Falls morgen wieder Regen kommt, brauchen wir den Garten nicht zu gießen.

Here falls means if.

In many sentences, falls and wenn can both be translated as if, but there is a small nuance:

• falls often sounds a bit more like in case or if it should happen that
• wenn is the more general and very common word for if/when

So:

• Falls morgen wieder Regen kommt ...
• Wenn morgen wieder Regen kommt ...

Both are possible, but falls can sound a little more cautious or hypothetical.

Because the sentence starts with a subordinate clause introduced by falls.

In German, when a clause begins with a subordinating conjunction like falls, wenn, weil, dass, etc., the conjugated verb goes to the end of that clause.

So:

• Falls morgen wieder Regen kommt

Breakdown:

• falls = if
• morgen = tomorrow
• wieder = again
• Regen = rain
• kommt = comes

That final verb position is completely normal in German subordinate clauses.

Because the first clause takes up the first position in the sentence.

German main clauses usually follow the verb-second rule: the conjugated verb must come in the second position.

The whole first clause:

• Falls morgen wieder Regen kommt

counts as position 1.

So the next thing must be the finite verb:

• brauchen

and then comes the subject:

• wir

That is why German says:

• Falls morgen wieder Regen kommt, brauchen wir ...

not:

• Falls morgen wieder Regen kommt, wir brauchen ...

Good question. English would usually say if it rains again tomorrow, and German can also express that idea more directly with:

• Falls es morgen wieder regnet ...

That is probably the most straightforward version for many learners.

But Regen kommt is also understandable and idiomatic in some contexts. It focuses a bit more on rain arriving/coming rather than just the action to rain.

So these are close in meaning:

• Falls morgen wieder Regen kommt ...
• Falls es morgen wieder regnet ...

The second one may feel more direct to learners because it matches English if it rains more closely.

This is an important pattern:

• brauchen + nicht + zu + infinitive

It means:

• do not need to ...

So:

• wir brauchen den Garten nicht zu gießen = we do not need to water the garden

This is a very common German structure.

More examples:

• Du brauchst nicht zu kommen. = You do not need to come.
• Ich brauche das nicht zu machen. = I do not need to do that.

A key point: with brauchen in this meaning, German normally uses it in a negative context, such as:

• nicht
• kein
• nie

Because after brauchen in this pattern, German uses an infinitive with zu.

So:

• brauchen ... zu gießen
• brauchen ... zu warten
• brauchen ... zu gehen

This is similar to English to water, to wait, to go, although the structures are not always identical.

In this sentence:

• nicht zu gießen = to not water / to water ... not necessary

Natural English translation:

• we do not need to water the garden

You may hear or see that, especially in spoken German or in some regional usage, but in standard written German, brauchen in this sense is usually followed by zu.

So the standard form is:

• Wir brauchen den Garten nicht zu gießen.

That is the safest version for learners to use.

Because gießen takes a direct object, and the direct object goes in the accusative case.

The noun is:

• der Garten = nominative

But as the object of gießen, it becomes:

• den Garten = accusative

So:

• Wir gießen den Garten. = We water the garden.

That is why the sentence says:

• brauchen wir den Garten nicht zu gießen

Wieder means again.

Here it tells us that this is not the first time rain is expected:

• morgen wieder = again tomorrow

Its position is natural in this clause:

• Falls morgen wieder Regen kommt ...

German word order with adverbs can vary somewhat depending on emphasis, but this placement is very normal.

Because German uses a comma to separate a subordinate clause from the main clause.

So:

• Falls morgen wieder Regen kommt, = subordinate clause
• brauchen wir den Garten nicht zu gießen. = main clause

This comma is required in standard German.

Yes. You can switch the order:

• Wir brauchen den Garten nicht zu gießen, falls morgen wieder Regen kommt.

That means the same thing.

When the main clause comes first, the word order there stays normal:

• Wir brauchen ...

But when the subordinate clause comes first, the main clause must still obey the verb-second rule:

• Falls ..., brauchen wir ...

The basic infinitive is:

• gießen = to water / to pour

After certain verbs or constructions, German adds zu before the infinitive:

• zu gießen

So:

• basic infinitive: gießen
• infinitive with zu: zu gießen

In this sentence, zu is required because of the brauchen ... nicht zu + infinitive construction.

Not very naturally.

A very literal translation would be something like:

• If tomorrow again rain comes, need we the garden not to water.

That sounds wrong in English because German and English organize this kind of sentence differently.

A natural English translation would be:

• If it rains again tomorrow, we won’t need to water the garden.
• If rain comes again tomorrow, we won’t need to water the garden.

The first one is the most natural English version.