Every year in spring I get amnesia about watering my vegetables and fruit trees, as if I have to figure out anew how much and how often to water them, as if I have no record of my irrigation schedules that have worked in the past. Relax, Greg. Use those records to guide this season’s irrigation.
Vegetables, strawberries, and blueberries
June– every 2 days for 25 minutes each time (about 6.5 hours during the month)
July– every 2 days for 30 minutes each time (about 7.5 hours during the month)
August– every 2 days for 35 minutes each time (about 8.5 hours during the month)
September– every 2 days for 25 minutes each time (about 6 hours during the month)
Avocados, citrus, and cane berries
June– every 4 days for 2.5 hours each time (about 18 hours during the month)
July– every 4 days for 3 hours each time (about 23 hours during the month)
August– every 3 days for 3 hours each time (about 29 hours during the month)
September– every 4 days for 2.5 hours each time (about 20 hours during the month)
Deciduous fruit trees and grapevines
June– every 10 days for 3 hours each time (about 9 hours during the month)
July– every 9 days for 3.5 hours each time (about 12 hours during the month)
August– every 8 days for 2.5 hours each time (about 10 hours during the month)
September– every 10 days for 2.5 hours each time (about 7.5 hours during the month)
Note on irrigation methods
These run times can only be meaningful if you know which kind of irrigation methods I’m using. For my vegetables and strawberries, I use 0.5 gallon-per-hour emitters spaced every 9 inches. (And if a vegetable bed is wide, I use two or three drip lines.) For my blueberries, I use micro-sprayers that wet under the whole area of each bush.
For my avocados, I use micro-sprinklers of varying outputs but always with the wetted pattern out to the canopy edge of the trees. For my citrus trees and cane berries (raspberries and boysenberries), I use the same drip lines as on my vegetables but in circles under the tree canopies or berry bush canopies.
For my deciduous fruit trees (apricot, peach, apple, etc.), I use micro-sprinklers as on my avocados. For my grapevines, I use two drip emitters per vine, each emitter putting out 0.5 gallons per hour.
How I actually use the schedules
Though in the schedules I list the watering as happening every X days, I prefer to water on specific days of the week instead because that makes it easier for me to remember when the water is going to turn on.
Therefore, when I program my timers I choose Monday and/or Wednesday and/or Friday. For example, in June instead of watering my zone of avocados, citrus, and cane berries every 4 days for 2.5 hours each time, I’ll program the timer to run every Monday and Friday for 2 hours each time. This still applies about 18 hours’ worth of irrigation for the month.
How you might make use of my schedules
I’ve shared these watering schedules because I always gain from hearing about other people’s watering routines. Sometimes they inspire me to try something different — higher frequency, for example. And sometimes they just affirm that how I’ve been watering is likely about right since it is similar to how someone else waters.
I don’t suggest that my schedules will work perfectly in your yard. Unless you live next door and are using the same irrigation methods, then they’re just a reference point.
And do know that the schedules don’t even work perfectly in my yard. If there’s a heat wave, for example, I must go off schedule and water as necessary. And I try to check soil moisture often, which sometimes leads to skipping a scheduled irrigation because it’s unnecessary.
By the way, I created the above schedules for this year through averaging the schedules that I used over the past three years.
What about October through May?
Finally, what about October through May? In Southern California, there’s rain potential in those months, and the weather is variable, so I don’t usually use a schedule or my timers. But from June through September we are reliably dry and warm, and during this period it can save time and headache to set an irrigation timer on a watering schedule. I’ve shared mine for 2020, I wish you success with yours.
A list with links to all of my Yard Posts about watering and other topics is HERE.
Hi Greg, that is some watering system you have there. I’m afraid my watering schedule is nothing since I only have 1 orange and 1 avocado tree, along with 2 blueberry bushes. Simple Simon here.LOL When I’m picking blueberries every 3-4 days I’ll set the mini sprinkler under the orange tree for 10 min. then switch it to the avocado tree for 10 min., all the while there is one running beside the blueberries while I’m picking them. Other than that I water the trees for 5 min. each every day in the morning and evening during the heat waves. Without heatwaves, I water by hand every other day. I could not handle the size of your garden. You are truly a master gardener. By the way, I found a gofer snake inside my blueberry cage the other day. It got tangled in the netting I have around it, had to cut the net from around it’s neck but at least it’s free now. Hope you have a great weekend!
Hi Debbie,
Thanks for sharing your watering routine. As I mentioned, I love hearing of the routines of others.
My grandma waters her garden similarly. She uses a kitchen timer and leaves a hose with a spot sprinkler on the end under a fruit tree for a set amount of time. I’ve often watered this way too. Works great.
It’s true that my garden has grown over the years, which is why I’ve tried to automate irrigation more, but I still handwater some, and if I could I’d water everything by hand. Handwatering is so relaxing and gratifying. It also forces me to take closer looks at the plants.
Glad you got that gopher snake free!
Hi again Greg,
Thanks for another very timely and helpful post. I’ve been diligently following your prior posts about how to water avocados, how to get your hands dirty to check the soil, and just finished hydrozoning my grove. I’ve been struggling to dial in my other plants and this post will really help. I’ve probably been giving my deciduous trees water too frequently, I’ll adjust that now.
One thing I wanted to share with you and your readers. Last year when my Reed Avocado grew 30-40 beautiful little baby avocados, I was excited to watch them grow. But I was slow to react to the heat wave we had last summer and the tree dropped all but three of them. I travel a lot for work and cannot always be there to adjust the water, so I set about figuring out how to automate my grove to be more hands off. Here’s where I ended up:
I got a Rachio sprinkler timer, which works with services like Alexa, and IFTTT. IFTTT (If This Then That) is a free internet web based automation service which lets people link different things together and make them trigger each other to do their tasks. I also got a backyard weather station which gives me the temperature right in the grove and also works with IFTTT. I got them connected and set a trigger that goes like this: If the temperature in the grove exceeds 90 degrees, then IFTTT tells the Rachio sprinkler to water the avocadios for 1 hour (I can set it to water as long as I like). I can also set a trigger that looks at Weather Underground forecasts and says “If tomorrow’s forecast is greater than 95 degrees, run a scheduled watering program” so that if tomorrow will be hot, it will run the Rachio Avocado schedule (which is normally every 5 days for 1.5 hours) that day.
Using all this, I can be assured that when the heat wave comes, even if I am out of town, the avocados will get their extra water. I could set any other triggers like “if it gets over 100, water the veggies” or something similar. Frankly setting up all this automation was fun for me (a computer nerd by trade) and much easier than getting my wife to run the sprinklers when I am out of town 🙂
As an added benefit, slightly off topic from this post, when the frost hit this past February, I was also out of town and I couldn’t protect any of the trees. I lost a ton of new growth on the Avo’s and younger citrus and my Macadamia nut tree got really hit hard, it made almost no flowers this spring so no delicious nuts this November. So I set about to automate frost protection as well. I used the same concepts, but added a smart plug to the setup and will connect that smart plug to some old school incandescent Christmas lights hung around the young trees. When the temp drops below 35 overnight, IFTTT will turn on the smart plug so it will turn on the Xmas lights and provide heat right around the young trees. It will do this when I am asleep or out of town, so I don’t have to worry about losing another year of growth to freeze damage.
I’d be happy to write a longer guest post for your wonderful blog on how I did all this automation if that sounds interesting to you. If your readers are interested just reply on here and I would be happy to share some details offline. Side note, my friends, family and coworkers all ask me how I learned so much about growing these fruit trees all of a sudden (this was never my hobby in the past, only since I moved to Fallbrook ~3 years ago). I just smile and tell them “Everything I know about growing avocados and oranges, I learned from this guy in Ramona who shared all his knowledge on his blog called The Yard Posts”.
Thanks again for having the very best resource for us aspiring food gardeners 🙂
/Dave
Hi Dave,
I am also in Fallbrook and have a Rachio controller. I’d love to hear more details!
Regards,
Phil Covington
Dave- Thanks for posting! I’ve always wanted to know how to geek out in watering my garden In SoCal and would love to know more.
Hi Dave,
This is the best and longest comment I can remember receiving. I have been asked a few times if I’d like to have a guest post but I’ve never been very tempted until now. I want to know more, and I’m sure I’m not alone.
Like you, I’ve been caught out of town when harsh whether hits, and I don’t even go out of town often. I suspect it has happened to many of us. Thanks for cluing us in to these innovations.
Greg
You live in the Ramona area, do you have the effect of may gray or june gloom in Ramona like we do in the central/coastal San Diego area? Where I live, it’s has a gray overcast until 9-10 AM. When the sun comes out, it’s not an intense blazing sun. Because of June gloom, do avocado and citrus need that much water during the month of May/June?
-James
Hi James,
Very fun question here. The answer is that it varies. But overall, no, we don’t get as much marine layer as closer to the ocean and at lower elevations.
I have a keen awareness of the extent of the marine layer because I used to live at the beach and these days I travel between here in Ramona and the ocean often. I used to work at UCSD in La Jolla so I would observe the reaches of the marine layer almost every day. Often it would hit a wall at Iron Mountain and Mount Woodson, covering nearby Poway but leaving Ramona above in the sun.
But sometimes the marine layer creeps up and fills in the Ramona Valley too.
On the other hand, there are a few days — especially in June, or early July — when the gradient is extreme and the beach is foggy all day but the temperature reaches into the 90s at my house under blazing sun.
Conversely, there are a few days in late August and September when close to the beach can be as hot or hotter than my place. Basically, the summer arrives earlier inland whereas it extends later closer to the beach.
Overall, I wake up to a marine layer just under half of the days of May and June, and even into July, usually, whereas at the beach it’s more like 75 percent. And then it always burns off earlier here than it does at the beach.
Avocado and citrus trees don’t need as much water closer to the ocean in June compared to at my place. But the difference isn’t as extreme as you might imagine. The reduction might be roughly 15 percent, or if you’re right on the beach it might be around 25 percent.
Great information. It’s nice that you have different schedule for each month, I want to try and do the same. Do you water them in the morning or afternoon?
I usually setup a schedule and keep it for the entire season and supplement by hand when necessary. I have 2 systems: one for the in-ground plants and another one for containers. This year I setup my in-ground one to run every 3 days for 25 minutes and the containers run daily for 3 minutes, early in the morning. I also water by hand twice a week in the evening to supplement because some plants need more water than others.
Hi Chip,
That sounds like an effective routine. I do something similar in my vegetable garden where I handwater new vegetable transplants for the first couple weeks just so I can water them more frequently than the mature vegetables.
Currently, I water my vegetables in the morning, and I water my fruit trees in the late afternoon. This is mostly because that’s when I can be around to check on the irrigation as it’s running. I wrote a post about the best time of day to water here: https://gregalder.com/yardposts/what-is-the-best-time-of-day-to-water-your-plants/
Hi Greg, Informative post as always! Man I love my Netro irrigation controller, which is wifi controlled. I turned off my lawn and slope irrigation at the couch when I saw it was pouring rain here Saturday. I had a reminder to check again today as forecast is for hot weather, so I enabled those schedules in bed just before this post. This morning I was weed whacking down my back slope, cleared area around my new trees, pulled out my iPhone and ran the schedule the trees are on to check the new micro-bubblers were running OK. Hope to see you around after the Age of Quarantine! Robert
What a nice gardening life, Robert! No running around the yard turning valves on and off in the heat like me. I’m convinced that I need to join the 21st century and test one of these.
Greg why do you use drip emitters on your citrus trees instead of micro sprinklers like your avocado trees?
Hi Rob,
I use drip on my citrus trees for two reasons: One, on most of them I leave their canopies touching the ground, and the low branches interfere with the spinning and distribution of the water from micro-sprinklers. Two, drip is a little more efficient so I prefer it as long as it’s effective in other ways.
I’ve noticed that all of my citrus trees, young and old, grow well on drip.
However, for avocados I sometimes use drip emitters on newly planted trees because it’s effective for them. But larger avocado trees in my yard have done better on micro-sprinklers.
Thanks, Greg! I literally just finished setting up drip for my veggie raised bed and will do my fruit trees here soon. This is all great information. I like in Mid-City San Diego. Would it be safe to assume that my watering times will be less than what you do since the temperatures are lower here? I saw that you mentioned about 15% less in another comment.
I see that you didn’t mention tropical trees. Do you have any ideas for irrigation method (drip, sprinkler, etc.) and times for guava and loquat? What about a highly mature Chinese evergreen elm and pecan?
Thank you!
Hi Nandi,
Yes, all other things being equal (emitter output, etc.), you should be able to water a bit less than me. But make sure to let the appearance and performance of your plants guide you more than my numbers. There are also many reasons why you might actually have to water more, especially more often, than me. For example, a raised bed for vegetables usually needs frequent watering compared to my in-ground beds — no matter where it is located. This is because raised beds are usually filled with a soil mix that drains rapidly.
I would try all of those trees on drip first, just because drip is so efficient and easy to maintain and run. I’d be surprised if any of those trees didn’t do well on drip.
Great post. So would you run water schedules for mango and guava and fig on your deciduous schedule or citrus/avocado schedule? I’m going to re-pipe my whole orchard and need tom make some important decisions regarding these three varieties. Thanks Greg!
Hi Keith,
Thanks. I’d put the mango and guava on the citrus/avocado schedule, and put the fig on the deciduous schedule.
Hi Greg,
I am in the Oakland hills and started a covid orchard last year. I have citrus, avocado and various deciduous, and they have been doing well so far. Today I setup irrigation based on your excellent post here, but I had one question. How many emitters do you have beneath each tree? I just installed (4) 1/2 gph emitters for most of the trees (all grafted from the nursery), though with trees that seem to drink more I put (4) 1 gph emitters. Any tips on the emitter number, and 1 gph vs 1/2 gph? Thanks for the excellent blog!
– Nikhil
Hi Greg,
First quickly want to say that I’ve been an avid gardener fro quite some time but really ramped up on vegetable gardening the past 5 years and due to all your helpful information on fruit trees, I began diving into my mini orchard a few years ago. So thank you! (Also new supporter)
So I’ve been scouring all your posts on watering and trying to get my vegetables watered well without overwatering. I’ve taken down all the notes about your system and I do drip as well, except due to crazed gopher activity where I live (also in inland SoCal but close to Ontario), all my vegetables are in raised wood beds with quickly draining soil. Would you recommend watering daily to compensate? Thank you!
Hi Jen,
Thanks for the support! With your raised wood beds and quickly draining soil near Ontario, I bet you would need to water daily with drip in summer. It might even be necessary to water twice a day during a heat wave if you have large, mature plants at that time.
Thanks for this forum. I have planted a tangerine tree apx 1 year ago. It’s sad, the trunk is still a thin spindley shoot with 20 or so green and light yellow leaves. It’s provided 3 tangerines since planting. The soil is hard pack, clay surrounding. I’ve dug the hole at planting apx 3 xs the size of the required and backfield with mixture of.compost, filtered sand and local dirt. On a drip system. Zone 8a. Southern cal. What’s your thoughts.
Hi Greg,
What is your opinion on soaker hose as a water delivery method for avocado/citrus/deciduous fruit trees?
Hi Rob,
Soaker hoses can work fine to deliver water to those trees. I’ve done it. But there are a couple disadvantages. One is that it’s hard to know how much water you are delivering, and the other is that if the ground is sloped you’ll get different output in different parts of the soaker hose. (You’ll get more water seeping out of the hose at the low elevation points.)