Contributed by A. Catherine Noon

As Spring springs, a person’s heart turns to the garden. I’m watching my fall bulbs coming up and am so excited to see hyacinths and crocus come up. I’m sad that my daffodils do not appear to be growing, and I don’t know why. They came up last year, but this year they aren’t showing up.  We’ll see if they arrive eventually; if not, I’ll try planting some more this September.

We are taking a course called Grow Your Own Groceries, and one of the segments talked about irrigation options. It seems so odd to be thinking about that right now, since I live in the Pacific Northwest and it’s still quite wet and rainy now. But our summers are dry and increasingly hot, so much so that it’s caused a large-scale die-off of the Douglas fir trees. This means that we do need to figure out whether to water our gardens and if so, how do set up our irrigation systems.

There’s a method of gardening that’s actually not a method that uses watering of the plants, which is fascinating. It is lauded as a way of growing veggies that actually taste better, even if they don’t look pristine. That’s been tempting, as has a method of using an irrigation hose that has holes in it and waters the plants just as the roots.

What about you, Dear Reader? How does your garden grow, and how does it drink?