How often to water is a weather question

How often to water is a weather question, and your soil answers it better than any schedule. This planner will not invent one.

Well established It is settled without a trial. If you skip this, it still grows, just less well. The planner suggests it.

How it works

How fast ground dries is set by rainfall, temperature, wind and humidity in your own bed, day by day. Monthly normals describe a usual month and a forecast a coming week, and neither sees your soil, so an interval computed from them is a guess wearing a schedule's clothes.

What to do about it

Check the soil to decide when to water. Push a finger in to the second knuckle and water if it is dry at that depth. That's a method with no number, and it stands in for a frequency nobody can compute for your week. When you do water, put it on the soil and keep it off the leaves, and water long enough to reach the roots. Darkening the surface is not enough.

The evidence

Evidence: settled without a trial (epistemics).

How this rule has changed

Every change is dated, newest first. The full record, with each reason, is in the data download.

October 14, 2026 Wording made clearer
September 26, 2026 Wording made clearer
August 2, 2026 Details updated
August 2, 2026 Added to the rules

Cite this page

Milpa Gardens. "How often to water is a weather question, and your soil answers it better than any schedule. This planner will not invent one." Evidence grade: Well established. https://milpa.garden/rules/how-often-water-weather-question-soil-answers/

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How we grade evidence

Well established: The rule names its mechanism and is settled, by sources a person has read and checked or by plain arithmetic and geometry.
Promising: The mechanism is named and the literature backs it. A few questions are still open.
A good hunch: Plausible by its mechanism, but field studies are thin, so treat it as a lean.
Contested: The evidence points both ways, or no study has tested it, so the planner does not enforce it.
Refuted: The claim did not survive its sources. It is kept so the folklore can be answered.