best garden type for restricted water?

[adoptedbyachicken]

Hi all

Reading here all the great information! Wow, this forum is coming along nice.

Anyway hubby and I want to put in the garden this year. Been on this property just 2 years now, and have done just containers so far, but it's time to get big. We are on a very tight water budget so what do you feel is the best garden type for our vegies? We discussed raised beds but now I'm not so sure, seems like that is taking more water for most. Personally I think the easy way for us is to do raised rows with some grass between so we can get the tractor to help, so is that better for water shortage? We have clay and rocky soil but 2 year x 9 horses of composted manure mixed with chicken bedding so we can break/mix that clay up good.

 

[patandchickens]

If you're going to be tight on water, you do NOT want raised beds. You want your beds flush with the ground, the soil just very very slightly rounded up above the surrounding land. Till the ground well and add a lot of that good old composted manure (as long as it is really old) so that the soil will stay loose and the ground will hold any temporary excesses of water (like from rains) til the plants need it later. Till or dig the area deeper and wider than you expect your plants will need and you will not have problems with rainwater collecting and making the roots soggy during wet periods.

Plan on mulching well, either with normal mulch (woodchips, compost, dead leaves, straw, whatever) or with plastic or newspapers or such. You will get A LOT less evaporative loss with the soil covered than you would with it bare nekkid to the drying sun.

Be aware that plastic mulch, if you're considering it (even aside from how it looks, and the plastic issue), is sort of a double edged sword, water budget wise. If you lay drip (etc) hoses underneath it, it does a really good job of conserving water for your plants. However rain will not penetrate it well if at all -- even the stuff with the teensy holes in it really does not pass rainwater well at all. So whether to use plastic partly depends on how much you expect rain to contribute to your garden.

Something to consider for 'water hog' plants is to plant them in containers that are sunk up to their rim in the soil. The containers must have drainage holes -- more than you'd have if they were aboveground, really -- and they will be a pain in the neck to put in and to take out (if you ever do take the containers out). And they're only good for things like a coupla melon plants, not a 10' block of corn, obviously. But they will help you concentrate water around the roots of individual needy plants, without losing a bunch of water to absorption by surrounding soil beyond the plant's roots.

Also if you can arrange things so your plants, especially the most drought-sensitive ones, have afternoon shade, that will also help reduce your water requirements.

Hope this gives you some ideas,

Pat

 

[MeanQueenNadine]

A good plan of action is a plan, so you are off on the right foot.

Grouping plants with the same water requirements is obvious, using the least amount of space (do you know about Square Foot Gardening) and remembering how big these plants are going to be during the worst and/ or driest time of year tends to get overlooked. A well placed pumpkin, cantaloupe, zucchini whatever vine can provide shade to other plants roots. Corn can also provide shade may want to go the 3 Sisters route. If you are not familiar, goggle it.

Like Pat said drip irrigation is you best method of water delivery. Incorporating wood chips into the soil really does help with moisture retention but it does deplete soil of Nitrogen so you would want to fertilize more often. If its a smaller area you can also buy Soil Moist and mix that in the stuff really works but its not organic.

Very thick mulching is one of you safest bets, and adding more humus/compost/manure to the soil will never hurt. On the humus end I really like John & Bob's Soil Optimizer for the humus. Pat you asked about it in the soil and composting forum and I am not enough of a brain to tell you how it works it just does. They have an extensive web page explaining just goggle it. No I do not sell the stuff and normally I do not like using things I do not understand (man made chemicals being one of them prefer organic to synthetic anyway).

You did not say what part of the country are you in? I am in Utah 2nd driest state in the country. I have been building my soil for years, healthy soil is one of you best friends when it comes to water usage. I make compost tea at least 2x a year & I think that helps also. There is a thread in compost & soil on it if you want to know more.

Also have you thought about going the lasagna/sheet composting method between rows, that way you are mulching, composting & soil building all at the same time tin the same spot.

Just my clearly random thoughts.

 

[patandchickens]

Just an addition about mulching -

if you use a thick layer of organic mulch (like compost or leaves or straw or woodchips or whatever), you really ought to lay a drip/soaker hose underneath it. One unfortunate downside of thick mulch is that it can absorb rainfall before it gets to the soil, so small rains may not do the plants much good. Thus it is awfully useful to have a means of watering *underneath* the mulch. If you are hoseless you can substitute individually bucket-watering each plant and row, but that is a big big nuisance.


Pat

 

[adoptedbyachicken]

Thanks! I think I'm in a zone 3, and yet we are very hot in summer, with little to no rain help for July and August. At elevation so short season. I guess that decides it them, we will 'dig in' to create the garden this year, we have clay type soil so if I leave the walkways and trench the rows that should help hold water.

What about live mulch? In this area it seems that clover is popular to attract and hold dew, and shade the soil between plants while blocking weeds. Have you tried that? I added a bunch to the lawn and if that is left to grow a bit high it works great, feeds the lawn and keeps the moisture so we water much less. I have lots of straw to use, but it comes with chicken manure which would not be composted yet so I don't think that is such a good idea. Plants that like having warm roots would do well with the plastic early on but I think even they would burn by the heat of my summer. My container tomatoes the first year I was here literally cooked one day I left them on the front porch a week too long, should have moved them to the side and dug them in.

We have an irrigation well that is only 1.5 gallon a minute so I think continuous drip irrigation is the way we will have to go with some manual watering to adjust it. We have a cistern for the house well so we can use some of that water occasionally, but it has to serve the livestock as well, and its also on a 1.5 gallon a minute well. The irrigation well has only a 35 gallon pressure tank.

 

[patandchickens]

What about live mulch? In this area it seems that clover is popular to attract and hold dew, and shade the soil between plants while blocking weeds. Have you tried that? I added a bunch to the lawn and if that is left to grow a bit high it works great, feeds the lawn and keeps the moisture so we water much less.

Clover is GREAT in lawns. I am not certain which way it would work as living mulch though (net help or net hindrance) -- the difference is your lawn does not have the option of a complete mulch I have used clover as a cover crop around trees and bushes, but never with anything to compare it with, you know? So I am not sure which way it would work, for good or for bad. I think in your shoes I would probably do part of the garden w/clover and part w/ a nonliving mulch and see what happens, you can use the information profitably next year

I have lots of straw to use, but it comes with chicken manure which would not be composted yet so I don't think that is such a good idea. Plants that like having warm roots would do well with the plastic early on but I think even they would burn by the heat of my summer.

You can throw mulch over top of black plastic if you need to keep things cool in midsummer, you know. It can even be, like, tall weeds mowed down with a weedwhacker and raked together to use

What about mulch hay? A lot of times you can get mungy old hay that is not necessarily moldy as such but has weathered in the fields to the point where nobody is going to feed it to livestock and you can get it for very very cheap or even free. The only downside of hay or straw as mulch is that if you have rodent or earwig problems, BOY will you have rodent or earwig problems.

Since your water shortage is apparently pretty much just seasonal, the more organic matter you can put in your soil, the better. If it were me I think I'd dig in your chicken-shed straw, even if it is incompletely composted, just dig it in DEEP (don't mix it with the upper part of the soil, remove the upper part of the soil, put the pooey straw down underneath, fork together with upper subsoil, then replace upper soil). A few plants may not like this so much (esp. root veggies) but most will do just fine, and really if you can do this early enough in the season even root veggies may not mind very much. The extra organic matter will REALLY help the soil store water.

Good luck,

Pat