Many factors determine lawn’s water needs
Q You mentioned watering deeply and infrequently in the newspaper. How many inches of water is appropriate for coastal OC lawns and how often? A There's no hard and fast answer to how often and how long you should water your grass, unfortunately. Some variables include soil texture and drainage, length of grass, how long the grass has been there, daytime temperatures and relative humidity.
For instance, a newly installed sod lawn will need daily (or even twice-daily) watering to establish. Heavy watering also makes the sod heavy and more difficult to steal.
Sandy or quick-draining soil will need to be watered more frequently than heavy clay. High temperatures and low humidity will call for more frequent watering. Grass cut at a higher setting will need less irrigation, since the longer blades shade the ground and allow for better water penetration.
You can test water penetration by using a soil core sampling tool. Removing a core sample of soil can give you a clear picture as to how far down the water is going.
If this is too much trouble (or you're having difficulty extracting a sample), simply inspect your lawn. Water-deprived grass will become dark green to almost black, and the individual blades will look thinner. Don't wait for the grass to turn brown! When it's at the point of darkening, it can quickly recover with a good soaking.
If your grass is thriving on two minutes per zone four times per week, try 2½ minutes per zone three times per week. Look at the overall health of your turf as well as weed growth. By adjusting the irrigation times and frequency gradually you should be able to find that “sweet spot.” Q I planted my tomatoes on May 1. The plants did great — there are plenty of buds and half a dozen tomatoes now on the vine. Plants stopped producing new buds about a month ago. I fertilized and tried deep watering to no avail. Help! A Applying fertilizer shortly after planting your tomatoes will help them grow nice healthy leaves and get a good start to the season. Be careful, though! Too much fertilizer will give you lush, green tomato plants with hardly any tomatoes. This is because most all-purpose fertilizers contain a lot of nitrogen, which is good for leaves but not so good for fruiting.
Tomatoes, surprisingly, don't have very deep roots. Instead of deep watering, I recommend a thick layer of mulch to protect the shallow roots from heat. We like to use dried grass clippings since they form a tight mat that keeps weeds down but does the job. Don't use grass that's been treated with “Weed and Feed” or any other broadleaf weed killer.
Tomato flower and fruit production is temperaturesensitive. The optimal temperature for flowering is 85-90 during the day and 75 at night. The best temperature range for fruit set is 60-90 during the day and 60-75 at night. When temperatures fall outside these ranges, the plant will take a little break, but it should start producing again once the temperatures go back to a favorable range.