Conserving water part 4: building soil

Still growing, despite the dry (see that little patch of brown lawn in the foreground), July 2018

Over the first three parts of this little series, I've explored ways I have (and should have) conserved water in my garden.  This last part isn't a quick fix--it takes a long time--luckily I've been working on it the longest!  I've been incorporating organic matter into the soil so that it absorbs and holds water in the first place.

I started doing this as soon as I began gardening, by adding my own compost to my beds.  It was a very slow process to begin with, as I only used regular garden waste (trimmings, leaf fall, grass clippings, etc) and put all weeds in the council garden bin which was collected every other week.  My compost pile was small, and never gave me enough to cover every bed each year.

I now keep all my garden waste on site:  anything that's not just chopped and dropped gets chucked into a giant pile in the chickens' permanent run.  Since first getting chickens about seven years ago, I've had plenty of organic matter to add to my beds, in the form of their soiled bedding:  manure and straw.  There has been a huge increase in garden fertility over the years; and also, luckily for me in this hot dry summer, water retention.

Most of my veg have rallied in these conditions, because there is still a moist layer underground.  New seeds and seedlings--which didn't have time to put down deep enough roots--haven't flourished, but things I put down early have been able to survive the heat and dry.  I'm currently watering from the hose only once a week.

Using the three techniques of graywater reuse, mulch/ground cover, and building the soil with organic matter (and hopefully the fourth in the future of rain water collection), I hope to keep my garden not just alive but producing, no matter how long dry spells last.

And we got a ten minute sharp shower yesterday--thank goodness;  I think we were up to about 50-ish days with no rain.

Gratuitous chickie pic! July 2018