Out of curiosity I decided to
use absolutely no water at all, not even to sprinkle the seeds to
get them germinating.
I sowed a bit of kale, savoy cabbage, Purple Sprouting broccoli,
carrots, beets, parsnips, parsley, endive, dry beans, potatoes,
French sorrel, and a couple of field cornstalks. I also tested one
compactbush (determinate) and one sprawling (indeterminate) tomato
plant. Many of these vegetables grew surprisingly well. I ate
unwatered tomatoes July through September; kale, cabbages, parsley,
and root crops fed us during the winter. The Purple Sprouting
broccoli bloomed abundantly the next March.
In terms of quality, all the harvest was acceptable. The root
vegetables were far larger but only a little bit tougher and quite a
bit sweeter than usual. The potatoes yielded less than I'd been used
to and had thicker than usual skin, but also had a better flavor and
kept well through the winter.
The following year I grew two parallel gardens. One, my "insurance
garden," was thoroughly irrigated, guaranteeing we would have plenty
to eat. Another experimental garden of equal size was entirely
unirrigated. There I tested larger plots of species that I hoped
could grow through a rainless summer.
By July, growth on some species had slowed to a crawl and they
looked a little gnarly. Wondering if a hidden cause of what appeared
to be moisture stress might actually be nutrient deficiencies, I
tried spraying liquid fertilizer directly on these gnarly leaves, a
practice called foliar feeding.
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