Without water your garden will NOT survive your extended break down at the beach house. While we are fortunate to live in a country where we can grow things all year round, that blessing does not extend to rainfall and there’s little chance the big guy upstairs will fix things when you’re too busy.

The fallback option – your next-door neighbour – should only ever be that, because frequent holidays and favours will soon harshly test that relationship. It’s time to take some responsibility and get organised.

As busy people, we’re realistic about the time constraints of modern life – you may even struggle to keep up with Instagram these days – so it’s important to lean on all the tools that modern life has to offer. One of those is an irrigation system.

An irrigation system is superior to the perfect neighbour because it will water when they would often be asleep, and it can do it through a drip hose, which administers water directly to the plants’ roots. That is where the plant needs and uses water, so why not be obliging? Avoiding wet leaf foliage – the by-product of traditional, inefficient watering systems – means less chance of disease and pest attacks. And by traditional, inefficient systems I mean you standing there with a beer in one hand and the garden hose in the other.

The limitation of irrigation has always been installation. But in much the same way as certain industries heighten the difficulty of their job to protect their business, irrigation specialists are guilty of overhyping the task at hand. A drip system is an easily achievable DIY activity, and it will help remove the most volatile element that determines the success of your veggie patch. You watering!