 CHAPTER V. HOW TO GROW IT WITH LESS IRRIGATION, A TO Z. First a word about varieties. As recently as the 1930s, most American country folk still did not have running water. With water being hand-pumped and carried in buckets and precious, their vegetable gardens had to be grown with a minimum of irrigation. In the otherwise well-watered east, one could routinely expect several consecutive weeks every summer without rain. In some drought years, a hot, rainless month or longer could go by. So vegetable varieties were bred to grow through dry spells without loss, and traditional American vegetable gardens were designed to help them do so. I began gardening in the early 1970s, just as the raised bed method was being popularized. The latest books and magazine articles all agreed that raising vegetables in widely separated single rows was a foolish imitation of commercial farming, that commercial vegetables were arranged that way for ease of mechanical cultivation. Closely planted raised beds requiring hand cultivation were alleged to be far more productive and far more efficient users of irrigation because water wasn't evaporating from bare soil. I think this is more likely to be the truth. Old-fashioned gardens use low plant densities to survive inevitable spells of rainlessness. Looked at this way, widely separated vegetables in widely separated rows may be considered the more efficient users of water because they consume soil moisture that nature freely puts there. Only after and if these reserves are significantly depleted does the gardener have to irrigate. The end result is surprisingly more abundant than a modern gardener educated on intensive raised bed propaganda would think. Finding varieties still adapted to water-wise gardening is becoming difficult. Most American vegetables are now bred for irrigation-dependent California. Like raised-bed gardeners, vegetable farmers have discovered that they can make a bigger profit by growing smaller, quick-maturing plants in high-density spacings. Most modern vegetables have been bred to suit this method. Many new varieties can't forage and have become smaller, more determinate, and faster to mature. Actually, the larger, more sprawling heirloom varieties of the past were not a great deal less productive overall, but only a little later to begin yielding. Fortunately, enough of the old sorts still exist that a selective and variately aware home gardener can make do. Since I've become water-wiser, I'm interested in finding and conserving heirlooms that once supported large numbers of healthy Americans in relative self-sufficiency. My earlier book, Being a Guide to What Passes for Ordinary Vegetable Gardening these days, assumed the availability of plenty of water. The varieties I recommended in growing vegetables west of the Cascades were largely modern ones, and the seed companies I praised most highly focused on top-quality commercial varieties. But looking at gardening through the filter of limited irrigation, other, less modern varieties are often far better adapted and other seed companies sometimes more likely sources. Abundant Company Directory Note Throughout the growing directions that follow in this chapter, the reader will be referred to a specific company only for varieties that are not widely available. End Note. Abundant Life Seed Foundation, P.O. Box 772, Port Townsend, Washington, 98368, A.B.L. varieties selected seeds, Foss Hill Road, Albion Main, 04910, JSS, Peace Seeds, 2345, Southeast Thompson Street, Corvallis, Oregon, 97333, PEA, Ronninger's Seed Potatoes, P.O. Box 1838, Orting, Washington, 98360, RSP, Stokes Seeds, Inc., Box 548, Buffalo, New York, 14240, STK, Territorial Seed Company, P.O. Box 20, Cottage Grove, Oregon, 97424, TSC. I have again come to appreciate the older style of vegetable, sprawling, large-framed, later maturing, longer-yielding, vigorously rooting. However, many of these old-timers have not seen the attentions of a professional plant breeder for many years and throw a fair percentage of bizarre, misshapen, non-productive plants. These off-types can be compensated for by growing a somewhat larger garden and allowing for some waste. Dr. Alan Capular, who runs Peace Seeds, has brilliantly pointed out to me why heirloom varieties are likely to be more nutritious. Propagated by centuries of isolated homesteaders, heirlooms that survived did so because these superior varieties helped the gardener's better-nourished babies pass through the gauntlet of childhood illnesses. Plant Spacing, the key to water-wise gardening. Reduced plant density is the essence of dry gardening. The recommended spacings in this section are those I have found workable at Elkden, Oregon. My dry garden is generally laid out in single rows, the row centers four feet apart. Some larger crops, like potatoes, tomatoes, beans, and cucurbits, squash, cucumbers, and melons, are allocated more elbow room. Most few requiring intensive irrigation are grown on a raised bed, tightly spaced. I cannot prescribe what would be the perfect, most efficient spacing for your garden. Are your temperatures lower than mine and evaporation less, or is your weather hotter? Does your soil hold more than less than, or just as much available moisture as mine? Is it as deep and open and moisture-retentive? To help you compare your site with mine, I give you the following data. My homestead is only 25 miles inland, and is always several degrees cooler in summer than the Willamette Valley. Washingtonians and British Columbians have cooler days and a greater likelihood of sufficient summertime rain, and so may plant a little closer together. Indland gardeners farther south or in the Willamette Valley may want to spread their plants out a little farther. Living on 16 acres, I have virtually unlimited space to garden in. The focus of my recent research has been to eliminate irrigation as much as possible while maintaining food quality. Those with thinner soil who are going to depend more on fertilization may plant closer. How close, depending on the amount of water available. More irrigation will also give higher per square foot yields. Whatever your combination of conditions, your results can only be determined by trial. I'd suggest you become water-wise by testing a range of spacings. Wind to plant If you've already been growing an irrigated year-round garden, this book's suggested planting dates may surprise you. And as with spacing, sowing dates must also be wisely adjusted to your location. The planting dates in this chapter are what I follow in my own garden. It is impractical to include specific dates for all the microclimactic areas of the Maritime Northwest and for every vegetable species. Readers are asked to make adjustments by understanding their weather relative to mine. Gardeners to the north of me and at higher elevations should make their spring sowing a week or two later than the dates I use. In the Garden Valley of Rosberg and south along I-5 start to spring plantings a week or two earlier. Along the southern Oregon coast and in Northern California start three or four weeks sooner than I do. Fall comes earlier to the north of me and to higher elevation gardens. And of season growth rates, they're also slow more profoundly than they do at Elkton. Summers are cooler along the coast. That has the same effect of sowing late summer growth. Items started after mid-summer should be given one or two extra growing weeks by coastal high elevation and northern gardeners. Gardeners to the south should sow their late crops a week or two later than I do. Along the south Oregon coast and in Northern California two to four weeks later than I do. Arugula rocket. The tender peppery little leaves make winter salads much more interesting. Sowing date. I delay sowing until late August or early September so my crowded patch of arugula lasts all winter and doesn't make seed until March. Pre germinated seeds emerge fast and strong. Sprouted in early October, arugula still may reach eating size in midwinter. Spacing. Thinly seed a row into any vacant niche. The seedlings will be insufficiently small until late summer. Irrigation. If the seedlings suffer a bit from moisture stress they'll catch up rapidly when the fall rains begin. Varieties. None. Beans of all sorts. Air loom pole beans once climbed over considerable competition while vigorously struggling for water, nutrition, and light. Modern bush varieties tend to have puny root systems. Sowing date. Mid-April is the usual time on the Umpqua. Elsewhere, so after the danger of frost is over and soil stays over 60 degrees Fahrenheit. If the earth is getting dry by this date soak the seed overnight before sowing and furrow down to moist soil. However, do not cover the seeds more than two inches. Spacing. Twelve to sixteen inches apart at final thinning. Allow about two and a half to three feet on either side of the trellis to avoid root competition from other plants. Irrigation. If part of the gardener is sprinkler irrigated space beans a little tighter and locate the bean trellis toward the outer reach of the sprinkler's throw. Due to its height the trellis tends to intercept quite a bit of water and dumps it at the base. You could also use the bucket drip method and furtigate the beans, giving about 25 gallons per 10 row feet once or twice during the summer. Pole beans can make a meaningful yield without any irrigation. Under severe moisture stress they will survive but bear little. Varieties. Any of the pole types seem to do fine. Runner beans seem to prefer cooler locations but are every bit as drought tolerant as ordinary snap peas. My current favorites are Kentucky Wonder White Seeded, Fortrex, TSC, JSS, and Musica, TSC. The older heirloom dry beans were mostly pole types. They are reasonably productive if allowed to sprawl on the ground without support. Their unirrigated seed yield is lower but the seed is still plump, tastes great, and sprouts well. Compared to unirrigated black cocoa, TSC, which is my most productive and best tasting bush cultivar. Kentucky Wonder Bean Seeded, sometimes called Old Homestead, STK, PEA, APL yields about 50% more seed and keeps on growing for weeks after cocoa has quit. Do not bother to furtigate untrellist pole beans grown for dry seed. With the threat of September moisture always looming over dry bean plots, we need to encourage vines to quit setting and dry down. Peaced seeds and abundant life offer long lists of heirloom vining dry bean varieties. Serious self-sufficiency buffs seeking to produce their own legume supply should also consider the fava, garbanzo bean, and Alaska pea. Many favas can be overwintered. So in October, sprout on fall rains, grow over the winter, and dry down in June with the soil. Garbanzos are grown like mildly frost-tolerant peas. Alaska peas are the type used for pea soup. They're spring sown and grown like ordinary shelling peas. Avoid overhead irrigation while seeds are drying down. Beets. Beets will root far deeper and wider than most people realize in uncompacted non-acid soils. Double or triple dig the subsoil directly below the seed row. Sowing date. Early April at Elkton, late March farther south, and as late as April 30 in British Columbia. Beets seed germinates easily in moist, cool soil. A single sowing may be harvested from June through early March the next year if properly thinned good varieties remain tender. Spacing. A single row will gradually exhaust subsoil moisture from an area four feet wide. When the seedlings are two to three inches tall, thin carefully to about one inch apart. When the edible part is radish size, thin to two inches apart and eat the thinnings, tops and all. When they've grown to golf ball size, thin to four inches apart, thin again. When they reach the size of large lemons, thin to one foot apart. Given this much room and deep open soil, the beets will continue to grow through the entire summer. Hill up some soil over the huge roots early in November to protect them from freezing. Irrigation. Probably not necessary with over four feet of deep open soil. Varieties. I've done best with early wonder tall top. When large, it develops a thick protective skin and retains excellent eating quality. Winter keepers normally sown in mid-summer with irrigation tend to bolt prematurely when sown in April. Broccoli, Italian style. Italian style broccoli needs abundant moisture to be tender and make large flowers. Given enough elbow room, many varieties can endure long periods of moisture stress, but the smaller woody, slow developing florets won't be good eating. Without any irrigation, spring sown broccoli may still be enjoyed in early summer and purple sprouting in March-April after overwintering. Sowing date. Without any irrigation at all, mid-March through early April. With vertigation, also mid-April through mid-May, this later sowing will allow cutting through summer. Spacing. Broccoli tastes better when big plants grow big, sweet heads. Allow a four-foot-wide row. Space early sowings about three feet apart in the row. Later sowings slated to mature during summer's heat can use four feet. On a fist-sized spot compacted to restore capillarity, sew a little pinch of seed atop a well and deeply fertilized double-dug patch of earth. Thin gradually to the best single plant by the time three or four true leaves have developed. Irrigation. After mid-June, four to five gallons of drip-bucket liquid fertilizer every two to three weeks makes an enormous difference. You'll be surprised at the size of the heads and the quality of side shoots. A furtigated May sowing will be exhausted by October. Take a chance. A heavy side dressing of strong compost or complete organic fertilizer when the rains return may trigger a massive spurt of new larger heads from buds located below the soil's surface. Varieties. Many hybrids have weak roots. I'd avoid anything that was held up on a tall stock for mechanical harvest or was compact or that didn't have many side shoots. Go for larger size. Territorials hybrid blend yields big heads for over a month followed by abundant side shoots. Old open-pollinated types like Italian sprouting calibraries, De Ciccio or Walton 29 are highly variable, bushy with rather coarse, large beaded flowers, second rate flavor and many, many side shoots. Irrigating gardeners who can start new plants every four weeks from May through July may prefer hybrids. Dry gardeners who will want to cut side shoots for as long as possible during summer from large, well-established plants may prefer crude, open-pollinated varieties. Try both. Broccoli. Purple sprouting in other overwintering types. Spacing. Grow like broccoli three to four feet apart. Sowing date. It is easiest to sow in April or early May. Minimally, furtigate a somewhat gnarly plant through the summer. Push it for size in fall and winter and then harvest it next March. With too early a start in spring, some premature flowering may occur in autumn. Still, massive blooming will resume again in spring. Overwintering green Italian types such as ML423, TSC, will flower in fall if sown before late June. These sorts are better started in a nursery bed around August 1st and like overwintered cauliflower, transplanted about two feet apart when fall rains return. Then pushed for growth with extra fertilizer in fall and winter. With nearly a whole year to grow before blooming, purple sprouting eventually reaches four to five feet in height and three to four feet in diameter and yields hugely. Irrigation. It is not essential to heavily furtigate purple sprouting, though you may GROW enormous plants for their beauty. Quality or quantity of spring harvest won't drop one bit if the plants become a little stunted and gnarly in summer. As long as you fertilize late in September to spur rapid growth during fall and winter. Root system vigor in the cabbage family. Wild cabbage is a weed and grows like one, able to successfully compete for water against grasses and other herbs. Remove all competition with a hoe and allow this weed to totally control all the moisture and nutrients in all the earth its roots can occupy and it grows hugely and lushly. Just for fun I once GROW one with tillage, hoe-ing and spring fertilization but no irrigation. It ended up five feet tall and six feet in diameter. As this highly moldable family is inbred and shaped into more and more exaggerated forms it weakens and loses the ability to forage. Kale retains the most wild aggressiveness. Chinese cabbage perhaps the least. Here in approximately correct order is shown the declining root vigor and general adaptation to moisture stress of cabbage family vegetables. The table shows the most vigorous at the top, declining as it goes down. Adapted to dry gardening. Kale, brussel sprouts, late types, late savoy cabbage, giant field type kalarabi, mid-season savoy cabbage, rutabaga, Italian broccoli, some varieties, not vigorous enough. Italian broccoli, some varieties, cabbage, regular market types, brussel sprouts, early types, small market garden kalarabi, cauliflower, regular annual, turnips and radishes, Chinese cabbage, brussel sprouts. Sewing date. If the plants are a foot tall before the soil starts drying down, their roots will be over a foot deep. The plants will then grow hugely with a bit of fertilization. At Elkton, I dry garden brussel sprouts by growing late April to early May. Started this soon, even late maturing varieties may begin forming sprouts by September. Though premature bottom sprouts will blow up and become aphid damaged, more higher quality sprouts will continue to form farther up the stock during autumn and winter. Spacing. Make each spot about four feet apart. Irrigation. Without any added moisture, the plants will become stunted but will survive all summer. Side dressing manure or fertilizer late in September or sooner if the rains come sooner will provoke very rapid autumn growth and a surprisingly large yield from plants that looked stressed out in August. If increasingly larger amounts of fertilization can be provided every two to three weeks, the lush brussel sprouts plants can become four feet in diameter and four feet tall by October and yield enormously. Varieties. Use late European hybrid types. At Elkton, where winters are a little milder than in the Willamette, Lunit, TSC has the finest eating qualities. Where I farther north I grow hardier types like Stabilite, TSC or Fortress, TSC. Early types are not suitable to growing with insufficient irrigation or frequent spraying to fight off aphids. Cabbage. Forget those delicate green supermarket cabbages unless you have unlimited amounts of water. But easiest to grow Savoy types will do surprisingly well with surprisingly little support. Besides, Savoys are the best salad material. Sewing date. I suggest three sewing times. The first is a succession of early mid-season and late Savoys made in mid-March for harvest during summer. The second, late and very late varieties started late April to early May for harvest during fall and winter. The last, a nursery bed of overwintered sorts grown late in August. Spacing. Early maturing Savoy varieties are naturally smaller and may not experience much hot weather before heading up. These may be separated by about 30 inches. The latter ones are large plants and should be given four feet of space or 16 square feet of growing room. Sew and grow them like broccoli. Transplant overwintered cabbages from nursery beds late in October spaced about three feet apart. These thrive where the squash grew. Irrigation. The more fertigation you can supply, the larger and more luxuriant the plants and the bigger the heads. But even small, somewhat moisture-pressed Savoys make very edible heads. In terms of increased yield for water expended, it is well worth it to provide late varieties with a few gallons of fertigation about mid-June and a bucket full in mid-July and mid-August. Varieties. Japanese hybrid Savoys make tender eating but may not withstand winter. European Savoys are hardier, coarser, thicker-leaved, and harder chewing. For the first sewing, I suggest a succession of Japanese varieties, including Salarite or Savoy Princess for Earlies, Savoy Queen, King, or Savoy Ace for Midsummer, and Savonark, TSC, for late August, early September harvests. They're all great varieties for the second sewing I grow Savonark, TSC, for September to November cutting, and a very late European hybrid type like Wivoy, TSC, for winter. Small-framed January King lacks sufficient root vigor. Springtime, TSC, and FEM 218, TSC, are the only overwintered cabbages available. Carrots. Dry-gardening carrots requires patiently waiting until the weather stabilizes before tilling and sewing. To avoid even a little bit of soil compaction, I try to sprout the seed without irrigation but always fear that hot weather will frustrate my efforts. So I till the plant too soon. And then heavy rain comes and compacts my perfectly fluffed-up soil. But the looser and finer the earth remains during their first six growing weeks, the more perfectly the roots will develop. Sewing date, April in Elkton. Spacing, allocate four feet of width to a single row of carrot seed. When the seedlings are about two inches tall, thin to one inch apart. Then thin every other carrot when the roots are 3 1⁄8 to 1⁄2 inch in diameter and eat the thinnings. A few weeks later, when the carrots are about 3⁄4 to one inch in diameter, make a final thinning to one foot apart. Irrigation, not necessary. Foliar feeding every few weeks will make much larger roots. Without any help, they should grow to several pounds each. Varieties. Choosing the right variety is very important. Nonsense and other delicate juicy types lack enough fiber to hold together when they get very large. These split prematurely. I've had my best results with Danvers types. I'd also tried Royal Chantone, PEA, Facal Mix, TSC, Stokes processor types, and Topweight, ABL. Be prepared to experiment with variety. The roots will not be quite as tender as heavily watered Nance types but are a lot better than you'd think. Huge carrots are excellent in soups and we cheerfully grate them into salads. Something about accumulating sunshine all summer makes the roots incredibly sweet. Colorflower. Ordinary varieties cannot forage for moisture. Worse, moisture stress at any time during the growth cycle prevents proper formation of curds. The only important colorflowers suitable for dry gardening are overwintered types. I call them important because they're easy to grow and they'll feed the family during April and early May when other garden fare is very scarce. Sewing date. To acquire enough size to survive cold weather, overwintered colorflower must be started on a nursery bed during the difficult heat of early August. Except south of Yonkala, delaying sewing until September makes very small seedlings that may not be hardy enough and likely won't yield much in April unless winter is very mild, encouraging unusual growth. Spacing. In October, transplant about two feet apart in rows three to four feet apart. Irrigation. If you have more water available, fertilize and till up some dusty dry soil, wet down the row, direct seed like broccoli, but closer together, and periodically irrigate until fall. If you only moisten a narrow band of soil close to the seedlings, it won't take much water. Colorflower grows especially well in the row that held bush peas. Varieties. The best are the very pricey Armando series sold by Territorial. Chard. This vegetable is basically a beet with succulent leaves and thick stalks instead of edible, sweet roots. It is just as drought tolerant as a beet and in dry gardening, chard is sown, spaced and grown just like a beet. But if you want voluminous leaf production during summer, you may want to furtigate it occasionally. Varieties. The red chards are not suitable for starting early in the season. They have a strong tendency to bolt prematurely of sown during that part of the year when day length is increasing. Corn. Broadcast complete organic fertilizer or strong compost shallowly over the corn patch till midwinter, or as early in spring as the earth can be worked without making too many clods. Corn will germinate in pretty rough soil. High levels of nutrients in the subsoil are more important than a fine seed bed. Sowing date. About the time frost danger ends. Being large seed, corn can be set deep where soil moisture still exists even after conditions have warmed up. Germination without irrigation should be no problem. Spacing. The farther south, the farther apart. Entirely without irrigation, I've had fine results spacing individual corn plants three feet apart and rows three feet apart or nine square feet per each plant. Where I around Puget Sound or in BC, I'd try two feet apart and rows 30 inches apart. Gary Novin describes Papago gardeners in Arizona growing individual corn stalks 10 feet apart. Grown on wide spacings, corn tends to tiller, put up multiple stalks, each making one or two ears. For most urban and suburban gardeners, space is too valuable to allocate nine square feet for producing one or at best three or four ears. Irrigation. With normal sprinkler irrigation, corn may be spaced eight inches apart and rows 30 inches apart, still yielding one or two ears per stalk. Varieties. Where I had devoted a sweet corn eater without enough irrigation, I'd be buying a few dozen freshly picked ears from the back of a pickup truck parked on a corner during local harvest season. Where I had devoted corn grower without any irrigation, I'd be experimenting with various types of field corn instead of sweet corn. Where I a self-sufficiency buff, trying earnestly to produce all my own cereal, I'd accept that the Maritime Northwest is a region where survivalists will eat wheat, rye, millet and other small grains. Many varieties of field corn are nearly as sweet as ordinary sweet corn, but grain varieties become starchy and tough within hours of harvest. Eatin' promptly, pig corn is every bit as tasty as jubilee. I've had the best dry garden results from North Stein Dent, JSS, and Garland Flint, JSS. Hooker's Sweet Indian, TSC, has a weak root system. Successfully starting cooker bits from seed. With cooker bits, germination depends on high enough soil temperature and not too much moisture. Squash are the most chill and moisture tolerant, melons the least. Here's a failure proof and simple technique that ensures you'll plant it exactly the right time. Cucumbers, squash and melons are traditionally sown atop a deeply dug, fertilized spot that usually looks like a little mound after it is worked and is commonly called a hill. About two weeks before the last anticipated frost date in your area, plant five or six squash seeds about two inches deep in a clump in the very center of that hill. Then a week later, plant another clump at 12 o'clock. In another week, plant another clump at three o'clock and continue doing this until one of the sowing sprouts. Probably the first try won't come up, but the hill will certainly germinate several clumps of seedlings. If weather conditions turn poor, a later to sprout group may outgrow those that came up earlier, thin gradually to the best single plant by the time the vines are running. When the first squash seeds appear, it is time to begin sowing cucumbers, starting a new batch each week until one emerges. When the cucumbers first germinate, it's time to try melons. Approaching cucurbits this way ensures that you'll get the earliest possible germination while being protected against the probability that cold, damp weather will prevent germination or permanently spoil the growth prospects of the earlier seedlings. Cucumbers, sowing date, about May 5 to 15 at Elkton. Spacing, most varieties usually run five about three feet from the hill. Space the hills about five to six feet apart in all directions. Irrigation, like melons, regular and increasing amounts of verdugation will increase the yield several hundred percent. Varieties, I've had very good results dry gardening Amira 2, TSC, even without any verdugation at all. It is a Middle Eastern style variety that makes pickler size, thin skinned cuques that need no peeling and have terrific flavor. The burplis or Japanese sorts don't seem to adapt well to drought. Most slicers dry garden excellently. Apple or lemon are similar novelty heirlooms that make very extensive vines with aggressive roots and should be given a foot or two more elbow room. I'd avoid any variety touted as being for pot or patio, compact or short vined because of a likely link between its vine structure and root system. Eggplant, grown without regular sprinkler irrigation Eggplant seems to get larger and yield sooner and more abundantly. I suspect this delicate and fairly drought resistant tropical species does not like having its soil temperature lowered by frequent watering. Sewing date, set out transplants at the usual time about two weeks after the tomatoes. After all frost danger has passed and after nights have stably warmed up above 50 degrees Fahrenheit. Spacing, double dig and deeply fertilize the soil under each transplant. Separate plants by about three feet in rows about four feet apart. Irrigation, will grow and produce a few fruit without any watering, but a bucket of vertigation every three to four weeks during summer may result in the most luxurious, hugest and heaviest bearing eggplants you've ever grown. Varieties, I've noticed no special varietal differences in ability to tolerate dry soil. I've had good yields from the regionally adapted varieties, dusky hybrid, short tom and early one. Endive, a biennial member of the chicory family. Endive quickly puts down a deep tap root and is naturally able to grow through prolonged drought. Because endive remains bitter until cold weather, it doesn't matter if it grows slowly through summer, just so long as rapid leaf production resumes in autumn. Sowing date, unirrigated raised beds, endive is sown around August one and heads by mid-October. The problem with dry gardened endive is that if it is spring sown during days of increase in day length, when germination of shallow sown small seed is a snap, it will bolt prematurely. The crucial moment seems to be about June one. April-May sowings bolt in July-August. After June one, boltings don't happen until the next spring but germination won't happen without watering. One solution is soaking the seeds overnight, rinsing them frequently until they begin to sprout and fluid drilling them. Spacing, the heads become huge when started in June. Sowing rows four feet apart and thin gradually until the rosettes are three inches in diameter, then thin to 18 inches apart. Irrigation, without a drop of moisture, the plants, even as tiny seedlings, will grow steadily but slowly all summer as long as no other crop is invading their root zone. The only time I had trouble was when the endive row was too close to an aggressive row of yellow crook neck squash. About August the squash roots began invading the endive's territory and the endive got willty. A light side dressing of complete organic fertilizer or compost in late September will grow the hugest plants imaginable. Varieties, curly types seem more tolerant to rain and frost during winter than broadleaf butavian varieties. I prefer president, TSC. Herbs, most perennial and biennial herbs are actually weeds and wild hillside shrubs of Mediterranean climates similar to that of Southern California. They are adapted to growing on winter rainfall and surviving seven to nine months without rainfall every summer. In our climate, merely giving them a little more elbow room than usually offered, thorough weeding and side dressing the herb garden with a little compost in fall is enough coddling. Annuals such as dill and cilantro are also very drought tolerant. Basil, however, needs considerable moisture. Kale. Depending on the garden for a sufficient portion of my annual caloric intake has gradually refined my eating habits. Years ago I learned to like cabbage salads as much as lettuce. Since lettuce freezes out many winters, 19 to 21 degrees Fahrenheit, this adjustment has proved very useful. Gradually I began to appreciate kale too and now value it as a salad green far more than cabbage. This personal adaptation has proved very pro-survival because even savoy cabbages do not grow as readily or yield nearly as much kale and kale is a tad more cold-hearty than even savoy cabbages. You may be surprised to learn that kale produces more complete protein per area occupied per time involved than any legume, including alfalfa. If it is steamed with the potatoes and then mashed, the two vegetables complement and flavor each other. Our region could probably subsist quite a bit more healthfully than at present on potatoes and kale. The key to enjoying kale as a salad component is varietal choice, preparation, and using the right parts of the plant. Read on. Sewing date. With irrigation, fast-growing kale is usually started in mid-summer for use in fall and winter, but kale is absolutely biennial, started in March or April. It will not bolt until the next spring. The water-wise gardener can conveniently sow kale while cool, moist soil simplifies germination. Starting this early also produces a deep root system before the soil dries much and a much taller, very useful central stalk on alastia types, while early sown Siberian, Napa varieties tend to form multiple rosettes by autumn, also useful at harvest time. Spacing grow like broccoli spaced four feet apart. Irrigation. Without any water, the somewhat-stunted plants will survive the summer to begin rapid growth as soon as fall rains resume. With the help of occasional fertilization, they grow lushly and are enormous by September. Either way, there still will be plenty of kale during fall and winter. Harvest. Bundles of strong-flavored, tough, large leaves are sold in supermarkets, but are the worst-eating part of the plant. If chopped finely enough, big, raw leaves can be masticated and tolerated by people with good teeth. However, the tiny leaves are far tenderer and much milder. The more rosettes developed on Siberian cales, the more little leaves there are to be picked. By pinching off the central growing tip in October and then gradually stripping off the large shading leaves, oleracea varieties may be encouraged to put out dozens of clusters of small succulent leaves at each leaf notch along the central stalk. The taller the stalk grown during summer, the more of these little leaves there will be. Only home gardeners can afford the time to hand-pick small leaves. Varieties. I somewhat prefer the flavor of red Russian to the ubiquitous green Siberian, but red Russian is very slightly less cold-hearty. Westland winter, TSC, and conserva, JSS, are tall European oleracea varieties. Winterbore of F1, JSS, TSC is also excellent. The dwarf scotch cales, blue or green, sold by many American seed companies are less vigorous types that don't produce nearly as many gourmet little leaves. Dwarfs in any species tend to have dwarfed root systems. Kalrabi giant. Spring-sown market kalrabi are usually harvested before hot weather makes them get woody. Irrigation is not required if they're given a little extra elbow room. With ordinary varieties, try thinning to five inches apart in rows two to three feet apart and harvest by thinning alternate plants. Given this additional growing room, they may not get woody until summer. On my irrigated intensive bed, I always sow some more on August 1st to have tender bulbs in autumn. Kalrabi was once grown as European fodder crop. Slow-growing farmers, varieties grow huge like rutabakas. These field types have been crossed with table types to make giant table varieties that really suit dry gardening. What to do with the giant kalrabi or any bulb getting overblown? Peel, grate finely, add chopped onion, dress with olive oil and black pepper, toss, and enjoy this old European mainstay. Sewing date. Sew giant varieties during April as late as possible while still getting a foot tall plant before really hot weather. Spacing, thin to three feet apart in rows four feet apart. Irrigation, not absolutely necessary on deep soil, but if they get one or two thorough vertigations during summer, their size may double. Varieties. A few American seed companies, including peace seeds, have a giant kalrabi of some sort or other. The ones I've tasted tend to be woody, are crude, and throw many off types, a high percentage of weak plants, and or poorly shaped roots. By the time this book is in print, territorial should list a unique Swiss variety called supersmelts, which is uniformly huge and stays tender into the next year. Leaks. Unwatered spring-sown, bulbing onions are impossible. Leak is the only alium I know of that may grow steadily but slowly through severe drought. The water short gardener can depend on leaks for a fall winter onion supply. Sewing date. Start a row or several short rows about 12 inches apart on a nursery bed in March or early April at the latest. Grow thickly, irrigate during May, June, and fertilize well so the competing seedlings get leggy. Spacing. By mid to late June, the seedlings should be slightly spindly, pencil thick, and scallion size. With a sharp shovel, dig out the nursery row, carefully retaining five or six inches of soil below the seedlings. With a strong jet of water, blast away the soil, and while doing this, gently separate the tangled roots so that as little damage is done as possible. Make sure the roots don't dry out before transplanting. After separation, I temporarily wrap bundled seedlings in wet newspaper. Dig out a foot deep trench, the width of an ordinary shovel, and carefully place this earth next to the trench. Sprinkle in a heavy dose of organic fertilizer or strong compost, and spade that in so the soil is fluffy and fertile two feet down. Do not immediately refill the trench with the soil that was dug out. With a shovel handle, poke a row of six inch deep holes along the bottom of the trench. If the nursery bed has grown well, there should be about four inches of stem on each seedling before the first leaf attaches. If the weather is hot and sunny, snip off about one third to one half of the leaf area to reduce transplanting shock. Drop one leaf seedling into each hole up to the point where the first leaf attaches to the stock and mud it in with a cup or two of liquid fertilizer. As the leak grows, gradually refill the trench and even hill up soil around the growing plants. This makes the better tasting white part of the stem get as long as possible. Avoid getting soil into the center of the leak where new leaves emerge, or you'll not get them clean after harvest. Spacing of the seedlings depends on the amount of irrigation. If absolutely none at all, set them 12 inches apart in the center of a row four feet wide. If unlimited water is available, give them two inches of separation or adjust spacing to the water available. The plants grow slowly through summer, but an autumn growth will accelerate, especially if they are side dressed at this time. Varieties. For dry gardening, use the hardier, more vigorous winter leaks. Durabell, TSC, has an especially mild sweet flavor. Other useful varieties include giant Corinthian, ABL, Alaska, STK, and winter giant, PEA. Lettuce. Spring-sown lettuce will go to large sizes, remaining sweet and tender without irrigation if spaced one foot apart in a single row with two feet of elbow room on each side. Lettuce cut after mid-June usually gets bitter without regular heavy irrigation. I reserve my well-watered raised bed for this summer salad crop. Those very short of water can start fall winter lettuce in a shaded irrigated nursery bed mid-August through mid-September and transplant it out after the fall rains return. Here is one situation in which accelerating growth with cloches or cold frames would be very helpful. Winter-wise Cucurbits. The root systems of this family are far more extensive than most people realize. Usually a tap root goes down several feet and then soil conditions permitting thickly occupies a large area, ultimately reaching down five to eight feet. Shallow feeder roots also extend laterally as far as or farther than the vines reach at their greatest extent. Dry gardeners can do several things to assist cucurbits. First, make sure there is absolutely no competition in their root zone. This means one plant per hill with the hills separated in all directions a little farther than the greatest possible extent of the variety's ultimate growth. Common garden lore states that squashes droop their leaves in mid-summer heat and that this trait cannot be avoided and does no harm. But if their groan is described above on deep open soil, capillarity and surface moisture reserves ensure there usually will be no mid-day wilting even if there is no watering. Two plants per hill do compete and make each other wilt. Second, double dig and fertilize the entire lateral root zone. Third, as much as possible avoid walking where the vines will ultimately reach to avoid compaction. Finally, do not transplant them. This breaks the tap root and makes the plant more dependent on lateral roots seeking moisture in the top 18 inches of soil. Melons, sowing date. As soon as they'll germinate outdoors at Elkton, May 15 to June one. Thin to a single plant per hill when there are about three true leaves and the vines are beginning to run. Spacing. Most varieties will grow a vine reaching about eight feet in diameter, spaced hills eight feet apart in all directions. Irrigation. Fertigation every two to three weeks will increase the yield by two or three times and may make the melons sweeter. Release the water fertilizer mix close to the center of the vine where the tap root can use it. Varieties. Adaptation to our cool climate is critical with melons. Use varieties sold by our regional seed companies. Yellow-doll watermelons, TSC, are very early and seem the most productive under the most drowdy conditions. I've had reasonable results for most otherwise regionally adapted cantaloupes and musk melons. Last year, a new hybrid variety, Passport, TSC, proved several weeks earlier than I'd ever experienced and was extraordinarily prolific and tasty. Onions, scallions. The usual spring-sown summer-grown bulb onions and scallions only work with abundant irrigation, but the water short, water-wise gardener can still supply the kitchen with onions or onion substitutes year round. Leaks take care of November through early April. Overwintered bulb onions handle the rest of the year. Scallions may also be harvested during winter. Sowing date. Started too soon. Overwintered or short day, bulbing onions and sweet scallions will bolt and form seed instead of bulbing. Started too late, they'll be too small and possibly not hard enough to survive winter. About August 15 at Elkton, I sow thickly in a well-watered and very fertile nursery bed. If you have more than one nursery row, separate them by about 12 inches. Those who miss this window of opportunity can start transplants in early October and cover with a cloche immediately after germination to accelerate seedling growth during fall and early winter. Start scallions in a nursery just like overwintered onions, but earlier so they're large enough for the table during winter. I sow them about mid July. Spacing. When seedlings are about pencil thick, December, January for overwintering onion bulbs, transplant them about four or five inches apart in a single row with a couple of feet of elbow room on either side. I've found I get the best growth and largest bulbs if they follow potatoes. After the potatoes are dug in early October, I immediately fertilize the area heavily and till preparing the onion bed. Klamath Basin Farmers usually grow a similar rotation, hay, potatoes, onions. Transplant scallions in October with the fall rains about one inch apart in rows, at least two feet apart. Irrigation, not necessary. However, side dressing the transplants will result in much larger bulbs or scallions. Scallions will bolt in April. The bulbers go tops down and begin drying down as the soil naturally dries out. Varieties. I prefer the sweet and tender Lisbon, TSC, for scallions. For overwintered bulb onions grow very mild but poorly keeping Walla Walla Sweet, JSS, Buffalo, TSC, a better keeper, or whatever territorial is selling at present. Parsley, sowing date, March. Parsley seed takes two to three weeks to germinate. Spacing, thin to 12 inches apart in a single row, four feet wide. Five plants should overwhelm the average kitchen. Irrigation, not necessary unless yields fall off during summer and that is very unlikely. Parsley's very deep foraging root system resembles that of its relative, the carrot. Varieties. If you use parsley for greens, variety is not critical, though the gourmet may note slight differences in flavor or amount of leaf curl. Another type of parsley is grown for edible roots that taste like parsnip. These should have their soil prepared as carefully as though growing carrots. Peas. This early crop matures without irrigation. Both pole and bush varieties are planted thickly in single rows about four feet apart. I always overlook some pods which go on to form mature seed. Without overhead irrigation, this seed will sprout strongly next year. Alaska soup peas grow the same way. Peppers. Pepper plants on raised beds spaced the usually recommended 16 to 24 inches apart undergo intense root competition even before their leaves form a canopy. With or without unlimited irrigation, the plants will get much larger and bear more heavily with elbow room. Sewing date. Set out transplants at the usual time, double dig a few square feet of soil beneath each seedling and make sure fertilizer gets incorporated all the way down to two feet deep. Spacing. Three feet apart and rows three to four feet apart. Irrigation. Without any irrigation, only the most vigorous small-fruited varieties will set anything. For an abundant harvest, vertigate every three to four weeks. For the biggest pepper plants you ever grew, vertigate every two weeks. Varieties. The small-fruited types, both hot and sweet, have much more aggressive root systems and generally adapt better to our region's cool weather. I've had best results with cayenne long slim, gypsy, surefire, hot Portugal, the cherries both sweet and hot, Italian sweet, and petit sira. Potatoes. Humans domesticated potatoes in the cool, arid, high plateaus of the Andes, where annual rainfall averages eight to 12 inches. The species spines are dry summer quite comfortable. Potatoes produce more calories per unit of land than any other temperate crop. Irrigated potatoes yield more calories and two to three times as much watery bulk and indigestible fiber as those grown without irrigation. But the same variety, dry-gardened, can contain about 30% more protein, far more mineral nutrients, and taste better. Sewing date. I make two showings. The first in a good luck ritual done religiously on March 17th, St. Patrick's Day. Rain or shine in untilled mud or finely worked and deeply fluffed earth, I still plant 10 or 12 seed potatoes of an early variety. This provides for summer. The main sewing waits until frost is unlikely and I can dig the potato rows at least 12 inches deep with a spading fork, working in fertilizers deeply as possible and ending up with a finely pulverized 24 inch wide bed. At Elkton, this is usually mid to late April. There is no rush to plant. Potato vines are not frost-hardy. If frosted, they'll regrow but being burned back to the ground lowers the final yield. Spacing. I pre-sprout my seeds by spreading them out in daylight at room temperature for a few weeks and then plant one hole sprouting medium-sized potato every 18 inches down the center of a row. Barely cover the seed potato. At maturity, there should be two and a half to three feet of soil unoccupied with the roots of any other crop on each side of the row. As the vines emerge, gradually scrape soil up over them with a hoe. Let the vines grow about four inches, then pull up about two inches of cover. Let another four inches grow, then hill up another two inches. Continue doing this until the vines begin blooming. At this point, there should be a mound of loose, fluffy soil about 12 to 16 inches high, gradually filling with tubers, lushly covered with blooming vines. Irrigation. Not necessary. In fact, if large water droplets compact the loose soil you scraped up, that may interfere with maximum tuber enlargement. However, after the vines are a foot long or so, foliar feeding every week or 10 days will increase the yield. Varieties. The water-wise gardeners main potato problem is too early maturity and then premature sprouting and storage. Early varieties like Yukon Gold, even popular mid-season ones like Yellowfin, don't keep well unless they're planted late enough to brown off in late September. That's no problem if they're irrigated, but planted in late April, earlier varieties will shrivel by August. Potatoes only keep well when very cool, dark, and moist, conditions almost impossible to create on the homestead during summer. The best August compromise is to leave mature potatoes undug, but soil temperatures are in the 70s during August and by early October, when potatoes should be lifted and put into storage, they'll already be sprouting. Sprouting in October is acceptable for the remainders of my St. Pat's Day sowing that I am keeping over for seed next spring. It is not okay for my main winter storage crop. Our climate requires very late, slow-matureing varieties that can be sown early, but that don't brown off until September. Late types usually yield more too. Most of the seed potato varieties found in garden centers are early or mid-season types chosen by farmers for yield without regard to flavor or nutrition. One, Nooksack Cascadian, is a very late variety grown commercially around Bellingham, Washington. Nooksack is pretty good if you like white, all-purpose potatoes. There are much better homegrown varieties available in Roneger's catalog, all arranged according to maturity. For the ultimate in earlys, I suggest red gold. For main harvests, I would try Indian pit, carol, German butterball, Siberian, or a few experimental row feet of any other late variety taking your fancy. Rutabagas. Rutabagas have wonderfully aggressive root systems and are capable of growing continuously through long, severe drought. But where I live, the results aren't satisfactory. Here's what happens. If I start Rutabagas in early April and space them about two to three feet apart in rows four feet apart, by October they're the size of basketballs and look pretty good. Unfortunately, I harvest a hollow shell full of cabbage root maggots. Root maggots are at their peak in early June. That's why I got interested in dry gardening giant Kalarabi. In 1991, we had about two surprising inches of rain late in June. So as a test, I sowed Rutabagas on July one. They germinated without more irrigation but going into the hot summer as small plants with limited root systems and no irrigation at all, they became somewhat stunted. By October one, the tops were still small and a little gnarly. Big roots had not yet formed. Then the rains came and the Rutabagas began growing rapidly. By November, there was a pretty nice crop of medium-sized, good-eating roots. I suspect that farther north where evaporation is not so severe and mid-summer rains are slightly more common, if a little irrigation were used to start Rutabagas about July one, a decent unwoddered crop might be had most years. And I am certain that if sown at the normal time, July 15, and grown with minimal irrigation but well spaced out, they'll produce acceptably. Varieties, stokes, ultra-sweet. STK, TSC has the best flavor. Sorrel. This weed-like, drought-tolerant salad green is little-known and underappreciated. In summer, the leaves get tough and strong-flavored. If other greens are available, sorrel will probably be unpicked. That's okay. During fall, winter, and spring, sorrel's lemony taste and delicate, tender texture balance tough or savoy cabbage and kale and turn those crude vegetables into very acceptable salads. Serious salad-eating families might want the production of five to 10 row feet. Sowing date, the first year you grow sorrel, sow mid-March to mid-April. The tiny seed must be placed shallowly and it sprouts much more readily when the soil stays moist. Plant a single furrow centered in a row four feet wide. Spacing, as the seedlings grow thin gradually. When the leaves are about the size of an ordinary spinach, individual plants should be about six inches apart. Irrigation, not necessary in summer. You won't eat it anyway. If production lags in fall, winter, or spring, side-dress the sorrel patch with a little compost or organic fertilizer. Maintenance, sorrel is perennial. If an unusually harsh winter freeze kills off the leaves, it will probably come back from root crowns in early spring. You'll welcome it after losing the rest of your winter crops. In spring of the second and succeeding years, sorrel will make seed. Seed-making saps the plant's energy and the seeds may naturalize into an unwanted weed around the garden. So before any seed forms, cut all the leaves and seed stalks close to the ground. Use the trimmings as a convenient mulch along the row. If you move the garden or want to relocate the patch, do not start sorrel again from seed. In any season, dig up a few plants, divide the root masses, trim off most of the leaves to reduce transplanting shock, and transplant one foot apart. Occasional unique plants may be more reluctant to make seed stalks than most others. Since seed stalks produce few edible leaves and the leaves on them are very harsh-flavored, making seed is an undesirable trait. So I propagate only seed-shy plants by root cuttings. Spinach. Spring spinach is remarkably more drought-tolerant than it would appear from its delicate structure and the succulents of its leaves. A bolt-resistant, long-day variety bred for summer harvest sown in late April may still yield pickable leaves in late June or even early July without any watering at all if thinned to 12 inches apart in rows three feet apart. Squash. Winter and summer. Sewing date. Having warm enough soil is everything. At Elkton, I first attempt squash about April 15. In the Willamette, May 1 is usual. Farther north, squash may not come up until June 1. Dry gardeners should not transplant squash. The taproot must not be broken. Spacing. The amount of room to give each plant depends on the potential of a specific variety's maximum root development. Most divining winter squash can completely occupy a 10-foot diameter circle. Sprawling heirloom summer squash varieties can desiccate an eight or nine-foot diameter circle. Thin each hill to one plant, not two or more as is recommended in the average garden book. There must be no competition for water. Irrigation. With winter storage types, an unirrigated vine may yield 15 pounds of squash after occupying a 10-foot diameter circle for an entire growing season. However, starting about July 1, if you support that vine by supplying liquid fertilizer every two to three weeks, you may harvest 60 pounds of squash from the same area. The first vertigation may only need two gallons. Then mid-July give four. About August 1, eight. August 15, feed 15 gallons. After that date, solar intensity and temperatures decline. Growth rate slows, and water use also decreases. On September 1, I'd add about eight gallons and about five more on September 15 if it hadn't yet rained significantly. Total water, 42 gallons. Total increase in yield, 45 pounds. I'd say that's a good return on water invested. Varieties. For winter squash, all the vining winter varieties in the C-maxima or C-peppo family seem acceptably adapted to dry gardening. These include buttercup, hubbard, delicious, sweet meat, delicata, spaghetti, and acorn. I wouldn't trust any of the newer compact bush winter varieties, so popular on raised beds. Despite the reputation for drought tolerance, C-mixta varieties or kushaw squash were believed to be strictly hot desert or humid tropical varieties unable to mature in our Kua climate. However, pepita, P-E-A, is a mixta that is early enough and seems entirely unbothered by a complete lack of irrigation. The enormous vine sets numerous good keepers with mild tasting light yellow flesh. Obviously, the compact bush summer squash variety so popular these days are not good candidates for withstanding long periods without irrigation. The old heirlooms like black zucchini, APL, not black beauty, and warty yellow crookneck grow enormous, high-yielding plants whose extent nearly rivals that of the largest winter squash. They also grow a dense leaf cover, making the fruit a little harder to find. These are the only American heirlooms still readily available. Black zucchini has become very raggedy. Anyone growing it should be prepared to plant several vines and accept that at least one third of them will grow, rather off-type fruit. It needs the work of a skilled plant breeder. Yellow crookneck is still a fairly clean variety offering good uniformity. Both have more flavor and are less watery than the modern summer squash varieties. Yellow crookneck is especially rich, probably due to its thick oily skin. Most gardeners who once grew the old crookneck never again grow any other kind. Another useful drought-tolerant variety is gem, sometimes called rollet, TSC. It grows an extensive winter squash-like vine yielding grapefruit-size excellent eating summer squash. Both yellow crookneck and black zucchini begin yielding several weeks later than the modern hybrids. However, as the summer goes on, they will produce quite a bit more squash than new hybrid types. I now grow five or six fully irrigated early hybrid plants like Seneca zucchini, too. As soon as my picking bucket is being filled with later-to-yield crooknecks, I pull out the Seneca's and use the now empty irrigated space for fall crops. Tomato. There's no point in elaborate methods, trellising, pruning, or training with dry-gardened tomato vines. Their root systems must be allowed to control all the space they can without competition, so allow the vines to sprawl as well. And pruning the leaf area of indeterminance is counterproductive. To grow hugely, the roots need to food with a full complement of leaves. Sowing date. Set out transplants at the usual time. They might also be jump-started under cloches two to three weeks before the last frost to make better use of natural soil moisture. Spacing. Depends greatly on variety. The root system can occupy as much space as the vines will cover and then some. Irrigation. Especially on determinate varieties, periodic furtigation will greatly increase yield and size of fruit. The old indeterminate sprawlers will produce through an entire summer without any supplemental moisture, but yield even more in response to irrigation. Variety. With or without irrigation, or anywhere in between, when growing tomatoes west of the cascades, nothing is more important than choosing the right variety. Not only does it have to be early and able to set and ripen fruit when nights are cool, but to grow through months without watering the plant must be highly indeterminate. This makes a built-in conflict. Most of the sprawly, huge, old heirloom varieties are rather late to mature. But cherry tomatoes are always far earlier than big slicers. If I had to choose only one variety, it would be the old heirloom, large red cherry. A single plant is capable of covering a nine to 10 foot diameter circle if furtigated from mid-July through August. The enormous yield of a single furtigated vine is overwhelming. Red cherry is a little acid and tart. Non-acid, indeterminate cherry types like sweetie, sweet 100, and sweet millions are also workable, but not as aggressive as red cherry. I wouldn't depend on most bush cherry tomato varieties, but our earliest cherry variety of all, OSU's gold nugget, must grow a lot more root than top. For, with or without supplemental water, gold nugget sets heavily and ripens enormously until mid-August when it peters out from overbearing, not from moisture stress. Gold nugget quits just about when the later cherry or slicing tomatoes start ripening heavily. Other well-adapted, early determinants such as Oregon Spring and Santiam may disappoint you. Unless furtigated, they'll set and ripen some fruit but may become stunted in mid-summer. However, a single indeterminate fantastic hybrid will cover a six to seven foot diameter circle and grow and ripen tomatoes until frost with only a minimum of water. I think stupas, ABL, TSC, and early cascade are also quite workable and earlier than fantastic in Washington. End of chapter five. Chapter six of Gardening Without Irrigation, or without much anyway. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org, read by Betsy Bush, October 2009. Gardening Without Irrigation, or without much anyway, by Steve Solomon. Chapter six, My Own Garden Plan. This chapter illustrates and explains my own dry garden. Any garden plan is a product of compromises and preferences. Mine is not intended to become yours, but all modesty aside, this plan results from 20 continuous years of serious vegetable gardening and some small degree of regional wisdom. My wife and I are what I dub vegetabulitarians, not vegetarians or lacto-ovo vegetarians because we're not ideologues and eat meat on rare, usually festivations in other people's houses. But over 80% of our calories are from vegetables, fruit, or cereal sources, and the remaining percentage is from fats or dairy foods. The purpose of my garden is to provide at least half the actual calories we eat year round. Most of the rust comes from home baked bread made with freshly ground whole grains. I put at least one very large bowl of salad on the table every day, winter and summer. I keep us in potatoes nine months a year and produce a year's supply of onions or leeks. To break the dietary monotony of November to April, I grow as wide an assortment of winter vegetables as possible and put most produce departments to shame from June through September when the summer veggies are on. The garden plan may seem unusually large, but in accordance with Solomon's first law of abundance, there's a great deal of intentional waste. My garden produces two to three times the amount of food needed during the year, so moochers, poachers, guests, adult daughters accompanied by partners, husbands and children, mistakes, poor yields and failures of individual vegetables are inconsequential. Besides, gardening is fun. My garden is laid out in 125 foot long rows and one equally long raised bed. Each row grows only one or two types of vegetables. The central focus of my water-wise garden is its irrigation system. Two lines of low-angle sprinklers, only four feet apart, straddle an intensively irrigated raised bed running down the center of the garden. The sprinklers I use are nones, a unique Israeli design that emits very little water and throws at a very low angle available from TSC and some garden centers. Their maximum reach is about 18 feet. Each sprinkler is about 12 feet from its neighbor. On the garden plan, the sprinklers are indicated by a circle surrounding an X. Readers unfamiliar with sprinkler system design are advised to study the irrigation chapter in growing vegetables west of the Cascades. On the far left side of the garden plan is a graphic representation of the uneven application of water put down by the sprinkler system. The four foot wide raised bed gets lots of water uniformly distributed. Farther away, the amount applied decreases rapidly. About half as much irrigation lands only six feet from the edge of the raised bed as on the bed itself. Beyond that, the amount tapers off to insignificance. During summer's heat, the farthest six feet is barely moistened on top, but no water effectively penetrates the dry surface. Crops are positioned according to their need for or ability to benefit from supplementation. For convenient description, I've numbered those rows. The raised bed. Crops demanding the most water are grown on the raised bed. These include a secession of lettuce plantings designed to fill the summer salad bowl, summer spinach, spring colorabi, mycelery patch, scallions, Chinese cabbages, radishes, and various nursery beds that start over winter crops for transplanting later. Perhaps the bed seems too large just for salad greens, but one entire meal every day consists largely of fresh raw, high-protein green leaves. During summer, loose leaf or semi-heading lettuce is our salad item of choice, and our individual salad bowls are larger than most families of six might consider adequate to serve all of them together. If water were severely rationed, I could irrigate the raised bed with hose and nozzle and dry garden the rest, but as it is rows one, two, seven, and eight do get significant but lesser amounts from the sprinklers. Most of the rows hold a single plant family needing similar fertilization and handling, or for convenience that are sown at the same time. Row one. The rows center is about three feet from the edge of the raised bed. In March, I saw my very first salad greens down half this row, mostly assorted leaf lettuce plus some spinach, and six closely spaced early Seneca hybrid zucchini plants. The greens are all cut by mid June. By mid July, my better quality yellow crooknick squash comes on, so I pull a zucchini. Then I till that entire row, re-fertilize, and sew half to rutabagas. The nursery bed of leek seedlings has gotten large enough to transplant at this time too. These go into a trench dug into the other half of the row. The leeks and rutabagas could be reasonably productive located farther from the sprinklers, but no vegetables benefit more from abundant water or are more important to a self-sufficient kitchen. Rutabagas break the winter monotony of potatoes. Leeks vitality improve winter salads, and leaky soups are a household staple from November through March. Row two. Semi-drought tolerant brassicas. Row two gets about half the irrigation of row one and about one-third as much as the raised bed, and so is wider to give the roots more room. One-third of the row grows Savoy cabbage, the rest Brussels sprouts. These brassicas are spaced four feet apart, and by summer's end, the lusty sprouts form a solid hedge four feet tall. Row three, kale. Row three grows 125 feet of various kales sewn in April. There's just enough overspray to keep the plants from getting gnarly. I prefer kale to not get very stunted if only for aesthetics, and my soil, one vanity fertigation about mid-July keeps this row looking impressive all summer. Other gardens with poorer soil might need more support. This much kale may seem an enormous oversupply, but between salads and steaming greens with potatoes we managed to eat almost all the tender small leaves it grows during winter. Row four, root crops. Mostly carrots, a few beets. No irrigation, no fertigation, none needed. 100 carrots weighing in at around five pounds each and 20-some beets of equal magnitude make our year's supply for salads, soups, and a little juicing. Row five, dry-gardened salads. This row holds a few crowns of French sorrel, a few feet of parsley. Over a dozen giant kale rabi or spring sewn, but over half the row grows endive. I give this row absolutely no water. Again, when contemplating the amount of space it takes, keep in mind that this endive and kale rabi must help fill our salad bowls from October through March. Row six, peas, overwintered cauliflower, and all solanaceae. Half the row grows early bush peas. Without overhead irrigation to bother them, unpicked pods form seed that sprouts excellently the next year. This half of the row is rotary tilled and fertilized again after the pea vines come out. Then it stays bare through July while capillarity somewhat recharges the soil. About August one, I wet the rows surface down with hose and fan nozzle and so overwintered cauliflower seed. To keep the cauliflower from stunting, I must lightly hand sprinkle the rows center twice weekly through late September. Were water more restricted, I could start my cauliflower seedlings in a nursery bed and transplant them here in October. The other half is home of the solanaceae. Tomato, pepper, and eggplant. I give this row a little extra width because pea vines run and I furtigate my solanaceae, preferably sprawly tomato varieties that may cover an eight foot diameter circle. There's also a couple of extra bare feet along the outside because the neighboring grasses will deplete soil moisture along the edge of the garden. Row seven, water demanding brassicas. Moving away from irrigation on the other side of the raised bed, I grow a succession of hybrid broccoli varieties and late fall cauliflower. The broccoli is sown several times, 20 row feet each sowing, done about April 15, June 1, and July 15. The late cauliflower goes in about July one. If necessary, I could use much of this row for quick crops that would be harvested before I wanted to sow broccoli or cauliflower, but I don't need more room. The first sowings of broccoli are pulled out early enough to permit succession sowings of arugula or other late salad greens. Row eight, the trellis. Here I erect 125 foot long, a six foot tall net trellis for gourmet delicacies like pole peas and pole beans. The bean vines block almost all water that would go on beyond it, and so this row gets more irrigation than it otherwise might. The peas are harvested early enough to permit a succession sowing of purple sprouting broccoli in mid July. Purple sprouting needs a bit of sprinkling to germinate in the heat of midsummer, but being as vigorous as kale once up, it grows adequately on the overspray from the raised bed. The beans would be overwhelmingly abundant if all were sown at one time, so I plant them in two stages about three weeks apart. Still a great many beans go unpicked. These are allowed to form seed or harvested before they quite dry and crisp under cover away from the sprinklers. We get enough seed from this row for planting next year, plus all the dry beans we care to eat during winter. Dry beans are hard to digest, and as we age, we eat fewer and fewer of them. In previous years, I've grown entire rows of dry legume seeds at the garden's edge. Row nine, cucurbits. This row is so wide because here are grown all the spreading cucurbits. The pole beans in row eight tend to prevent overspray. This dryness is especially beneficial to humidity sensitive melons serendipitously reducing their susceptibility to powdery mildew diseases. All cucurbits are furtigated every three weeks. The squash will have fallen apart by the end of September. Melons are pulled out by mid-September. The area is then tilled and fertilized, making space to transplant over winter to spring cabbages. Other overwintered brassicas and winter scallions in October. These transplants are dug from nurseries on the irrigated raised bed. I could also set cold frames here and forced tender salad greens all winter. Row 10, unirrigated potatoes. This single long row satisfies a potato loving household all winter. The quality of these dry garden tubers is so high that my wife complains if she must buy a few new potatoes from the supermarket after our supplies have become so sprouty and or shriveled that they're not tasty any longer. End of chapter six. Chapter seven of gardening without irrigation or without much anyway. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Read by Betsy Bush, October 2009. Gardening Without Irrigation or Without Much Anyway by Steve Solomon. Chapter seven. The Backyard Waterwise 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 floodline. There's a big reliable well and if I ever want more than 20 gallons per minute in midsummer, there's the virtually unlimited Umpcore 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 in 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 garden have one vital liberty I do to choose which one sixth of an acre in his 14 acre backyard he'll garden on this year. I was a suburban backyard gardener for five years before deciding to homestead. I 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 avoid evaporation that occurs while the 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. When using any type of drip system it is especially important to relate the amount of water applied to the depth of the soil to the crops or to development. There's no sense adding more water than the earth can hold. Calculating the optimum amount of water to apply from a drip system requires applying substantial practical intelligence to evaluating the following factors. Soil water holding capacity and accessible depth, how deep the root systems have developed, how broadly the water spreads out below each emitter, dispersion, rates of loss due to transpiration. All but one of these factors, dispersion, are adequately discussed elsewhere in gardening without irrigation. A drip emitter on sandy soil moistens the earth nearly straight down with a little lateral dispersion. One foot below the surface, the wet area might only be one foot in diameter. Conversely, when you drip moisture into a clay soil, though the surface may seem dry, 18 inches away from the emitter and just three inches down, the earth may become saturated with water. While a few inches deeper, significant dispersion may reach out nearly 24 inches. On sandy soil, emitters on 12-inch centers are hardly close enough together, while on clay, 30 or even 36-inch centers are sufficient. Another important bit of data to enter into your arithmetic, one cubic foot of water equals about five gallons. A 12-inch diameter circle equals 0.75 square feet. A equals pi times radius squared. So one cubic foot of water, five gallons, dispersed from a single emitter, will add roughly 16 inches of moisture to sandy soil, greatly over-watering a medium that can hold only an inch or so of available water per foot. On heavy clay, a single emitter may wet a four-foot diameter circle. On loams, anywhere in between, five gallons will cover a four-foot diameter circle about one inch deep. So on deep clay soil, 10 or even 15 gallons per application may be in order. What is the texture of your soil, its water-holding capacity, and the dispersion of a drip into it? Probably it is somewhere in between sand and clay. I can't specify what is optimum in any particular situation. Each gardener must consider his own unique factors and make his own estimation. All I can do is stress again that the essence of water-wise gardening is water conservation. Optimizing space, planning the water-wise backyard garden. Intensive gardening is a strategy holding that yield per square foot is a supreme goal. It succeeds by optimizing as many growth factors as possible. So a raised bed is loosened very deeply without concern for the amount of labor, while fertility and moisture are supplied virtually without limit. Intensive gardening makes sense when land is very costly and the worth of the food grown is judged against organic produce at retail. And when water and nutrients are inexpensive and are available in unlimited amounts, when water use is reduced, yield inevitably drops proportionately. The backyard water-wise gardener then must logically ask which vegetable species will give him enough food or more economic value with limited space and water. Taking maritime Northwest rainfall patterns into consideration, here's my best estimation. Water-wise efficiency of vegetable crops in terms of backyard usage of space and moisture. Efficient enough, early spring-sewn crops, peas, broccoli, lettuce, radishes, boy cabbage, kohlrabi, overwintered crops, onions, broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, fava beans, endive, kale, garden sorrel, indeterminate tomatoes, giant kohlrabi, parsley, leaf, and root, heirloom summer squash, sprawley, pole beans, herbs, marjoram, thyme, dill, cilantro, fennel, oregano, root crops, carrots, beets, parsnips, marginal, Brussels sprouts, late, potatoes, determinate tomatoes, rutabagas, eggplant, leeks, savoy cabbage, late, peppers, small-fruited. Inefficient, beans, bush, snap, peppers, bell, broccoli, summer, radishes, cauliflower, scallions, baublings, celery, sweet corn, lettuce, turnips. Have fun planting your own water-wise garden. More reading about the Interlibrary Loan Service. Agricultural books, especially older ones, are not usually available at local libraries, but most municipal libraries and all universities offer access to an online database listing the holdings of other cooperating libraries throughout the United States. Almost any book published in this century will be promptly mailed to the requesting library. Anyone who is serious about learning by reading should discover how easy and inexpensive, or free, it is to use the Interlibrary Loan Service. Carter, Vernon Gill, and Tom Dale, Topsoil and Conservation, Norman, Oklahoma, University of Oklahoma Press, 1974. The history of civilization's destruction of one ecosystem after another by plowing and deforestation and its grave implications for our country's long-term survival. Cleveland, David A., and Daniela Solari, Food from Dryland Gardens, an ecological, nutritional, and social approach to small-scale household food production. Tucson, Center for People, Food, and Environment, 1991. World Conscious Survey of Low-Tech Food Production in Semi-Erid Regions. Faulkner, Edward H., Plowman's Folly, Norman, Oklahoma, University of Oklahoma Press, 1943. This book created quite a controversy in the 1940s. Faulkner stresses the vital importance of capillarity. He explains how conventional plowing stops this moisture flow. Faulk, Henry D., Fundamentals of Soil Science, 8th edition, New York. John Wiley and Sons, 1990. A thorough yet readable basic soil science text at a level comfortable for university non-science majors. Hamaker, John D., The Survival of Civilization, annotated by Donald A. Weaver, Michigan and California. Hamaker Weaver Publishers, 1982. Hamaker contradicts our current preoccupation with global warming and makes a believable case that a new epoch of planetary glaciation is coming, caused by an increase in greenhouse gas. This book is also a guide to soil enrichment with rock powders. Nabon, Gary. The desert smells like rain, a naturalist in Pepegoe, Indian Country. San Francisco, North Point Press, 1962. Describes regionally useful Native American dry gardening techniques. Russell, Sir E. John, Soil Conditions and Plant Growth, 8th edition, New York, Longmans Green & Company, 1950. Probably the finest most human soil science text ever written. Russell avoids unnecessary mathematics and obscure terminology. I do not recommend the recent imprint edition revised and enlarged by a committee. Smith, J. Russell. Tree crops, a permanent agriculture. New York, Harcourt, Brace & Company, 1929. Smith's visionary solution to upland erosion is growing unirrigated tree crops that produce cereal-like foods and nuts, should sit on the family Bible shelf of every permaculturist. Solomon, Stephen Jay, Growing Vegetables West of the Cascades, Seattle, Sesquatch Books, 1989. The Complete Regional Gardening Textbook, Solomon, Stephen Jay, Backyard Composting, Portland, Oregon, George Van Patten Publishing, 1992. Especially useful for its unique discussion of the overuse of compost and a non-ideological approach to raising the most nutritious food possible. Stout, Ruth. Gardening without work for the aging, the busy and the indolent. Old Greenwich, Connecticut, Devon Adair, 1961. Stout presents the original theses of permanent mulching. Turner, Frank Newman. Fertility Pastures and Cover Crops based on nature's own balanced organic pasture feeds. San Diego, Ray Daver, 1975. Reprinted from the 1955 Faber and Faber edition. Organic farming using long rotations, including deeply rooted green manures developed to a high art. Turner maintained a productive organic dairy farm using subsoiling and long rotations involving tilt crops and semi-permanent grass herb mixtures. Vanderleden, Fritz, Fred L. Trois, and David K. Todd. The Water Encyclopedia Second Edition, Chelsea, Michigan, Lewis Publishers, 1990. Reference data concerning every possible aspect of water. Weaver, John E., and William E. Bruner. Root Development of Vegetable Crops, New York, McGraw Hill, 1927. Contains very interesting drawings showing the amazing depth and extent that vegetable roots are capable of in favorable soil. Witso, John A., Dry Farming, a system of agriculture for countries under low rainfall. New York, the McMillan Company, 1920. The best single review ever made of the possibilities of dry farming and dry gardening, sagely discussing the scientific basis between the techniques. The quality of Witso's understanding proves that newer is not necessarily better. End of chapter seven. End of Gardening Without Irrigation, or without much anyway, by Steve Solomon.