I live in a desert, with the average rainfall being right around 12 inches (about 30 centimeters) per year. That's ALL year, not just during the summer. I have to laugh when people talk about a drought, then say they ONLY get 10 inches of rain per month. The last time we got rain was about the beginning of May.
Under those circumstances, water use is extremely important. I try not to use anything from outside--no herbicides, pesticides, or fertilizers, I harvest my own seeds...and then I have to cancel out all my gains by buying water from the city. During the summer, I use about 60,000 gallons of water per month. A great deal of that is used to water lawns (a long story that I won't go into at the moment--sufficient to say that the lawns will stay for a while longer).
So let's round (just to make the calculations easy) and say I have a quarter of an acre. That's 10,890 square feet, or 1.5 million inches. If each inch receives just 10 inches of rain, that's more than 15 million inches or 68,000 gallons falling on my property. If I were able to use all of that (and assuming that I'm no longer feeding thirsty grass that needs to be watered three times per week) I could last much of the summer without supplemental watering.
Several problems with that scenario. First, water runs off. Second, water runs down (through the soil and into the water table) and third, water runs up (through evaporation).
The first is relatively simple--slope and grade the soil so that the water has to stay. A dip in the soil of an inch will prevent a great deal of water from running downhill. Fill that dip with mulch, you have a handy catchment area that will slowly drain that water into the soil over time.
The second, there's nothing I can do other than strip off the top 30 feet of soil (well honestly it's sand and rock, not soil), put down pond liner, and put the soil back. Uh...no.
The third, again, is relatively simple. Mulch. Lots and lots of mulch. Mulch every year. Seriously, if I wasn't buying 60,000 gallons of water per month how much mulch could I buy? LOTS.
On my property there is one area that is consistently hotter than anywhere else. I have never been able to do anything with it--everything I put there died. Repeatedly. But this year I did something different. I mulched it. As deep as I could, and this summer every bit of extra plant material I could scrape up went up there. Right now it's requiring one deep watering per week, as opposed to last year when I was watering it every single day and STILL everything died.
Now I'm seeing mushrooms in the mulch, and weeds I've never seen before. The plants are thriving--except in the areas where I haven't finished mulching deeply. There, they struggle, but they're still alive and kicking.
So if I could mulch the garden area like that, could I get away with once a week watering? I already water only twice a week in the main garden, and it has much better soil than the hill area. I'm guessing every other week, or even less once the system is established. That right there would cut my water usage a great deal.
This year I tried something new. Well, several somethings, but this year I didn't till the garden. I planted, and waited. And the plants thrived, with no additional water at all. I didn't water the main garden until the end of May, and everything grew just fine. So if I mulched it deeply, would I be able to stretch that to the end of June? The middle of July? The whole summer?
I don't know, but it's worth a try.
Showing posts with label water-wise. Show all posts
Showing posts with label water-wise. Show all posts
Thursday, August 4, 2016
Monday, April 25, 2016
Permaculture (in a sense)
Over the winter I started doing research into permaculture, learning that we've been using permaculture principles for some time without knowing it. :) Very little organic matter leaves this yard--it's all recycled, one way or another. Leaves and grass are compost, food debris goes in the compost pit. Thicker wood that can't be composted is burned for ash or used for any number of other things. The land is sloped so that there is very little runoff, and xeric plantings deliberately placed where the sprinklers don't reach.
Water is our Achilles heel, but permaculture has a cure for that.
We live in a desert. It rains in the spring and fall, a bare handful of times per year. Snow during the winter mostly runs off rather than soaking in. In all we get about fifteen inches of water per year. Summer temperatures run easily into the 90's and 100's, with near 0 humidity.
This year water prices are going to double or triple, and with more than a quarter acre of lawn and garden that's going to hurt. With that in mind, a few years ago I invested in a water catchment system to catch water off the roof. It's nearly complete. I also finished one of the drainage systems, carrying water from the downspout on one corner of the house across the grass and into the raspberries.
Two years ago we put in the drip system, and the secondary garden is watered by the lawn sprinklers. I'd much rather water vegetables than grass.
So this spring I ran a test. All of the vegetables were put in the ground--and left alone. The only water they've gotten was the rain two weeks ago. With temperatures in the 70's and 80's, I would have expected the water to evaporate quickly, leaving the seedlings languishing. If that had happened I would have watered, but they all appear fat and happy. As of last night (before the rain) the soil in the main garden was dry only two inches down, and in the western garden one inch. Seedlings are all up and amazing. Two transplants have been lost--one tomato, broken when a wall-o-water fell over on it, and a licorice seedling that something ate. Neither died from lack of water.
Last spring we were watering constantly, and the water just seemed to drain away, leaving the soil dry again within a day or two.
Something has changed.
I think we're working with a combination of things. First, each year early in the spring we till up the garden, which allows air in, fluffs the soil so to speak, but also creates more space for water to evaporate from. All that water that's settled deep in the soil during the winter evaporates off. We then plant into this aerated soil, and keep it watered until the seedlings come up. Because of the tilling the soil is broken up deep, allowing all the water to drain off. This year we didn't till, so the water that was in the soil is staying there.
Second, I mulched the surface as much as possible. Grass went down all last summer, and leaves in the fall. This year we will again mulch deeply with grass and leaves, as well as continuing with the deep compost pit.
By planting so that all soil is covered by something living (or a good thick layer of mulch, or both) we should minimize evaporation from the soil. With the use of consciously recognized permaculture principles (rather than just doing what feels right), I'm hoping that water use will be minimized this year.
The recipe for a water-wise garden:
Soil with plenty of organic matter
Mulch (next year's soil)
Plant densely
Catch and reuse (catchment tanks)
Water wisely (drip lines)
Water is our Achilles heel, but permaculture has a cure for that.
We live in a desert. It rains in the spring and fall, a bare handful of times per year. Snow during the winter mostly runs off rather than soaking in. In all we get about fifteen inches of water per year. Summer temperatures run easily into the 90's and 100's, with near 0 humidity.
This year water prices are going to double or triple, and with more than a quarter acre of lawn and garden that's going to hurt. With that in mind, a few years ago I invested in a water catchment system to catch water off the roof. It's nearly complete. I also finished one of the drainage systems, carrying water from the downspout on one corner of the house across the grass and into the raspberries.
Two years ago we put in the drip system, and the secondary garden is watered by the lawn sprinklers. I'd much rather water vegetables than grass.
So this spring I ran a test. All of the vegetables were put in the ground--and left alone. The only water they've gotten was the rain two weeks ago. With temperatures in the 70's and 80's, I would have expected the water to evaporate quickly, leaving the seedlings languishing. If that had happened I would have watered, but they all appear fat and happy. As of last night (before the rain) the soil in the main garden was dry only two inches down, and in the western garden one inch. Seedlings are all up and amazing. Two transplants have been lost--one tomato, broken when a wall-o-water fell over on it, and a licorice seedling that something ate. Neither died from lack of water.
Last spring we were watering constantly, and the water just seemed to drain away, leaving the soil dry again within a day or two.
Something has changed.
I think we're working with a combination of things. First, each year early in the spring we till up the garden, which allows air in, fluffs the soil so to speak, but also creates more space for water to evaporate from. All that water that's settled deep in the soil during the winter evaporates off. We then plant into this aerated soil, and keep it watered until the seedlings come up. Because of the tilling the soil is broken up deep, allowing all the water to drain off. This year we didn't till, so the water that was in the soil is staying there.
Second, I mulched the surface as much as possible. Grass went down all last summer, and leaves in the fall. This year we will again mulch deeply with grass and leaves, as well as continuing with the deep compost pit.
By planting so that all soil is covered by something living (or a good thick layer of mulch, or both) we should minimize evaporation from the soil. With the use of consciously recognized permaculture principles (rather than just doing what feels right), I'm hoping that water use will be minimized this year.
The recipe for a water-wise garden:
Soil with plenty of organic matter
Mulch (next year's soil)
Plant densely
Catch and reuse (catchment tanks)
Water wisely (drip lines)
Sunday, July 20, 2014
The hazards of driplines
We finished converting our garden to driplines this year. This means no overhead sprinklers. We're using about 20 to 30% less water (an important thing, in a desert) and the plants are doing fabulous.
Except...some of them aren't.
A month or so ago my winter squash wilted. Just a little, and I wasn't concerned because it was really hot (into the hundreds) and they were getting plenty of water.
The next day the whole plant was dead. Of course it took a while before the green leached out of it (we currently have a winter squash skeleton sprawled over a quarter of the garden) but it was really that quick. No sign of wilt prior. We checked the leaves for insect damage and found nothing. No white scum or other signs of disease. Completely fine one day, and gone the next.
It wasn't gradual, as I would expect with most squash pests, and it was the whole plant at the same time. Most squash pests will kill one part of the plant, or the leaves will die and the fruit continue to grow, etc. This was sudden, and complete.
We did what we could to save it. Shaded the root ball during the day, extra water, special fertilizer, and we put soil over the root nodes in the hope that it would put down more roots.
Too late.
Since nothing else in the garden was affected, we let it go. A fluke, right?
Last week one of our zucchini showed a hint of wilt. The next morning...
This time we were proactive. We took all the fruit and blossoms off it first thing, shaded the whole plant and put soil over the nodes. It's currently struggling.
When that happened I went into detective mode. I dug up the root ball of the winter squash. Normally these things are two to three feet across, with a tap root that goes four feet into the ground. Getting them out in the fall is a major chore. The tap root was maybe six inches long, with a handful of spindly little roots sprawling limply about six inches from it.
No wonder the thing died! With 200 feet of runners, dozens of blossoms and a dozen developing fruit, it simply didn't have the root capacity necessary!
It's possible that something ate the root—we do have gophers—but as I said, we finished up the drip lines this year. I was careful to space the plants right under the driplines, we've been watering twice a day (10 minutes, morning and evening) and to add insult to injury I surrounded all the plants with 4 to 6 inches of mulch to keep weeds down. Evaporation is lower.
I took good care of my plants—too good. They didn't have to stretch to get what they needed, so they didn't have the root mass necessary when they started producing. When we pulled the fruit off the sick zucchini, it had five good sized zucchini and three starting. The winter squash had about the same. Too much for those tiny, shriveled roots to support.
Last week we dropped watering back to once a day. We'll drop back to once every other day if necessary. The zucchini plant is starting to come back—maybe. It's poking a few new leaves up. We'll see if it survives, but you can bet that next year I won't be so careful.
I'll plant between the drip rows so the plants have to strain for the water, and water less.
It makes an interesting parallel with taking good care of human beings, but that's a rant for another time.
Except...some of them aren't.
A month or so ago my winter squash wilted. Just a little, and I wasn't concerned because it was really hot (into the hundreds) and they were getting plenty of water.
The next day the whole plant was dead. Of course it took a while before the green leached out of it (we currently have a winter squash skeleton sprawled over a quarter of the garden) but it was really that quick. No sign of wilt prior. We checked the leaves for insect damage and found nothing. No white scum or other signs of disease. Completely fine one day, and gone the next.
It wasn't gradual, as I would expect with most squash pests, and it was the whole plant at the same time. Most squash pests will kill one part of the plant, or the leaves will die and the fruit continue to grow, etc. This was sudden, and complete.
We did what we could to save it. Shaded the root ball during the day, extra water, special fertilizer, and we put soil over the root nodes in the hope that it would put down more roots.
Too late.
Since nothing else in the garden was affected, we let it go. A fluke, right?
Last week one of our zucchini showed a hint of wilt. The next morning...
This time we were proactive. We took all the fruit and blossoms off it first thing, shaded the whole plant and put soil over the nodes. It's currently struggling.
When that happened I went into detective mode. I dug up the root ball of the winter squash. Normally these things are two to three feet across, with a tap root that goes four feet into the ground. Getting them out in the fall is a major chore. The tap root was maybe six inches long, with a handful of spindly little roots sprawling limply about six inches from it.
No wonder the thing died! With 200 feet of runners, dozens of blossoms and a dozen developing fruit, it simply didn't have the root capacity necessary!
It's possible that something ate the root—we do have gophers—but as I said, we finished up the drip lines this year. I was careful to space the plants right under the driplines, we've been watering twice a day (10 minutes, morning and evening) and to add insult to injury I surrounded all the plants with 4 to 6 inches of mulch to keep weeds down. Evaporation is lower.
I took good care of my plants—too good. They didn't have to stretch to get what they needed, so they didn't have the root mass necessary when they started producing. When we pulled the fruit off the sick zucchini, it had five good sized zucchini and three starting. The winter squash had about the same. Too much for those tiny, shriveled roots to support.
Last week we dropped watering back to once a day. We'll drop back to once every other day if necessary. The zucchini plant is starting to come back—maybe. It's poking a few new leaves up. We'll see if it survives, but you can bet that next year I won't be so careful.
I'll plant between the drip rows so the plants have to strain for the water, and water less.
It makes an interesting parallel with taking good care of human beings, but that's a rant for another time.
Wednesday, June 4, 2014
Polka-dotted lawn
The year is already hot. The first few months are usually testing, figuring out the same stuff we figured out last year (and didn't write down), fixing sprinklers, etc.
Anyway, the lawn is already turning brown. Part of that is the heat, and part the fact that our sprinkler system doesn't seem to be functioning correctly. Brown lawn in June = not good.
A few years ago I ran into an article that talked about drought tolerant lawn alternatives. Several were all about the specially bred and genetically altered lawn alternatives, but I try to stay away from GMO's as a matter of course.
That's a rant for another day.
Another alternative mentioned was yarrow.
Achillea Millefolium
Family: Compositae
I already did a blog post on yarrow as a medicine in 2012, but this one has a different focus.
The article suggested that yarrow could take the place of a traditional lawn. It's drought tolerant, and when water is available it grows faster than traditional grass. It uses less water for a better result. For the last few years I've been transplanting bits of yarrow into my lawn, which creates an interesting patch-work effect when the rest of the lawn dies back.
The yarrow stays green, so I have polka-dots. It grows slowly, crowding out the traditional grass. A piece planted about eight years ago is now about two feet across (or would be, except that it got dug up because we were building a wall there this spring). If given its own space it grows much faster. If it's kept mowed it's softer than traditional grass. If not kept mowed it will flower, but the flowers don't produce seeds. At least mine haven't. If not kept mowed, the remaining hard bits of the flower stalks will make your lawn hard to walk on.
One disadvantage is that you won't find many who sell yarrow carpet. It just won't happen. Yarrow doesn't seed and it grows too slowly to be commercially viable.
Try it, though. If you have a small area, dig out the weeds and get a handful of yarrow plants from your local nursery. Plant them about a foot apart, keep them watered until they're established (about two weeks) keep it mowed and by next spring you may have a great yarrow carpet.
Historical note, April 2015: I have since learned that yarrow does seed, profusely. I don't know why I don't get seedlings in my yard. I have about a dozen yarrow seedlings ready to go in the lawn. I want to get rid of the back lawn entirely this year.
Anyway, the lawn is already turning brown. Part of that is the heat, and part the fact that our sprinkler system doesn't seem to be functioning correctly. Brown lawn in June = not good.
A few years ago I ran into an article that talked about drought tolerant lawn alternatives. Several were all about the specially bred and genetically altered lawn alternatives, but I try to stay away from GMO's as a matter of course.
That's a rant for another day.
Another alternative mentioned was yarrow.
Achillea Millefolium
Family: Compositae
I already did a blog post on yarrow as a medicine in 2012, but this one has a different focus.
The article suggested that yarrow could take the place of a traditional lawn. It's drought tolerant, and when water is available it grows faster than traditional grass. It uses less water for a better result. For the last few years I've been transplanting bits of yarrow into my lawn, which creates an interesting patch-work effect when the rest of the lawn dies back.
The yarrow stays green, so I have polka-dots. It grows slowly, crowding out the traditional grass. A piece planted about eight years ago is now about two feet across (or would be, except that it got dug up because we were building a wall there this spring). If given its own space it grows much faster. If it's kept mowed it's softer than traditional grass. If not kept mowed it will flower, but the flowers don't produce seeds. At least mine haven't. If not kept mowed, the remaining hard bits of the flower stalks will make your lawn hard to walk on.
One disadvantage is that you won't find many who sell yarrow carpet. It just won't happen. Yarrow doesn't seed and it grows too slowly to be commercially viable.
Try it, though. If you have a small area, dig out the weeds and get a handful of yarrow plants from your local nursery. Plant them about a foot apart, keep them watered until they're established (about two weeks) keep it mowed and by next spring you may have a great yarrow carpet.
Historical note, April 2015: I have since learned that yarrow does seed, profusely. I don't know why I don't get seedlings in my yard. I have about a dozen yarrow seedlings ready to go in the lawn. I want to get rid of the back lawn entirely this year.
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