Have You Tried These 6 Water Saving Tips in Your Garden?

Many of us can recite the rules of saving water in our gardens in our sleep: mulch heavily, water deeply, don't water from above, mulch heavily (yes, I said it twice.) And all of these are necessary methods for conserving water in our vegetable and flower gardens. But there are a few tips and tricks that can help you save even more water. Some of them are a little weird, and you might find one a bit gross, but they are effective, water-wise ideas for growing a healthy garden.

6 Water Conservation Tricks to Try in Your Garden

1. Water (and Fertilize!) with Urine[/b] Yes. Go ahead and take a whizz on your plants. Some plants, particularly tomato plants, have been proven to grow remarkably well when irrigated regularly with urine. In fact, tomatoes watered with urine were shown to produce four times as many fruits as those grown without urine. You don't really have to stand (or squat, as the case may be) over your plants -- go ahead and do your business in a bucket once in a while and pour it over your plants. Really. Do it!

2. Water with Cooking Water You know that pot of water that you boiled your potatoes or pasta or vegetables in? Don't just pour it down the drain. That water contains plenty of vitamins that leached out of the veggies during the cooking process. Let it cool to room temperature, and use the water on your outdoor plants. Over the course of a growing season, this can add up to quite a lot of water, and it's so easy -- definitely worth a try.

3. Water with Diluted Coffee Don't let that last bit of coffee in the carafe go to waste. Dilute it to a solution of about 25% coffee to 75% water and give your plants a drink. Coffee contains nitrogen, as well as trace amounts of magnesium and calcium, which are important for healthy plant growth.

4. Make a Milk Jug Olla Ollas are traditionally made of terra cotta, and they are buried next to plants and filled with water. The water leaches out of the porous pot as the plants need it, and they get just the right amount of water. The only problem is that they can be a little pricey. Here's an easy way to reuse a plastic milk jug to make an olla-like waterer for your garden.

5. Turn an Old Hose into a Soaker Hose Sometimes, your garden hose is just too far gone to repair. When that happens, turn it into a simple soaker hose for your garden. Soaker hoses are great because they deliver a slow trickle of water right to the root zone of your plants. Very little water is lost through evaporation, and a gentle, deep soak encourages plant roots to dig deeper into the soil. The result is plants that are healthier and better able to withstand periods of heat and drought.

6. Make Your Own Self-Watering Container Here are instructions for using an old plastic storage container, as well as a few other reused objects, to make your own self-watering container. You can grow flowers or vegetables in this container, which will wick water to your plants as they need it. It saves water, it saves your time (no standing over these plants with a hose!) and it helps grow healthy plants.

A little weird, but whoever said that gardening was boring? I hope you give these ideas a try in your own garden.