Your method might be ok for many vegetables, crabjoe, but there are crops like tomatoes that should never be allowed to wilt if possible. Alot has to do with the crop growth stage and most certainly your soil. I find that cucumbers can almost never get enough water from single daily waterings once they start pumping out fruits. Any crop producing heavily will need more water. Also crops with a larger vegetative canopy will transpire alot of water on a hot day. Surrounding weeds add to the mix; mulches can lessen the needs substancially. I agree with the good comments but there are so many variables that come into play with watering that it is almost an artform to do a good job at it. Fortunately most plants are forgiving if you are not too exacting at it.

I don't have as large a collection (or planted area) as many of you, and living in the Mid-Atlantic means lots of rain -- but it has been getting into the 90s with high humidity these last few weeks. My landlord didn't turn on the spigot for the hose out back until just a week ago (June 30), which meant that if anything needed to be watered between rains, I did it by filling a bucket in the house and carrying it out. Interestingly, the only things that needed a little help were the new perennials I planted just this year. Well....and also most of the seeds I sowed didn't make it with the hose not turned on (I sowed them too late in Spring), but I'm not counting that. None of the roses (save the ones in pots) needed water yet, pushing growth and blooming just fine on rain alone. But they're all planted VERY deeply. When I was putting the beds together, I planted the 1- or 2-gal roses directly into the native unamended soil (which looks more like red clay-like subsoil that turns rock-hard if dry for too long, and dries out quickly), after weeds/grass were smothered to death by sheets of cardboard laid out. Spread out over that cardboard were all the tree trimmings (leaves and twigs) thin enough to snip into tiny bits with pruners, with a few thicker branches scattered around as well to help weigh down the cardboard. Then about six inches of composted mulch went over all that last Autumn, with composted manure mixed in this Spring. Even when we went almost a month between significant rains, only the top inch of the mulch/manure ever dried out completely. And keep in mind that this top inch is about six inches above ground-level -- essentially, this is like a raised bed for the perennials, or a heavily-mulched bed for the roses. I think I might get away with only one deep watering a month next year, when the perennials are established. But, again, keep in mind my location -- we get between about 4 and 5 inches of precipitation each month throughout the year, our driest month being February. I wouldn't suggest this for So-Cal. :-) ~Christopher If you flip through the pictures in the threads linked below, you'll get an idea of the layers of soil and amendments going on. Note that the "soil level" you see at the base of the roses is actually the top of about 6" of composted mulch and manure sitting on top of the native soil, and thus also on top of the soil-line where the roses were planted. To see bed progression Summer 2013: http://forums2.gardenweb.com/forums/load/rosesant/msg0914445024222.html Then came the mulch October 2013: http://forums2.gardenweb.com/forums/load/rosesant/msg102101521863.html Late April 2014: http://forums2.gardenweb.com/forums/load/rosesant/msg0423241224880.html May/June 2014: http://forums2.gardenweb.com/forums/load/rosesant/msg051326393268.html

Saltidog, Dude, chill. I was respectfully saying you had a different opinion - not what your opinion was or that it had anything to do with the heating elements. You can disagree without being disagreeable. I do understand thermodynamics very well, thank you. There is no "trend" and no misrepresentation. Yes, the units have resistive elements as backup, for high demand situations, and when the ambient temperature gets low enough that enough heat can't be extracted using the heat pump (for geospring unit that's 45 degrees F) Saltidog, I don't know what you are getting your panties in a bunch about... yes, I understand your heater works well for you. I would expect that. It's installed in a basement that's at least 700 cubic feet of space. Because it's underground it will maintain a temperature of around 50 - 55 degrees or more if there are other heat sources in the basement. That's enough to allow the heat pump to work just fine. The water heater will work in almost all situations / applications where one would normally install a tank heater. It will even run on the heat pump in most situations. The question is when you have the water heater in a fully conditioned space (not basement) and that space is being heated. At that time, one is shifting the heating load of the water heater to the furnace - which may or may not be more cost effective. I think the water heaters are great - esp if they can work out the reliability problems (which I think are teething pains, not inherent problems). I stick by my assertion that there are three applications whereby they produce the most system efficiency / cost effectiveness.

THANK YOU so much for your responses. Jake: I totally forgot about the fact that we need to update/upgrade our electric panel for our 1976-house. So any electric option is not viable. asolo: I read a couple of your other posts about tankless; I'm very convinced not to do tankless. joeplumb: our furnace (boiler) is designed to heat up the 1st floor, 2nd floor, and an indirect water heater. so to get a direct water, we'd wouldn't be utilizing our furnace optimally. We're in MA: very high gas and oil and electric prices. And forecasted to be worst this winter. sigh. We went with the SuperStor indirect stainless steel water heater, which is supposed to work great w/ well water. Yay for hot showers again. again, thank you very much.