Climate Suggestions for raising your own food in drought conditions

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Barry Natchitoches

Has No Life - Lives on TB
I just read on the main board that 60% of the US will experience drought conditions this spring, according to NOAA, and it will affect the amount of food being raised in these areas.

So I thought a thread dedicated to techniques and hacks that can be employed to raise food in a home garden in drought conditions might be a good idea.

Unfortunately, too many of us might need these suggestions shortly.
 
B

Barry Natchitoches

Has No Life - Lives on TB
I really need to get to bed, but I will start with a few suggestions that will not take long to type out.

I will offer more tomorrow evening, after my work is done for the day.

1, you can plant yout vegetable plants or seeds in furrows so that they will capture more of what rain might fall or whatever irrigation you can get to your garden.

2, A different alternative would be to plant soaker hoses or other irrigation near the plant roots so that no irrigation water goes to waste.

3, Wash dishes by hand, using one plastic tub to soap the dishes and avseparate plastic tub to rince the dishes. When you are finished, dump the two pans of water in the garden. The food residue will add nutrient to the soil, while the soap suds will act as an insecticide.
 
TerriHaute

TerriHaute

Hoosier Gardener
Mulch everything as much as you can. We use grass clippings and leaves but newspapers, cardboard, straw, or even sheets of plastic will work. Mulch will help keep the moisture in the ground and combined with periodic deep watering will really make a big difference.
 
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WalknTrot

Veteran Member
Know your water source. If it's a good, reliable deep well, a Great Lake, or abundant aquifer, you are in good shape. Reservoirs, rivers and dodgy wells are probably gonna end up with either necessary or imposed restrictions.

Water early in the morning so it has time to soak in before the sun becomes an evaporative factor, but the water doesn't sit on the leaves. Evening watering invites disease. IOW..get your butt out of bed and down to the garden by 6:00 am.

When you water, lay down a good deep amount, then sit tight. You don't want to be watering little pizzes every day. A good watering 1-2 times/week will take you further and be healthier for your plants.

These things you should do whether you are in a drought or a normal year.
 
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Martinhouse

Deceased
When using one basin for wash water and one for rinsewater, the second one gets nasty well before all the dishes are rinsed. I don't care to use dishes rinsed this way, so after each piece is washed, I dry it completely with a dry dishcloth and then rinse it in the clean rinsewater, which stays relatively clean for the whole dish wash-up. A big pile of dishes and cookware might require two or three of those extra cloths, but they also can be rinsed in that rinsewater before it's poured out into the garden. I don't pour the dirty dishwater into a food garden, especially if there's any grease in it. I might use it in my flower pots if water is really scarce.
 
hiwall

hiwall

Has No Life - Lives on TB
Just a warning. When the air is dry, it does not hold the heat so you huge temperature swings from day to night. It is not out of the question to get frost even in the summer.
 
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seraphima

Veteran Member
Selecting drought -resistant veggies and varieties can help a lot. Buy seeds adapted to your local climate. Look for perennials which do well locally to you- one example is prickly pear cactus- and propagate them from nearby plants. Prickly pears drop their fleshy pad-like leaves, and can just be picked up and started where you want them.
Utilize microclimates- the north side of your house or garage might be several degrees cooler and dry off slower. Humous in your soil will hold moisture.
 
hiwall

hiwall

Has No Life - Lives on TB
There are very few houses where you can feasibly separate the grey water.
Rain capture is usually pretty easy for everyone. Even the desert gets rain sometimes. Even frost and dew is easily captured.
 
M

Martinhouse

Deceased
Hiwall, it's easy to use a dishpan for the dish water and then pour it into a pail to haul outdoors when the dishes are all washed. It's easy to run a gray water line from a washing machine to the outside, under a mobile home or a house up on blocks. A little trickier in a house with a slab but that's what I myself have.

I never bothered to find a way to reroute the bath water, as I didn't want that much soap and shampoo running into my collected water.
 
Kathy in FL

Kathy in FL

Administrator
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For those plants that might get sunburned due to strong sun and lack of water, you can use "sun shades" for a little bit of assistance.

The Dollar Tree (now buck and a quarter tree) has plastic watering globes and you can also find them for better price per item online. They aren't a perfect solution but I use them if I have to be away and can't water in a timely manner. The water gets sucked up right at the roots.

Know the types of mulch you can use in your area and the ones that will create more problems for you. Wood chips and wood mulch work well in some locations and can be a disaster for others as they will draw carpenter ants, termites, fire ants, etc. Wood chips can leach nutrients rather than add it. Black plastic will warm winter soil temps ... sometimes too much ... and they also solarize the soil against nematodes. Cloth barriers also help to keep down moisture stealing weeds.

Know which plants can be planted closely together so watering can be kept localized and use less of it.

If you plan on using forest gardening techniques, keep in mind that large trees are going to suck most of the water out of the ground before it gets to the understory trees and plants.

If there is power, you can run soaker hoses.

Permaculture is a method that focuses on nutrition and microclimate which should also cover watering needs.
 
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summerthyme

Administrator
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Search "plant watering spikes" at Amazon or Ebay, and you'll see the variety of stuff available. A plant spike attacked to a 2 liter soda bottle works well for a big potted plant. But for a bigger garden, look into drip irrigation. It can be a PITA to set up, but it will give you production even in a bad drought, using a tiny fraction of the water sprinklers or hand watering would take.

Summerthyme
 
Freeholder

Freeholder

This too shall pass.
Get a copy of Water-Wise Gardening by Steve Solomon. This is just out; it's an updated version of Gardening Without Irrigation, which was originally written for gardeners in western Oregon and nearby, where there is normally little to no rain at all during the summer. In the new version, he's expanded it to make it more useful in other regions. Steve studied for years on how to grow food in an area with almost no summer rain, and has a lot of good information.

Kathleen
 
Samuel Adams

Samuel Adams

Has No Life - Lives on TB
hiwall said:
There are very few houses where you can feasibly separate the grey water.
Click to expand...

Indeed.

There are few people who understand that they are constantly a hairs breadth away from being subjected absolutely to the stone rigid laws of physics......and then actually plan and act to make provision there for.


As per thread, as has been stated but I will elaborate.......


MULCH, MULCH, MULCH.....

.....and don’t waste one drop of water...

......and pee in your compost pile, which, during drought, should be concaved at the top to catch and retain any rain that does come, and covered by tarp to retain moisture, otherwise.
 
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anna43

Veteran Member
Every fall I have the man that mows my lawn mulch my leaves and collect into the mower bagger which are dumped into a hoop made by flexing a cattle panel. It is filled to the top each fall and compacts down over winter. I use those leaves to mulch between the rows. This year the pile has not compacted much as we've not had any heavy snows or rains.

I do the dishwater saving bit. I also use a dishpan when washing veggies, peeling potatoes or carrots and dump the dirty water along with the peels into the garden. I plan to do a better job of saving water that is run waiting for hot water to the kitchen sink. We are not allowed to water outside here due to well problems and the drought. It's amazing how much dew benefits plants especially during a drought.
 
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