Mulch heavily, and you don't get the splash back. That makes a huge difference as well.

I have heard about the quilting police and the fashion police, but I never heard of the gardening police. ;-D

Bottom watering for seedlings works pretty good for me but it can be time consuming. Once the seedlings get a few sets of true leaves I abandon bottom watering.

In the garden I've tried soaker hoses and emitters but without much success. Invariably I wind up cutting the lines with a shovel or something. Emitters are okay but seems to me they work better with perennials. So I top water most of the vegetable beds. I have 14 heads on 2 zones which gives good coverage until some plants get too tall then I have to adjust the height of the heads.

Everything generally dries off by 10 AM but in other parts of the country that probably wouldn't be true.

My accidental garden came about because of top watering that washed seeds out of my winter sowing "greenhouses". I'll never bottom water again!

Yay! Everyone!

Maybe down south, (not Pueblo), where they talk funny and live in moisture, it might be a problem.

I mulch heavily and water from a hose and also from soaker hoses and drip lines. I've had a few disease issues from even rain water splashing up on the stems and leaves back when it rained here. But never severe. I mulch heavy to conserve the moisture and also it does prevent the splashing from top watering or rain fall. I bottom water the large plants in the lean to greenhouse some as it is faster. But overall I top water my seedlings more than I bottom water. If top watering works best for a person do it. I have always had doubts about a person who tries to tell me there is only one correct way to garden and grow a plant. There are too many climate and soil variations across the USA. Jay

For my take on overhead watering check out my 08.31.10 post on the linked thread. The theory I came up with in '08 was still working for me when I reposted it in '10---and is STILL working for me today! (I'm talking about established plants. How I water seedlings depends on how big they are.)

Skybird

Here is a link that might be useful: Watering & mildew!

My irrigation water came yesterday, and I'm top-watering the garlic, beets, peas, leeks, onions and favas as we speak. Two hours, them move the sprays. Its been dry.

Yay Skybird!

Posted by elkwc . . . If top watering works best for a person do it. I have always had doubts about a person who tries to tell me there is only one correct way to garden and grow a plant. There are too many climate and soil variations across the USA. Jay

That's Right. (We may have to secede from the rest of the union if this top/bottom thing gets too oppressive. And, my Canadian relatives would rather not see us up there! ;o)

I just looked at some "relative humidity" information for Atlanta, Georgia. In late July 2011 (4 days - didn't feel the need to grab too much of a sample): the humidity was in the high 90's to low 70's for a maximum; high 50's to the mid 30's for a minimum.

Meanwhile, in my part of the world: late July the minimum was only above 30% on 1 of those days, otherwise - we finished every afternoon in the 20's for relative humidity.

It seems to me that there's a good deal of difference between going into nighttime darkness with, say, 25% humidity or 50% humidity.

My gardens are all watered with overhead sprinklers. I'm sure that I'd use less water if I could cover the same amount of square feet with water from a little closer to the soil surface. I try to get the sprinklers turned off before mid-day but cannot always. There isn't much moisture on the plants after a couple of hours and little likelihood that they will go into the night, wet.

Rain? I feel real lucky if we have a summer storm that brings us 1/4" of rain. Some years, we have gone thru the entire 3 months of summer with just over 1" total. And, this isn't desert . . . just semi-arid.

Steve

Steve I do most of my watering from above when the plants I start are young and many say not to. Till they get large I never water a seedling from below. The only seedlings I've ever lost in my whole gardening career is the year I listened to the so called "experts" who said you should water from below and they "damped off". A lot of it is how you learned to garden and the methods you use. I do use soaker hoses on much of my garden most with mulch on top of them. This saves me lots of water. I have used sprinklers and welcome rain anytime it falls from the skies. The only times I ever experienced any problems were on unmulched soil. And in an area where I hadn't rotated crops like I should have. If a person has no disease in his soil or mulches well I don't feel it matters in this area how you water. Although there are some who say if you don't do it their way you are wrong. And the crops I'm mainly talking about here are tomatoes and peppers. I've never seen any issues on any other crops. My climate especially the last 4 years during the drought is more like yours. Our humidity is usually low. And one reason I feel I tend to see some fruit set even when temps are above 90 and those in other areas don't see any. I feel that humidity probably affects fruit set more than temps. Although once temps go above and stay above 100 I don't see much if any fruit set unless my plants have afternoon shade and then it isn't heavy fruit set. Like I stated previously there isn't no one way to garden that is best across the whole USA. Although there are those who try to claim there is. I have tried other methods over the last 40 plus years of gardening but have found usually the methods my Dear Mother along with the small market farmers along the canal in NM taught me when I was a snot nosed kid asking too many questions work best for me here in my semi arid climate. Many of these methods have roots back to the Native Indian way of growing things. Including depression growing. Jay