Watering while on holiday

[Porkpieandmustard]

I’m a novice gardener.

We’re going away for 10 days at the end of June.

I’ve got a flower bed + pots, my husband has tomatoes in pots.

How can I keep it alive while we’re away?

There’s a teenager in the village who washes people’s cars. I wondered about asking his mum if he’d be willing to water it all. He lives 5 or 10 mins walk away.
We’ve got a long hose and an outdoor tap. I reckon it would take 10 or 15 minutes at most to water.

How often should I ask him to come? Every other day? So that would be 5 visits.
Would £100 be reasonable?

I pay a local teenager a fiver a day to come and water whilst we’re away. If it’s a week or longer and we get hot weather whilst you’re away your plants, especially tomatoes, will need watering.

Alternatively you can set up a system using a porous hose from amazon and a timer maybe 45 mins a day. Porous hose is really easy to set up it’s literally a hose the water leaks out of. Just wind it round any plants you want watered.

On frequency it depends, if the temp is north of 30 degrees pots will need doing daily. I always get mine done daily as better safe than sorry (i have invested a lot of time and money in my garden!)

Thanks both. At the moment the temp is about 22/23 for end of June but don’t know what will happen after that.

I think I’ll investigate the teenager idea! I can tell him he doesn’t have to do it if it’s raining.

Any neighbours? My neighbours and I water each others plants when we are away.

We went away for 9 days over half term when it was 30+ degrees each day.
lots of pots plus some newly planted plants but we do have clay soil.
I wanted for ages the day we went away; soaking all the pots & garden. Didn’t have anyone come in whilst we were away.
I was really worried but found when we got home only a couple of the potted plants were a bit droopy & nothing had died! Was very surprised.
Just to give you some hope OP.

I line my pots against the dividing garden wall (oof, some of them are heavy!) and my neighbour waters them over the wall from his side. When he remembers 😊

A watering system on a timer will cost £100-200 (depending on how big your garden is/what bits you need). That will then have paid off itself in two years, and will also save you some legwork over summer too.

I just put a Gardena system in, took a couple of hours and I’m a total convert. Waters all of my borders and pots for me overnight, so I don’t have to even think about it.

My friend who lives nearby pops round to water for me! I pay him in wine (and he gets to eat tomatoes).