er.

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 emi