches.

Regards,

Mack Jean
AllExperts
Master Gardener
Tennessee