]
*END THE SMALL PRINT! FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS*Ver.10/04/01*END*
Created by: Steve Solomon ssolomon@soilandhealth.org
Cascadia Gardening Series
Gardening Without Irrigation: or without much, anyway
Steve Solomon
Introduction
Starting a New Gardening Era
First, you should know why a maritime Northwest raised-bed gardener
named Steve Solomon became worried about his dependence on
irrigation.
I'm from Michigan. I moved to Lorane, Oregon, in April 1978 and
homesteaded on 5 acres in what I thought at the time was a cool,
showery green valley of liquid sunshine and rainbows. I intended to
put in a big garden and grow as much of my own food as possible.
Two months later, in June, just as my garden began needing water, my
so-called 15-gallon-per-minute well began to falter, yielding less
and less with each passing week. By August it delivered about 3
gallons per minute. Fortunately, I wasn't faced with a completely
dry well or one that had shrunk to below 1 gallon per minute, as I
soon discovered many of my neighbors were cursed with. Three gallons
per minute won't supply a fan nozzle or even a common impulse
sprinkler, but I could still sustain my big raised-bed garden by
watering all night, five or six nights a week, with a single, 2-1/2
gallon-per-minute sprinkler that I moved from place to place.
I had repeatedly read that gardening in raised beds was the most
productive vegetable growing method, required the least work, and
was the most water-efficient system ever known.
Pages:
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25