Chapter 7
The Backyard
Water-Wise Gardener
I am an unusually fortunate gardener. After seven years of struggling on one of the poorest growing sites in this region we now live on 16 acres of mostly excellent, deep soil, on the floor of a beautiful, coastal Oregon valley. My house and gardens are perched safely above the 100-year flood line, there's a big, reliable well, and if I ever want more than 20 gallons per minute in midsummer, there's the virtually unlimited Umpqua River to draw from. Much like a master skeet shooter who uses a .410 to make the sport more interesting, I have chosen to dry garden.
Few are this lucky. These days the majority of North Americans live an urban struggle. Their houses are as often perched on steep, thinly soiled hills or gooey, difficult clay as on a tiny fragment of what was once prime farmland. And never does the municipal gardener have one vital liberty I do: to choose which one-sixth of an acre in his 14-acre "back yard" he'll garden on this year.
I was a suburban backyard gardener for five years before deciding to homestead. I've frequently recalled this experience while learning to dry garden. What follows in this chapter are some strategies to guide the urban in becoming more water-wise.
Water Conservation Is the Most Important First Step
After it rains or after sprinkler irrigation, water evaporates from the surface until a desiccated earth mulch develops. Frequent light watering increases this type of loss. Where lettuce, radishes, and other shallow-rooting vegetables are growing, perhaps it is best to accept this loss or spread a thin mulch to reduce it. But most vegetables can feed deeper, so if wetting the surface can be avoided, a lot of water can be saved. Even sprinkling longer and less frequently helps accomplish that. Half the reason that drip systems are more efficient is that the surface isn't dampened and virtually all water goes deep into the earth. The other half is that they avoiding evaporation that occurs while water sprays through the air between the nozzle and the soil. Sprinkling at night or early in the morning, when there is little or no wind, prevents almost all of this type of loss.
To use drip irrigation it is not necessary to invest in pipes, emitters, filters, pressure regulators, and so forth. I've already explained how recycled plastic buckets or other large containers can be improvised into very effective drip emitters. Besides, drip tube systems are not trouble free: having the beds covered with fragile pipes makes hoeing dicey, while every emitter must be periodically checked against blockage.