The Project Gutenberg EBook of Gardening

Without Irrigation: or without

much, anyway, by Steve Solomon

This eBook is for the use of anyone

anywhere at no cost and with

almost no restrictions whatsoever. You

may copy it, give it away or

re-use it under the terms of the Project

Gutenberg License included

with this eBook or online at

www.gutenberg.net

Title: Gardening Without Irrigation: or

without much, anyway

Author: Steve Solomon

Posting Date: August 8, 2009 [EBook

#4512]

Release Date: October, 2003

First Posted: January 28, 2002

Language: English

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG

EBOOK GARDENING WITHOUT IRRIGATION ***

Produced by Steve Solomon. HTML version

by Al Haines.

Cascadia Gardening Series

GardeningWithout

Irrigation:or without much,

anyway

Steve Solomon

CONTENTSChapter

1 Predictably Rainless Summers2 Water-Wise Gardening Science3 Helping Plants to Need LessIrrigation4 Water-Wise Gardening Year-Round5 How to Grow It with LessIrrigation: A-Z6 My Own Garden Plan7 The Backyard

Introduction

Starting a New Gardening Era

First, you should know why amaritime Northwest raised-bedgardener named Steve Solomonbecame worried about his dependenceon irrigation.

I'm from Michigan. I moved toLorane, Oregon, in April 1978 andhomesteaded on 5 acres in what Ithought at the time was a cool, showerygreen valley of liquid sunshine and

rainbows. I intended to put in a biggarden and grow as much of my ownfood as possible.

Two months later, in June, just as mygarden began needing water, my so-called 15-gallon-per-minute well beganto falter, yielding less and less witheach passing week. By August itdelivered about 3 gallons per minute.Fortunately, I wasn't faced with acompletely dry well or one that hadshrunk to below 1 gallon per minute, asI soon discovered many of myneighbors were cursed with. Threegallons per minute won't supply a fannozzle or even a common impulsesprinkler, but I could still sustain my

big raised-bed garden by watering allnight, five or six nights a week, with asingle, 2-1/2 gallon-per-minutesprinkler that I moved from place toplace.

I had repeatedly read that gardeningin raised beds was the most productivevegetable growing method, requiredthe least work, and was the most water-efficient system ever known. So,without adequate irrigation, I wouldhave concluded that food self-sufficiency on my homestead was notpossible. In late September of that firstyear, I could still run that singlesprinkler. What a relief not to haveinvested every last cent in land that

couldn't feed us.

For many succeeding years at Lorane,I raised lots of organically grown foodon densely planted raised beds, but therealities of being a country gardenercontinued to remind me of how tenuousmy irrigation supply actually was. Wecountry folks have to be self-reliant: Iam my own sanitation department, Imaintain my own 800-foot-longdriveway, the septic system puts me inthe sewage business. A long, longresponse time to my 911 call meansI'm my own self-defense force. AndI'm my own water department.

Without regular and heavy watering

during high summer, dense stands ofvegetables become stunted in a matterof days. Pump failure has brought myraised-bed garden close to that severaltimes. Before my frantic efforts got thewater flowing again, I could feel thestressed-out garden screaming like ahungry baby.

As I came to understand our climate,I began to wonder about complete foodself-sufficiency. How did the earlypioneers irrigate their vegetables?There probably aren't more than athousand homestead sites in the entiremaritime Northwest with gravity water.Hand pumping into hand-carriedbuckets is impractical and extremely

tedious. Wind-powered pumps areexpensive and have severe limits.

The combination of dependablyrainless summers, the realities of self-sufficient living, and my homestead'spoor well turned out to be anopportunity. For I continued wonderingabout gardens and water, anddiscovered a method for growing alush, productive vegetable garden ondeep soil with little or no irrigation, ina climate that reliably provides 8 to 12virtually dry weeks every summer.

Gardening with Less Irrigation

Being a garden writer, I was on thereceiving end of quite a bit of locallore. I had heard of someone growingunirrigated carrots on sandy soil insouthern Oregon by sowing early andspacing the roots 1 foot apart in rows 4feet apart. The carrots were reputed togrow to enormous sizes, and the overallyield in pounds per square footoccupied by the crop was not as low asone might think. I read that NativeAmericans in the Southwest grewremarkable desert gardens with little orno water. And that Native SouthAmericans in the highlands of Peru andBolivia grow food crops in a land with8 to 12 inches of rainfall. So I had towonder what our own pioneers did.

In 1987, we moved 50 miles south, toa much better homestead with moreacreage and an abundant well.Ironically, only then did I grow myfirst summertime vegetable withoutirrigation. Being a low-key survivalistat heart, I was working at growing myown seeds. The main danger toattaining good germination is inrepeatedly moistening developing seed.So, in early March 1988, I moved sixwinter-surviving savoy cabbage plantsfar beyond the irrigated soil of myraised-bed vegetable garden. Itransplanted them 4 feet apart becauseblooming brassicas make huge spraysof flower stalks. I did not plan to waterthese plants at all, since cabbage seed

forms during May and dries downduring June as the soil naturally driesout.

That is just what happened. Exceptthat one plant did something a littleunusual, though not unheard of. Insteadof completely going into bloom andthen dying after setting a massive loadof seed, this plant also threw avegetative bud that grew a whole newcabbage among the seed stalks.

With increasing excitement I watchedthis head grow steadily larger throughthe hottest and driest summer I hadever experienced. Realizing I waswitnessing revelation, I gave the plant

absolutely no water, though I did hoeout the weeds around it after I cut theseed stalks. I harvested the unexpectedlesson at the end of September. Thecabbage weighed in at 6 or 7 poundsand was sweet and tender.

Up to that time, all my gardening hadbeen on thoroughly and uniformlywatered raised beds. Now I saw thatelbow room might be the key togardening with little or no irrigating, soI began looking for more informationabout dry gardening and soil/waterphysics. In spring 1989, I tilled fourwidely separated, unirrigatedexperimental rows in which I tested anassortment of vegetable species spaced

far apart in the row. Out of curiosity Idecided to use absolutely no water atall, not even to sprinkle the seeds to getthem germinating.

I sowed a bit of kale, savoy cabbage,Purple Sprouting broccoli, carrots,beets, parsnips, parsley, endive, drybeans, potatoes, French sorrel, and acouple of field cornstalks. I also testedone compact bush (determinate) andone sprawling (indeterminate) tomatoplant. Many of these vegetables grewsurprisingly well. I ate unwateredtomatoes July through September; kale,cabbages, parsley, and root crops fed usduring the winter. The PurpleSprouting broccoli bloomed abundantly

the next March.

In terms of quality, all the harvestwas acceptable. The root vegetableswere far larger but only a little bittougher and quite a bit sweeter thanusual. The potatoes yielded less thanI'd been used to and had thicker thanusual skin, but also had a better flavorand kept well through the winter.

The following year I grew twoparallel gardens. One, my "insurancegarden," was thoroughly irrigated,guaranteeing we would have plenty toeat. Another experimental garden ofequal size was entirely unirrigated.There I tested larger plots of species

that I hoped could grow through arainless summer.

By July, growth on some species hadslowed to a crawl and they looked alittle gnarly. Wondering if a hiddencause of what appeared to be moisturestress might actually be nutrientdeficiencies, I tried spraying liquidfertilizer directly on these gnarlyleaves, a practice called foliar feeding.It helped greatly because, I reasoned,most fertility is located in the topsoil,and when it gets dry the plants draw onsubsoil moisture, so surface nutrients,though still present in the dry soil,become unobtainable. That being so, Ireasoned that some of these species

might do even better if they had just alittle fertilized water. So I improvised asimple drip system and metered out 4or 5 gallons of liquid fertilizer to someof the plants in late July and fourgallons more in August. To somespecies, extra fertilized water (what Icall "fertigation") hardly made anydifference at all. But unirrigated wintersquash vines, which were small andscraggly and yielded about 15 poundsof food, grew more lushly when given afew 5-gallon, fertilizer-fortified assistsand yielded 50 pounds. Thirty-fivepounds of squash for 25 extra gallonsof water and a bit of extra nutrition is apretty good exchange in my book.

The next year I integrated all this newinformation into just one garden.Water-loving species like lettuce andcelery were grown through the summeron a large, thoroughly irrigated raisedbed. The rest of the garden was givenno irrigation at all or minimallymetered-out fertigations. Someunirrigated crops were foliar fedweekly.

Everything worked in 1991! And Ifound still other species that I couldgrow surprisingly well on surprisinglysmall amounts of water[—]or none atall. So, the next year, 1992, I set up asprinkler system to water the intensiveraised bed and used the overspray to

support species that grew better withsome moisture supplementation; Icontinued using my improvised dripsystem to help still others, whilekeeping a large section of the gardenentirely unwatered. And at the end ofthat summer I wrote this book.

What follows is not mere theory, notsomething I read about or saw othersdo. These techniques are tested andworkable. The next-to-last chapter ofthis book contains a complete plan ofmy 1992 garden with explanations anddiscussion of the reasoning behind it.

I n Water-Wise Vegetables I assumethat my readers already are growing

food (probably on raised beds), alreadyknow how to adjust their gardening tothis region's climate, and know how togarden with irrigation. If you don'thave this background I suggest youread my other garden book, GrowingVegetables West of the Cascades,(Sasquatch Books, 1989).

Steve Solomon

Chapter 1

Predictably Rainless

Summers

In the eastern United States,summertime rainfall can supportgardens without irrigation but is justirregular enough to be worrisome.West of the Cascades we go into thesummer growing season certain wemust water regularly.

My own many-times-revised bookGrowing Vegetables West of theCascades correctly emphasized thatmoisture-stressed vegetables suffergreatly. Because I had not yet noticedhow plant spacing affects soil moistureloss, in that book I stated a half-truth aslaw: Soil moisture loss averages 1-1/2

inches per week during summer.

This figure is generally true forraised-bed gardens west of theCascades, so I recommended adding 11/2 inches of water each week and evenmore during really hot weather.

Summertime Rainfall West of the

Cascades (in inches)*

Location April May

June July Aug. Sept. Oct.

Eureka, CA 3.0 2.1

0.7 0.1 0.3 0.7 3.2

Medford, OR 1.0 1.4

0.98 0.3 0.3 0.6 2.1

Eugene, OR 2.3 2.1

1.3 0.3 0.6 1.3 4.0

Portland, OR 2.2 2.1

1.6 0.5 0.8 1.6 3.6

Astoria, OR 4.6 2.7

2.5 1.0 1.5 2.8 6.8

Olympia, WA 3.1 1.9

1.6 0.7 1.2 2.1 5.3

Seattle, WA 2.4 1.7

1.6 0.8 1.0 2.1 4.0

Bellingham, WA 2.3 1.8

1.9 1.0 1.1 2.0 3.7

Vancouver, BC 3.3 2.8

2.5 1.2 1.7 3.6 5.8

Victoria, BC 1.2 1.0

0.9 0.4 0.6 1.5 2.8

*Source: Van der Leeden et al., The

Water Encyclopedia, 2nd ed.,

(Chelsea, Mich.: Lewis Publishers,

1990).

Defined scientifically, drought is notlack of rain. It is a dry soil condition inwhich plant growth slows or stops andplant survival may be threatened. The

earth loses water when wind blows,when sun shines, when air temperatureis high, and when humidity is low. Ofall these factors, air temperature mostaffects soil moisture loss.

Daily Maximum Temperature (F)*

July/August Average

Eureka, CA 61

Medford, OR 89

Eugene, OR 82

Astoria, OR 68

Olympia, WA 78

Seattle, WA 75

Bellingham, WA 74

Vancouver, BC 73

Victoria, BC 68

*Source: The Water Encyclopedia.

The kind of vegetation growing on aparticular plot and its density haveeven more to do with soil moisture lossthan temperature or humidity or windspeed. And, surprising as it mightseem, bare soil may not lose muchmoisture at all. I now know it is next toimpossible to anticipate moisture lossfrom soil without first specifying thevegetation there. Evaporation from alarge body of water, however, is mainlydetermined by weather, so reservoirevaporation measurements serve as arough gauge of anticipated soilmoisture loss.

Evaporation from Reservoirs (inches

per month)*

Location April May

June July Aug. Sept. Oct.

Seattle, WA 2.1 2.7

3.4 3.9 3.4 2.6 1.6

Baker, OR 2.5 3.4

4.4 6.9 7.3 4.9 2.9

Sacramento, CA 3.6 5.0

7.1 8.9 8.6 7.1 4.8

*Source: The Water Encyclopedia

From May through September duringa normal year, a reservoir near Seattleloses about 16 inches of water byevaporation. The next chart shows how

much water farmers expect to use tosupport conventional agriculture invarious parts of the West. Comparingthis data for Seattle with the estimatesbased on reservoir evaporation showspretty good agreement. I include datafor Umatilla and Yakima to show thatmuch larger quantities of irrigationwater are needed in really hot, aridplaces like Baker or Sacramento.

Estimated Irrigation Requirements:

During Entire Growing Season (in

inches)*

Location

Duration Amount

Umatilla/Yakama Valley

April-October 30

Willamette Valley

May-September 16

Puget Sound

May-September 14

Upper Rogue/Upper Umpqua Valley

March-September 18

Lower Rogue/Lower Coquille Valley

May-September 11

NW California

April-October 17

*Source: The Water Encyclopedia

In our region, gardens lose far morewater than they get from rainfall duringthe summer growing season. At firstglance, it seems impossible to gardenwithout irrigation west of the Cascades.But there is water already present inthe soil when the gardening seasonbegins. By creatively using and

conserving this moisture, somemaritime Northwest gardeners can gothrough an entire summer withoutirrigating very much, and with somecrops, irrigating not at all.

Chapter 2

Water-Wise GardeningScience

Plants Are Water

Like all other carbon-based life formson earth, plants conduct their chemicalprocesses in a water solution. Everysubstance that plants transport isdissolved in water. When insolublestarches and oils are required for plantenergy, enzymes change them backinto water-soluble sugars formovement to other locations. Evencellulose and lignin, insolublestructural materials that plants cannotconvert back into soluble materials, aremade from molecules that once were insolution.

Water is so essential that when aplant can no longer absorb as muchwater as it is losing, it wilts in self-

defense. The drooping leaves transpire(evaporate) less moisture because thesun glances off them. Some weeds canwilt temporarily and resume vigorousgrowth as soon as their water balance isrestored. But most vegetable speciesaren't as tough-moisture stressedvegetables may survive, but oncestressed, the quality of their yieldusually drops markedly.

Yet in deep, open soil west of theCascades, most vegetable species maybe grown quite successfully with verylittle or no supplementary irrigationand without mulching, because they'recapable of being supplied entirely bywater already stored in the soil.

Soil's Water-Holding Capacity

Soil is capable of holding on to quitea bit of water, mostly by adhesion. Forexample, I'm sure that at one time oranother you have picked up a wet stonefrom a river or by the sea. A thin filmof water clings to its surface. This isadhesion. The more surface area thereis, the greater the amount of moisturethat can be held by adhesion. If wecrushed that stone into dust, we wouldgreatly increase the amount of waterthat could adhere to the originalmaterial. Clay particles, it should benoted, are so small that clay's ability to

hold water is not as great as itsmathematically computed surface areawould indicate.

Surface Area of One Gram of Soil

Particles

Particle type Diameter of

Number of

particles

particles Surface area

in mm

per gm in sq. cm.

Very coarse sand 2.00-

1.00 90 11

Coarse sand 1.00-

0.50 720 23

Medium sand 0.50-

0.25 5,700 45

Fine sand 0.25-

0.10 46,000 91

Very fine sand 0.10-

0.05 772,000 227

Silt 0.05-0.002

5,776,000 454

Clay Below 0.002

90,260,853,000 8,000,000

Source: Foth, Henry D., Fundamentals

of Soil Science, 8th ed.

(New York: John Wylie & Sons,

1990).

This direct relationship betweenparticle size, surface area, and water-holding capacity is so essential tounderstanding plant growth that thesurface areas presented by varioussizes of soil particles have beencalculated. Soils are not composed of asingle size of particle. If the mix isprimarily sand, we call it a sandy soil.

If the mix is primarily clay, we call it aclay soil. If the soil is a relatively equalmix of all three, containing no morethan 35 percent clay, we call it a loam.

Available Moisture (inches of water

per foot of soil)

Soil Texture Average Amount

Very coarse sand 0.5

Coarse sand 0.7

Sandy 1.0

Sandy loam 1.4

Loam 2.0

Clay loam 2.3

Silty clay 2.5

Clay 2.7

Source: Fundamentals of Soil Science.

Adhering water films can vary greatlyin thickness. But if the water moleculesadhering to a soil particle become toothick, the force of adhesion becomestoo weak to resist the force of gravity,and some water flows deeper into thesoil. When water films are relativelythick the soil feels wet and plant rootscan easily absorb moisture. "Fieldcapacity" is the term describing soilparticles holding all the water they canagainst the force of gravity.

At the other extreme, the thinner thewater films become, the more tightlythey adhere and the drier the earthfeels. At some degree of desiccation,roots are no longer forceful enough to

draw on soil moisture as fast as theplants are transpiring. This condition iscalled the "wilting point." The term"available moisture" refers to thedifference between field capacity andthe amount of moisture left after theplants have died.

Clayey soil can provide plants withthree times as much available water assand, six times as much as a verycoarse sandy soil. It might seem logicalto conclude that a clayey garden wouldbe the most drought resistant. Butthere's more to it. For some crops, deepsandy loams can provide just about asmuch usable moisture as clays. Sandysoils usually allow more extensive root

development, so a plant with anaturally aggressive and deep rootsystem may be able to occupy a muchlarger volume of sandy loam,ultimately coming up with moremoisture than it could obtain from aheavy, airless clay. And sandy loamsoften have a clayey, moisture-richsubsoil.

Because of this interplay of factors,how much available water your ownunique garden soil is actually capableof providing and how much you willhave to supplement it with irrigationcan only be discovered by trial.

How Soil Loses Water

Suppose we tilled a plot about April 1and then measured soil moisture lossuntil October. Because plants growingaround the edge might extend rootsinto our test plot and extract moisture,we'll make our tilled area 50 feet by 50feet and make all our measurements inthe center. And let's locate thisimaginary plot in full sun on flat,uniform soil. And let's plant absolutelynothing in this bare earth. And allseason let's rigorously hoe out everyweed while it is still very tiny.

Let's also suppose it's been a typicalmaritime Northwest rainy winter, so on

April 1 the soil is at field capacity,holding all the moisture it can. Fromearly April until well into Septemberthe hot sun will beat down on this bareplot. Our summer rains generally comein insignificant installments and do notpenetrate deeply; all of the rain quicklyevaporates from the surface few incheswithout recharging deeper layers. Mostreaders would reason that a soilmoisture measurement taken 6 inchesdown on September 1, should showvery little water left. One foot downseems like it should be just as dry, andin fact, most gardeners would expectthat there would be very little waterfound in the soil until we got downquite a few feet if there were several

feet of soil.

But that is not what happens! The hotsun does dry out the surface inches, butif we dig down 6 inches or so there willbe almost as much water present inSeptember as there was in April. Bareearth does not lose much water at all.Once a thin surface layer is completelydesiccated, be it loose or compacted,virtually no further loss of moisturecan occur.

The only soils that continue to dry outwhen bare are certain kinds of veryheavy clays that form deep cracks.These ever-deepening openings allowatmospheric air to freely evaporate

additional moisture. But if the cracksare filled with dust by surfacecultivation, even this soil type ceasesto lose water.

Soil functions as our bank account,holding available water in storage. Inour climate soil is inevitably chargedto capacity by winter rains, and then allsummer growing plants make heavywithdrawals. But hot sun and windworking directly on soil don't removemuch water; that is caused by hot sunand wind working on plant leaves,making them transpire moisture drawnfrom the earth through their rootsystems. Plants desiccate soil to theultimate depth and lateral extent of

their rooting ability, and then some.The size of vegetable root systems isgreater than most gardeners wouldthink. The amount of moisturepotentially available to sustainvegetable growth is also greater thanmost gardeners think.

Rain and irrigation are not the onlyways to replace soil moisture. If thesoil body is deep, water will graduallycome up from below the root zone bycapillarity. Capillarity works by thevery same force of adhesion that makesmoisture stick to a soil particle. Acolumn of water in a vertical tube (likea thin straw) adheres to the tube's innersurfaces. This adhesion tends to lift the

edges of the column of water. As thetube's diameter becomes smaller theamount of lift becomes greater. Soilparticles form interconnected poresthat allow an inefficient capillary flow,recharging dry soil above. However,the drier soil becomes, the lesseffective capillary flow becomes. Thatis why a thoroughly desiccated surfacelayer only a few inches thick acts as apowerful mulch.

Industrial farming and moderngardening tend to discount thereplacement of surface moisture bycapillarity, considering this flow aninsignificant factor compared with themoisture needs of crops. But

conventional agriculture focuses onmaximized yields through high plantdensities. Capillarity is too slow tosupport dense crop stands wherenumerous root systems are competing,but when a single plant can, withoutany competition, occupy a largeenough area, moisture replacement bycapillarity becomes significant.

How Plants Obtain Water

Most gardeners know that plantsacquire water and minerals throughtheir root systems, and leave it at that.But the process is not quite that simple.

The actively growing, tender root tipsand almost microscopic root hairsclose to the tip absorb most of theplant's moisture as they occupy newterritory. As the root continues toextend, parts behind the tip cease to beeffective because, as soil particles indirect contact with these tips and hairsdry out, the older roots thicken anddevelop a bark, while most of theabsorbent hairs slough off. Thisrotation from being actively foragingtissue to becoming more passiveconductive and supportive tissue isprobably a survival adaptation, becausethe slow capillary movement of soilmoisture fails to replace what the plantused as fast as the plant might like. The

plant is far better off to aggressivelyseek new water in unoccupied soil thanto wait for the soil its roots alreadyoccupy to be recharged.

A simple bit of old researchmagnificently illustrated thesignificance of this. A scientist namedDittmer observed in 1937 that a singlepotted ryegrass plant allocated only 1cubic foot of soil to grow in madeabout 3 miles of new roots and roothairs every day. (Ryegrasses are knownto make more roots than most plants.) Icalculate that a cubic foot of silty soiloffers about 30,000 square feet ofsurface area to plant roots. If 3 miles ofmicroscopic root tips and hairs

(roughly 16,000 lineal feet) drawswater only from a few millimeters ofsurrounding soil, then that single ryeplant should be able to continueramifying into a cubic foot of silty soiland find enough water for quite a fewdays before wilting. These arithmeticalestimates agree with my observationsin the garden, and with my experiencesraising transplants in pots.

Lowered Plant Density: The Key toWater-Wise Gardening

I always think my latest try at writinga near-perfect garden book is quite a

bit better than the last. GrowingVegetables West of the Cascades ,recommended somewhat widerspacings on raised beds than I did in1980 because I'd repeatedly noticedthat once a leaf canopy forms, plantgrowth slows markedly. Adding a littlemore fertilizer helps after plants"bump," but still the rate of growthnever equals that of younger plants. Foryears I assumed crowded plantsstopped producing as much becausecompetition developed for light. Butnow I see that unseen competition forroot room also slows them down. Evenif moisture is regularly recharged byirrigation, and although nutrients arereplaced, once a bit of earth has been

occupied by the roots of one plant it isnot so readily available to the roots ofanother. So allocating more elbowroom allows vegetables to get largerand yield longer and allows thegardener to reduce the frequency ofirrigations.

Though hot, baking sun and wind candesiccate the few inches of surface soil,withdrawals of moisture from greaterdepths are made by growing plantstranspiring moisture through their leafsurfaces. The amount of water agrowing crop will transpire isdetermined first by the nature of thespecies itself, then by the amount ofleaf exposed to sun, air temperature,

humidity, and wind. In these respects,the crop is like an automobile radiator.With cars, the more metal surfaces, thecolder the ambient air, and the higherthe wind speed, the better the radiatorcan cool; in the garden, the more leafsurfaces, the faster, warmer, and drierthe wind, and the brighter the sunlight,the more water is lost throughtranspiration.

Dealing with a Surprise WaterShortage

Suppose you are growing aconventional, irrigated garden and

something unanticipated interruptsyour ability to water. Perhaps you arehomesteading and your well begins todry up. Perhaps you're a backyardgardener and the municipalitytemporarily restricts usage. What todo?

First, if at all possible before therestrictions take effect, water veryheavily and long to ensure there ismaximum subsoil moisture. Theneliminate all newly startedinterplantings and ruthlessly hoe out atleast 75 percent of the remainingimmature plants and about half ofthose about two weeks away fromharvest.

For example, suppose you've got a a4-foot-wide intensive bed holdingseven rows of broccoli on 12 inchcenters, or about 21 plants. Remove atleast every other row and every otherplant in the three or four remainingrows. Try to bring plant density downto those described in Chapter 5, "Howto Grow It: A-Z"

Then shallowly hoe the soil every dayor two to encourage the surface inchesto dry out and form a dust mulch. Youwater-wise person—you're already drygardening—now start fertigating.

How long available soil water willsustain a crop is determined by how

many plants are drawing on thereserve, how extensively their rootsystems develop, and how many leavesare transpiring the moisture. If thereare no plants, most of the water willstay unused in the barren soil throughthe entire growing season. If a cropcanopy is established midway throughthe growing season, the rate of waterloss will approximate that listed in thetable in Chapter 1 "Estimated IrrigationRequirement." If by very close plantingthe crop canopy is established as earlyas possible and maintained bysuccessive interplantings, as isrecommended by most advocates ofraised-bed gardening, water losses willgreatly exceed this rate.

Many vegetable species becomemildly stressed when soil moisture hasdropped about half the way fromcapacity to the wilting point. On veryclosely planted beds a crop can get inserious trouble without irrigation in amatter of days. But if that same cropwere planted less densely, it mightgrow a few weeks without irrigation.And if that crop were planted evenfarther apart so that no crop canopyever developed and a considerableamount of bare, dry earth wereshowing, this apparent waste ofgrowing space would result in an evenslower rate of soil moisture depletion.On deep, open soil the crop might yielda respectable amount without needing

any irrigation at all.

West of the Cascades we expect arainless summer; the surprise comesthat rare rainy year when the soil staysmoist and we gather bucketfuls ofchanterelle mushrooms in earlyOctober. Though the majority ofmaritime Northwest gardeners do notenjoy deep, open, moisture-retentivesoils, all except those with theshallowest soil can increase their use ofthe free moisture nature provides andlengthen the time between irrigations.The next chapter discusses making themost of whatever soil depth you have.Most of our region's gardens can yieldabundantly without any rain at all if

only we reduce competition foravailable soil moisture, judiciouslyfertigate some vegetable species, andpractice a few other water-wise tricks.

Would lowering plant density as muchas this book suggests equally lower theyield of the plot? Surprisingly, theamount harvested does not dropproportionately. In most cases having aplant density one-eighth of thatrecommended by intensive gardeningadvocates will result in a yield abouthalf as great as on closely plantedraised beds.

Internet Readers: In the print copy ofthis book are color pictures of my own

"irrigationless" garden. Looking atthem about here in the book would addreality to these ideas.

Chapter 3

Helping Plants to Need LessIrrigation

Dry though the maritime Northwestsummer is, we enter the growingseason with our full depth of soil atfield capacity. Except on clayey soils

in extraordinarily frosty, high-elevation locations, we usually can tilland plant before the soil has had achance to lose much moisture.

There are a number of things we cando to make soil moisture moreavailable to our summer vegetables.The most obvious step is thoroughweeding. Next, we can keep the surfacefluffed up with a rotary tiller or hoeduring April and May, to break itscapillary connection with deeper soiland accelerate the formation of a drydust mulch. Usually, weeding forces usto do this anyway. Also, if it shouldrain during summer, we can hoe orrotary till a day or two later and again

help a new dust mulch to develop.

Building Bigger Root Systems

Without irrigation, most of the plant'swater supply is obtained by expansioninto new earth that hasn't beendesiccated by other competing roots.Eliminating any obstacles to rapidgrowth of root systems is the key tosuccess. So, keep in mind a few factsabout how roots grow and prosper.

The air supply in soil limits or allowsroot growth. Unlike the leaves, roots donot perform photosynthesis, breaking

down carbon dioxide gas intoatmospheric oxygen and carbon. Yetroot cells must breathe oxygen. This isobtained from the air held in spacesbetween soil particles. Many other soil-dwelling life forms from bacteria tomoles compete for this same oxygen.Consequently, soil oxygen levels arelower than in the atmosphere. A slowexchange of gases does occur betweensoil air and free atmosphere, but deeperin the soil there will inevitably be lessoxygen. Different plant species havevarying degrees of root tolerance forlack of oxygen, but they all stopgrowing at some depth. Moisturereserves below the roots' maximumdepth become relatively inaccessible.

Soil compaction reduces the overallsupply and exchange of soil air.Compacted soil also acts as amechanical barrier to root systemexpansion. When gardening withunlimited irrigation or where rain fallsfrequently, it is quite possible to havesatisfactory growth when only thesurface 6 or 7 inches of soil facilitatesroot development. When gardeningwith limited water, China's the limit,because if soil conditions permit, manyvegetable species are capable ofreaching 4, 5, and 8 eight feet down tofind moisture and nutrition.

Evaluating Potential Rooting Ability

One of the most instructive things awater-wise gardener can do is to rent orborrow a hand-operated fence postauger and bore a 3-foot-deep hole. Itcan be even more educational to buy ashort section of ordinary water pipe toextend the auger's reach another 2 or 3feet down. In soil free of stones, usingan auger is more instructive than usinga conventional posthole digger orshoveling out a small pit, becausewhere soil is loose, the hole deepensrapidly. Where any layer is evenslightly compacted, one turns and turnsthe bit without much effect. Augersalso lift the materials more or less as

they are stratified. If your soil issomewhat stony (like much upland soilnorth of Centralia left by the VashonGlacier), the more usual fence-postdigger or common shovel works better.

If you find more than 4 feet of soil,the site holds a dry-gardening potentialthat increases with the additionaldepth. Some soils along the floodplainsof rivers or in broad valleys like theWillamette or Skagit can be over 20feet deep, and hold far more water thanthe deepest roots could draw orcapillary flow could raise during anentire growing season. Gently slopingland can often carry 5 to 7 feet of open,usable soil. However, soils on steep

hillsides become increasingly thin andfragile with increasing slope.

Whether an urban, suburban, or ruralgardener, you should make noassumptions about the depth andopenness of the soil at your disposal.Dig a test hole. If you find less than 2unfortunate feet of open earth beforehitting an impermeable obstacle suchas rock or gravel, not much waterstorage can occur and the only use thisbook will hold for you is to guide yourmove to a more likely gardeninglocation or encourage the house hunterto seek further. Of course, you can stillgarden quite successfully on thin soilin the conventional, irrigated manner.

Growing Vegetables West of theCascades will be an excellent guide forthis type of situation.

Eliminating Plowpan

Deep though the soil may be, anyrestriction of root expansion greatlylimits the ability of plants toaggressively find water. A compactedsubsoil or even a thin compressed layersuch as plowpan may function as sucha barrier. Though moisture will stillrise slowly by capillarity and rechargesoil above plowpan, plants obtain muchmore water by rooting into unoccupied,

damp soil. Soils close to rivers or onfloodplains may appear loose andinfinitely deep but may hide subsoilstreaks of droughty gravel thateffectively stops root growth. Some ofthese conditions are correctable andsome are not.

Plowpan is very commonlyencountered by homesteaders on farmsoils and may be found in suburbia too,but fortunately it is the easiest obstacleto remedy. Traditionally, Americancroplands have been tilled with themoldboard plow. As this implementfirst cuts and then flips a 6-or 7-inch-deep slice of soil over, the sole—thepart supporting the plow's weight—

presses heavily on the earth about 7inches below the surface. With eachsubsequent plowing the plow sole ridesat the same 7-inch depth and an evenmore compacted layer develops. Onceformed plowpan prevents the crop fromrooting into the subsoil. Since winterrains leach nutrients from the topsoiland deposit them in the subsoil,plowpan prevents access to thesenutrients and effectively impoverishesthe field. So wise farmers periodicallyuse a subsoil plow to fracture the pan.

Plowpan can seem as firm as arammed-earth house; once established,it can last a long, long time. My owngarden land is part of what was once an

old wheat farm, one of the firsthomesteads of the Oregon Territory.From about 1860 through the 1930s,the field produced small grains. Afterwheat became unprofitable, probablybecause of changing market conditionsand soil exhaustion, the field becamean unplowed pasture. Then in the 1970sit grew daffodil bulbs, occasioningmore plowing. All through the '80s mysoil again rested under grass. In 1987,when I began using the land, there wasstill a 2-inch-thick, very hard layerstarting about 7 inches down. Below 9inches the open earth is soft as butteras far as I've ever dug.

On a garden-sized plot, plowpan or

compacted subsoil is easily openedwith a spading fork or a very sharpcommon shovel. After normal rotarytilling, either tool can fairly easily bewiggled 12 inches into the earth andsmall bites of plowpan loosened. Oncethis laborious chore is accomplishedthe first time, deep tillage will be fareasier. In fact, it becomes so easy thatI've been looking for a custom-madefork with longer tines.

Curing Clayey Soils

In humid climates like ours, sandysoils may seem very open and friable

on the surface but frequently hold someunpleasant subsoil surprises. Overgeologic time spans, mineral grains areslowly destroyed by weak soil acidsand clay is formed from the breakdownproducts. Then heavy winter rainfalltransports these minuscule clayparticles deeper into the earth, wherethey concentrate. It is not unusual tofind a sandy topsoil underlaid with adense, cement-like, clayey sand subsoilextending down several feet. If veryimpervious, a thick, dense depositionlike this may be called hardpan.

The spading fork cannot cure thiscondition as simply as it can eliminatethin plowpan. Here is one situation

where, if I had a neighbor with a largetractor and subsoil plow, I'd hire him tofracture my land 3 or 4 feet deep.Painstakingly double or even tripledigging will also loosen this layer.Another possible strategy for a smallergarden would be to rent a gasoline-powered posthole auger, spread manureor compost an inch or two thick, andthen bore numerous, almost adjoiningholes 4 feet deep all over the garden.

Clayey subsoil can supplysurprisingly larger amounts ofmoisture than the granular sandysurface might imply, but only if theearth is opened deeply and becomesmore accessible to root growth.

Fortunately, once root developmentincreases at greater depths, the organicmatter content and accessibility of thisclayey layer can be maintained throughintelligent green manuring, postponingfor years the need to subsoil again.Green manuring is discussed in detailshortly.

Other sites may have gooey, very fineclay topsoils, almost inevitably withgooey, very fine clay subsoils as well.Though incorporation ofextraordinarily large quantities oforganic matter can turn the top fewinches into something that behaves alittle like loam, it is quite impracticalto work in humus to a depth of 4 or 5

feet. Root development will still belimited to the surface layer. Very fineclays don't make likely dry gardens.

Not all clay soils are "fine clay soils,"totally compacted and airless. Forexample, on the gentler slopes of thegeologic old Cascades, those 50-million-year-old black basalts thatform the Cascades foothills and appearin other places throughout the maritimeNorthwest, a deep, friable, red clay soilcalled (in Oregon) Jori often forms.Jori clays can be 6 to 8 feet deep andare sufficiently porous and welldrained to have been used for highlyproductive orchard crops. Water-wisegardeners can do wonders with Joris

and other similar soils, though claysnever grow the best root crops.

Spotting a Likely Site

Observing the condition of wildplants can reveal a good site to gardenwithout much irrigation. WhereHimalaya or Evergreen blackberriesgrow 2 feet tall and produce small,dull-tasting fruit, there is not muchavailable soil moisture. Where theygrow 6 feet tall and the berries aresweet and good sized, there is deep,open soil. When the berry vines are 8or more feet tall and the fruits are

especially huge, usually there is bothdeep, loose soil and a higher than usualamount of fertility.

Other native vegetation can alsoreveal a lot about soil moisturereserves. For years I wondered at theshort leaders and sad appearance ofDouglas fir in the vicinity of Yelm,Washington. Were they due to extremesoil infertility? Then I learned thatconifer trees respond more tosummertime soil moisture than tofertility. I obtained a soil survey ofThurston County and discovered thatmuch of that area was very sandy withgravelly subsoil. Eureka!

The Soil Conservation Service (SCS),a U.S. Government agency, hasprobably put a soil auger into your veryland or a plot close by. Its tests havebeen correlated and mapped; the soilsunderlying the maritime Northwesthave been named and categorized bytexture, depth, and ability to provideavailable moisture. The maps areprecise and detailed enough toapproximately locate a city or suburbanlot. In 1987, when I was in the marketfor a new homestead, I first went to mycounty SCS office, mapped outlocations where the soil was suitable,and then went hunting. Most countieshave their own office.

Using Humus to Increase SoilMoisture

Maintaining topsoil humus content inthe 4 to 5 percent range is vital to planthealth, vital to growing more nutritiousfood, and essential to bringing the soilinto that state of easy workability andcooperation known as good tilth.Humus is a spongy substance capableof holding several times more availablemoisture than clay. There are also newsynthetic, long-lasting soilamendments that hold and release evenmore moisture than humus. Gardenbooks frequently recommend tilling in

extraordinarily large amounts oforganic matter to increase a soil'swater-holding capacity in the top fewinches.

Humus can improve many aspects ofsoil but will not reduce a garden'soverall need for irrigation, because it issimply not practical to maintainsufficient humus deeply enough.Rotary tilling only blends amendmentsinto the top 6 or 7 inches of soil.Rigorous double digging by actuallytrenching out 12 inches and thenspading up the next foot theoreticallyallows one to mix in significantamounts of organic matter to nearly 24inches. But plants can use water from

far deeper than that. Let's realisticallyconsider how much soil moisturereserves might be increased by doubledigging and incorporating largequantities of organic matter.

A healthy topsoil organic matter levelin our climate is about 4 percent. Thisrapidly declines to less than 0.5 percentin the subsoil. Suppose inches-thicklayers of compost were spread and, bydouble digging, the organic mattercontent of a very sandy soil wereamended to 10 percent down to 2 feet.If that soil contained little clay, itswater-holding ability in the top 2 feetcould be doubled. Referring to thechart "Available Moisture" in Chapter

2, we see that sandy soil can release upto 1 inch of water per foot. By dint ofmassive amendment we might add 1inch of available moisture per foot ofsoil to the reserve. That's 2 extra inchesof water, enough to increase the timean ordinary garden can last betweenheavy irrigations by a week or 10 days.

If the soil in question were a siltyclay, it would naturally make 2 1/2inches available per foot. A massivehumus amendment would increase thatto 3 1/2 inches in the top foot or two,relatively not as much benefit as insandy soil. And I seriously doubt thatmany gardeners would be willing tothoroughly double dig to an honest 24

inches.

Trying to maintain organic matterlevels above 10 percent is an almostself-defeating process. The higher thehumus level gets, the more rapidlyorganic matter tends to decay. Findingor making enough well-finishedcompost to cover the garden severalinches deep (what it takes to lift humuslevels to 10 percent) is enough of a job.Double digging just as much more intothe second foot is even more effort. Buthaving to repeat that chore every yearor two becomes downrightdiscouraging. No, either your soilnaturally holds enough moisture topermit dry gardening, or it doesn't.

Keeping the Subsoil Open withGreen Manuring

When roots decay, fresh organicmatter and large, long-lastingpassageways can be left deep in thesoil, allowing easier air movement andfacilitating entry of other roots. But nocover crop that I am aware of willeffectively penetrate firm plowpan orother resistant physical obstacles. Sucha barrier forces all plants to root almostexclusively in the topsoil. However,once the subsoil has been mechanicallyfractured the first time, and ifrecompaction is avoided by shunning

heavy tractors and other machinery,green manure crops can maintain theopenness of the subsoil.

To accomplish this, correct greenmanure species selection is essential.Lawn grasses tend to be shallowrooting, while most regionally adaptedpasture grasses can reach down about 3feet at best. However, orchard grass(called coltsfoot in English farmingbooks) will grow down 4 or more feetwhile leaving a massive amount ofdecaying organic matter in the subsoilafter the sod is tilled in. Sweet clover, abiennial legume that sprouts one springthen winters over to bloom the nextsummer, may go down 8 feet. Red

clover, a perennial species, may thicklyinvade the top 5 feet. Other usefulsubsoil busters include densely sownUmbelliferae such as carrots, parsley,and parsnip. The chicory family alsomakes very large and penetratingtaproots.

Though seed for wild chicory is hardto obtain, cheap varieties of endive (asemicivilized relative) are easilyavailable. And several pounds of yourown excellent parsley or parsnip seedcan be easily produced by letting about10 row feet of overwintering rootsform seed. Orchard grass and redclover can be had quite inexpensivelyat many farm supply stores. Sweet

clover is not currently grown by ourregion's farmers and so can only befound by mail from Johnny's SelectedSeeds (see Chapter 5 for their address).Poppy seed used for cooking will oftensprout. Sown densely in October, itforms a thick carpet of frilly springgreens underlaid with countlessmassive taproots that decompose veryrapidly if the plants are tilled in inApril before flower stalks begin toappear. Beware if using poppies as agreen manure crop: be sure to till themin early to avoid trouble with the DEAor other authorities.

For country gardeners, the bestrotations include several years of

perennial grass-legume-herb mixturesto maintain the openness of the subsoilfollowed by a few years of vegetablesand then back (see Newman Turner'sbook in more reading). I plan my owngarden this way. In October, after a fewinches of rain has softened the earth, Ispread 50 pounds of agricultural limeper 1,000 square feet and break thethick pasture sod covering next year'sgarden plot by shallow rotary tilling.Early the next spring I broadcast aconcoction I call "complete organicfertilizer" (see Growing VegetablesWest of the Cascades or the TerritorialSeed Company Catalog), till again afterthe soil dries down a bit, and then use aspading fork to open the subsoil before

making a seedbed. The first timearound, I had to break the century-oldplowpan—forking compacted earth afoot deep is a lot of work. Insubsequent rotations it is much mucheasier.

For a couple of years, vegetables willgrow vigorously on this new groundsupported only with a complete organicfertilizer. But vegetable gardeningmakes humus levels decline rapidly. Soevery few years I start a new garden onanother plot and replant the old gardento green manures. I never removevegetation during the long rebuildingunder green manures, but merely mowit once or twice a year and allow the

organic matter content of the soil toredevelop. If there ever were a placewhere chemical fertilizers might beappropriate around a garden, it wouldbe to affordably enhance the growth ofbiomass during green manuring.

Were I a serious city vegetablegardener, I'd consider growingvegetables in the front yard for a fewyears and then switching to the backyard. Having lots of space, as I do now,I keep three or four garden plotsavailable, one in vegetables and theothers restoring their organic mattercontent under grass.

Mulching

Gardening under a permanent thickmulch of crude organic matter isrecommended by Ruth Stout (see thelisting for her book in More Reading)and her disciples as a surefire way todrought-proof gardens whileeliminating virtually any need fortillage, weeding, and fertilizing. I haveattempted the method in both SouthernCalifornia and western Oregon—withdisastrous results in both locations.What follows in this section isaddressed to gardeners who havealready read glowing reports aboutmulching.

Permanent mulching with vegetationactually does not reduce summertimemoisture loss any better than mulchingwith dry soil, sometimes called "dustmulching." True, while the surfacelayer stays moist, water will steadily bewicked up by capillarity and beevaporated from the soil's surface. Iffrequent light sprinkling keeps thesurface perpetually moist, subsoilmoisture loss can occur all summer, sounmulched soil could eventuallybecome desiccated many feet deep.However, capillary movement onlyhappens when soil is damp. Once evena thin layer of soil has become quitedry it almost completely prevents anyfurther movement. West of the

Cascades, this happens all by itself inlate spring. One hot, sunny day followsanother, and soon the earth's surfaceseems parched.

Unfortunately, by the time a dustylayer forms, quite a bit of soil watermay have risen from the depths andbeen lost. The gardener cansignificantly reduce spring moistureloss by frequently hoeing weeds untilthe top inch or two of earth is dry andpowdery. This effort will probably benecessary in any case, because weedswill germinate prolifically until thesurface layer is sufficiently desiccated.On the off chance it should rain hardduring summer, it is very wise to again

hoe a few times to rapidly restore thedust mulch. If hand cultivation seemsvery hard work, I suggest you learn tosharpen your hoe.

A mulch of dry hay, grass clippings,leaves, and the like will also retardrapid surface evaporation. Gardenersthink mulching prevents moisture lossbetter than bare earth because undermulch the soil stays damp right to thesurface. However, dig down 4 to 6inches under a dust mulch and the earthis just as damp as under hay. And, soilmoisture studies have proved thatoverall moisture loss using vegetationmulch slightly exceeds loss under adust mulch.

West of the Cascades, the question ofwhich method is superior is a bitcomplex, with pros and cons on bothsides. Without a long winter freeze toset populations back, permanent thickmulch quickly breeds so many slugs,earwhigs, and sowbugs that it cannot bemaintained for more than one yearbefore vegetable gardening becomesvery difficult. Laying down a fairlythin mulch in June after the soil haswarmed up well, raking up whatremains of the mulch early the nextspring, and composting it preventsdestructive insect population levelsfrom developing while simultaneouslyreducing surface compaction by winterrains and beneficially enhancing the

survival and multiplication ofearthworms. But a thin mulch alsoenhances the summer germination ofweed seeds without being thick enoughto suppress their emergence. And anymulch, even a thin one, makes hoeingvirtually impossible, while handweeding through mulch is tedious.

Mulch has some unqualified pluses inhotter climates. Most of the organicmatter in soil and consequently most ofthe available nitrogen is found in thesurface few inches. Levels of othermineral nutrients are usually two orthree times as high in the topsoil aswell. However, if the surface fewinches of soil becomes completely

desiccated, no root activity will occurthere and the plants are forced to feeddeeper, in soil far less fertile. Keepingthe topsoil damp does greatly improvethe growth of some shallow-feedingspecies such as lettuce and radishes.But with our climate's cool nights,most vegetables need the soil as warmas possible, and the cooling effect ofmulch can be as much a hindrance as ahelp. I've tried mulching quite a fewspecies while dry gardening and foundlittle or no improvement in plantgrowth with most of them. Probably,the enhancement of nutritioncompensates for the harm fromlowering soil temperature. Fertigationis better all around.

Windbreaks

Plants transpire more moisture whenthe sun shines, when temperatures arehigh, and when the wind blows; it isjust like drying laundry. Windbreaksalso help the garden grow in winter byincreasing temperature. Many othergarden books discuss windbreaks, and Iconclude that I have a better use for thesmall amount of words my publisherallows me than to repeat this data;Binda Colebrook's [i]Winter Gardeningin the Maritime Northwest[i](Sasquatch Books, 1989) is especiallygood on this topic.

Fertilizing, Fertigating and FoliarSpraying

In our heavily leached region almostno soil is naturally rich, whilefertilizers, manures, and potentcomposts mainly improve the topsoil.But the water-wise gardener must getnutrition down deep, where the soilstays damp through the summer.

If plants with enough remainingelbow room stop growing in summerand begin to appear gnarly, it is just aslikely due to lack of nutrition as lack ofwater. Several things can be done to

limit or prevent midsummer stunting.First, before sowing or transplantinglarge species like tomato, squash or bigbrassicas, dig out a small pit about 12inches deep and below that blend in ahandful or two of organic fertilizer.Then fill the hole back in. This double-digging process places concentratedfertility mixed 18 to 24 inches belowthe seeds or seedlings.

Foliar feeding is another water-wisetechnique that keeps plants growingthrough the summer. Soluble nutrientssprayed on plant leaves are rapidlytaken into the vascular system.Unfortunately, dilute nutrient solutionsthat won't burn leaves only provoke a

strong growth response for 3 to 5 days.Optimally, foliar nutrition must beapplied weekly or even morefrequently. To efficiently spray agarden larger than a few hundredsquare feet, I suggest buying anindustrial-grade, 3-gallon backpacksprayer with a side-handle pump.Approximate cost as of this writingwas $80. The store that sells it(probably a farm supply store) will alsosupport you with a completeassortment of inexpensive nozzles thatcan vary the rate of emission and thespray pattern. High-quality equipmentlike this outlasts many, many cheaperand smaller sprayers designed for theconsumer market, and replacement

parts are also available. Keep in mindthat consumer merchandise is designedto be consumed; stuff made forfarming is built to last.

Increasing Soil Fertility Saves Water

Does crop growth equal water use?Most people would say this statementseems likely to be true.

Actually, faster-growing crops usemuch less soil moisture than slower-growing ones. As early as 1882 it wasdetermined that less water is requiredto produce a pound of plant material

when soil is fertilized than when it isnot fertilized. One experiment required1,100 pounds of water to grow 1 poundof dry matter on infertile soil, but only575 pounds of water to produce apound of dry matter on rich land.Perhaps the single most importantthing a water-wise gardener can do isto increase the fertility of the soil,especially the subsoil.

Poor plant nutrition increases thewater cost of every pound of dry matterproduced.

Using foliar fertilizers requires alittle caution and forethought. Spinach,beet, and chard leaves seem

particularly sensitive to foliars (andeven to organic insecticides) and maybe damaged by even half-strengthapplications. And the cabbage familycoats its leaf surfaces with a waxy,moisture-retentive sealant that makessprays bead up and run off rather thanstick and be absorbed. Mixing foliarfeed solutions with a littlespreader/sticker, Safer's Soap, or, ifbugs are also a problem, with a liquidorganic insecticide like Red Arrow (apyrethrum-rotenone mix), eliminatessurface tension and allows the fertilizerto have an effect on brassicas.

Sadly, in terms of nutrient balance,the poorest foliar sprays are organic.

That's because it is nearly impossibleto get significant quantities ofphosphorus or calcium into solutionusing any combination of fish emulsionand seaweed or liquid kelp. The mostuseful possible organic foliar is 1/2 to1 tablespoon each of fish emulsion andliquid seaweed concentrate per gallonof water.

Foliar spraying and fertigation aretwo occasions when I am comfortablesupplementing my organic fertilizerswith water-soluble chemical fertilizers.The best and most expensive brand isRapid-Gro. Less costly concoctionssuch as Peters 20-20-20 or the other"Grows," don't provide as complete

trace mineral support or use as manysources of nutrition. One thingfertilizer makers find expensive toaccomplish is concocting a mixture ofsoluble nutrients that also containscalcium, a vital plant food. If youdissolve calcium nitrate into a solutioncontaining other soluble plantnutrients, many of them willprecipitate out because few calciumcompounds are soluble. Even Rapid-Gro doesn't attempt to supply calcium.Recently I've discovered better-qualityhydroponic nutrient solutions that douse chemicals that provide solublecalcium. These also make excellentfoliar sprays. Brands of hydroponicnutrient solutions seem to appear and

vanish rapidly. I've had great luck withDyna-Gro 7-9-5. All these chemicalsare mixed at about 1 tablespoon pergallon.

Vegetables That:

Like foliars

Asparagus Carrots Melons SquashBeans Cauliflower Peas TomatoesBroccoli Brussels sprouts CucumbersCabbage Eggplant RadishesKale Rutabagas Potatoes

Don't like foliars

Beets Leeks Onions SpinachChard Lettuce Peppers

Like fertigation

Brussels sprouts Kale Savoy cabbageCucumbers Melons SquashEggplant Peppers Tomatoes

Fertigation every two to four weeks isthe best technique for maximizingyield while minimizing water use. Iusually make my first fertigation latein June and continue periodicallythrough early September. I use six orseven plastic 5-gallon "drip system"

buckets, (see below) set one by eachplant, and fill them all with a hose eachtime I work in the garden. Doing 12 or14 plants each time I'm in the garden, ittakes no special effort to rotate throughthem all more or less every threeweeks.

To make a drip bucket, drill a 3/16-inch hole through the side of a 4-to-6-gallon plastic bucket about 1/4-inch upfrom the bottom, or in the bottom atthe edge. The empty bucket is placedso that the fertilized water drains outclose to the stem of a plant. It is thenfilled with liquid fertilizer solution. Ittakes 5 to 10 minutes for 5 gallons topass through a small opening, and

because of the slow flow rate, waterpenetrates deeply into the subsoilwithout wetting much of the surface.Each fertigation makes the plant growvery rapidly for two to three weeks,more I suspect as a result of improvednutrition than from added moisture.Exactly how and when to fertigate eachspecies is explained in Chapter 5.

Organic gardeners may fertigate withcombinations of fish emulsion andseaweed at the same dilution used forfoliar spraying, or withcompost/manure tea. Determining thecorrect strength to make compost tea isa matter of trial and error. I usuallyrely on weak Rapid-Gro mixed at half

the recommended dilution. Thestrength of the fertilizer you needdepends on how much and deeply youplaced nutrition in the subsoil.

Chapter 4

Water-Wise GardeningYear-Round

Early Spring: The Easiest UnwateredGarden

West of the Cascades, most cropsstarted in February and March requireno special handling when irrigation isscarce. These include peas, earlylettuce, radishes, kohlrabi, earlybroccoli, and so forth. However, someof these vegetables are harvested aslate as June, so to reduce their need forirrigation, space them wider than usual.

Spring vegetables also will exhaustmost of the moisture from the soilbefore maturing, making successionplanting impossible without firstirrigating heavily. Early springplantings are best allocated one of twoplaces in the garden plan: either in thatpart of the garden that will be fullyirrigated all summer or in a part of abig garden that can affordably remainbare during the summer and be used inOctober for receiving transplants ofoverwintering crops. The garden planand discussion in Chapter 6 illustratethese ideas in detail.

Later in Spring: Sprouting SeedsWithout Watering

For the first years that I experimentedwith dry gardening I went overboardand attempted to grow food as though Ihad no running water at all. Thegreatest difficulty caused by this self-imposed handicap was sowing small-seeded species after the season warmedup.

Sprouting what we in the seedbusiness call "big seed"—corn, beans,peas, squash, cucumber, and melon—isrelatively easy without irrigationbecause these crops are planted deeply,where soil moisture still resides long

after the surface has dried out. Andeven if it is so late in the season thatthe surface has become very dry, awide, shallow ditch made with a shovelwill expose moist soil several inchesdown. A furrow can be cut in thebottom of that damp "valley" and bigseeds germinated with little or nowatering.

Tillage breaks capillary connectionsuntil the fluffy soil resettles. Thisinterruption is useful for preventingmoisture loss in summer, but the samephenomenon makes the surface dry outin a flash. In recently tilled earth,successfully sprouting small seeds inwarm weather is dicey without frequent

watering.

With a bit of forethought, the water-wise gardener can easily reestablishcapillarity below sprouting seeds sothat moisture held deeper in the soilrises to replace that lost from surfacelayers, reducing or eliminating theneed for watering. The principle herecan be easily demonstrated. In fact,there probably isn't any gardener whohas not seen the phenomenon at workwithout realizing it. Every gardener hastilled the soil, gone out the nextmorning, and noticed that his or hercompacted footprints were moist whilethe rest of the earth was dry and fluffy.Foot pressure restored capillarity, and

during the night, fresh moisturereplaced what had evaporated.

This simple technique helps starteverything except carrots and parsnips(which must have completely loose soilto develop correctly). All the gardenermust do is intentionally compress thesoil below the seeds and then cover theseeds with a mulch of loose, dry soil.Sprouting seeds then rest atop dampsoil exactly they lie on a damp blotterin a germination laboratory's coveredpetri dish. This dampness will notdisappear before the sprouting seedlinghas propelled a root several inchesfarther down and is putting a leaf intothe sunlight.

I've used several techniques toreestablish capillarity after tilling.There's a wise old plastic push planterin my garage that first compacts thetilled earth with its front wheel, cuts afurrow, drops the seed, and then withits drag chain pulls loose soil over thefurrow. I've also pulled one wheel of agarden cart or pushed a lightly loadedwheelbarrow down the row to pressdown a wheel track, sprinkled seed onthat compacted furrow, and then pulledloose soil over it.

Handmade Footprints

Sometimes I sow large brassicas andcucurbits in clumps above a fertilized,double-dug spot. First, in a space about18 inches square, I deeply dig incomplete organic fertilizer. Then withmy fist I punch down a depression inthe center of the fluffed-up mound.Sometimes my fist goes in so easilythat I have to replace a little more soiland punch it down some more. Thepurpose is not to make rammed earthor cement, but only to reestablishcapillarity by having firm soil under ashallow, fist-sized depression. Then apinch of seed is sprinkled atop thisdepression and covered with fine earth.Even if several hot sunny days follow Iget good germination without watering.

This same technique works excellentlyon hills of squash, melon and cucumberas well, though these large-seededspecies must be planted quite a bitdeeper.

Summer: How to Fluid Drill Seeds

Soaking seeds before sowing isanother water-wise technique,especially useful later in the season. Atbedtime, place the seeds in a half-pintmason jar, cover with a square ofplastic window screen held on with astrong rubber band, soak the seedsovernight, and then drain them first

thing in the morning. Gently rinse theseeds with cool water two or threetimes daily until the root tips begin toemerge. As soon as this sign appears,the seed must be sown, because thenewly emerging roots becomeincreasingly subject to breaking off asthey develop and soon form tangledmasses. Presprouted seeds may begently blended into some crumbly,moist soil and this mixture gentlysprinkled into a furrow and covered. Ifthe sprouts are particularly delicate or,as with carrots, you want a veryuniform stand, disperse the seeds in astarch gelatin and imitate whatcommercial vegetable growers callfluid drilling.

Heat one pint of water to the boilingpoint. Dissolve in 2 to 3 tablespoons ofordinary cornstarch. Place the mixturein the refrigerator to cool. Soon theliquid will become a soupy gel. Gentlymix this cool starch gel with thesprouting seeds, making sure the seedsare uniformly blended. Pour themixture into a 1-quart plastic zipperbag and, scissors in hand, go out to thegarden. After a furrow—withcapillarity restored—has beenprepared, cut a small hole in one lowercorner of the plastic bag. The hole sizeshould be under 1/4 inch in diameter.Walk quickly down the row, dribblinga mixture of gel and seeds into thefurrow. Then cover. You may have to

experiment a few times with cooled gelminus seeds until you divine the properhole size, walking speed and amount ofgel needed per length of furrow. Notonly will presprouted seeds come updays sooner, and not only will the rootbe penetrating moist soil long beforethe shoot emerges, but the stand ofseedlings will be very uniformlyspaced and easier to thin. After fluiddrilling a few times you'll realize thatone needs quite a bit less seed perlength of row than you previouslythought.

Establishing the Fall and Winter

Garden

West of the Cascades, germinatingfall and winter crops in the heat ofsummer is always difficult. Even whenthe entire garden is well watered,midsummer sowings require dailyattention and frequent sprinkling;however, once they have germinated,keeping little seedlings growing in anirrigated garden usually requires nomore water than the rest of the gardengets. But once hot weather comes,establishing small seeds in the drygarden seems next to impossiblewithout regular watering. Should alucky, perfectly timed, and unusuallyheavy summer rainfall sprout your

seeds, they still would not grow wellbecause the next few inches of soilwould at best be only slightly moist.

A related problem many backyardgardeners have with establishing thewinter and overwintered garden isfinding enough space for both thesummer and winter crops. The nurserybed solves both these problems. Insteadof trying to irrigate the entire area thatwill eventually be occupied by a winteror overwintered crop at maturity, theseedlings are first grown in irrigatednurseries for transplanting in autumnafter the rains come back. Were Idesperately short of water I'd locate mynursery where it got only morning sun

and sow a week or 10 days earlier tocompensate for the slower growth.

Vegetables to Start in a Nursery Bed

Variety Sowing

date Transplanting date

Fall/winter lettuce mid-

August early October

Leeks early

April July

Overwintered onions early-mid

August December/January

Spring cabbage mid-late

August November/December

Spring cauliflower mid-

August October/November 1st

Winter scallions mid-

July mid-October

Seedlings in pots and trays are hard tokeep moist and require daily tending.Fortunately, growing transplants inlittle pots is not necessary because inautumn, when they'll be set out,humidity is high, temperatures arecool, the sun is weak, and transpirationlosses are minimal, so seedlingtransplants will tolerate considerableroot loss. My nursery is sown in rowsabout 8 inches apart across a raised bedand thinned gradually to preventcrowding, because crowded seedlingsare hard to dig out without damage.When the prediction of a few days ofcloudy weather encouragestransplanting, the seedlings are liftedwith a large, sharp knife. If the fall

rains are late and/or the crowdedseedlings are getting leggy, a relativelysmall amount of irrigation will moistenthe planting areas. Another lightwatering at transplanting time willalmost certainly establish the seedlingsquite successfully. And, finding roomfor these crops ceases to be a problembecause fall transplants can be set outas a succession crop following hotweather vegetables such as squash,melons, cucumbers, tomatoes,potatoes, and beans.

Vegetables that must be heavily

irrigated

(These crops are not suitable for dry

gardens.)

Bulb Onions (for fall harvest)

Celeriac

Celery

Chinese cabbage

Lettuce (summer and fall)

Radishes (summer and fall)

Scallions (for summer harvest)

Spinach (summer)

Chapter 5

How to Grow It with LessIrrigation: A-Z

First, a Word About Varieties

As recently as the 1930s, most

American country folk still did nothave running water. With water beinghand-pumped and carried in buckets,and precious, their vegetable gardenshad to be grown with a minimum ofirrigation. In the otherwise well-watered East, one could routinelyexpect several consecutive weeks everysummer without rain. In some droughtyears a hot, rainless month or longercould go by. So vegetable varietieswere bred to grow through dry spellswithout loss, and traditional Americanvegetable gardens were designed tohelp them do so.

I began gardening in the early 1970s,just as the raised-bed method was

being popularized. The latest books andmagazine articles all agreed thatraising vegetables in widely separatedsingle rows was a foolish imitation ofcommercial farming, that commercialvegetables were arranged that way forease of mechanical cultivation. Closelyplanted raised beds requiring handcultivation were alleged to be far moreproductive and far more efficient usersof irrigation because water wasn'tevaporating from bare soil.

I think this is more likely to be thetruth: Old-fashioned gardens used lowplant densities to survive inevitablespells of rainlessness. Looked at thisway, widely separated vegetables in

widely separated rows may beconsidered the more efficient users ofwater because they consume soilmoisture that nature freely puts there.Only after, and if, these reserves aresignificantly depleted does thegardener have to irrigate. The endresult is surprisingly more abundantthan a modern gardener educated onintensive, raised-bed propaganda wouldthink.

Finding varieties still adapted towater-wise gardening is becomingdifficult. Most American vegetablesare now bred for irrigation-dependentCalifornia. Like raised-bed gardeners,vegetable farmers have discovered that

they can make a bigger profit bygrowing smaller, quick-maturing plantsin high-density spacings. Most modernvegetables have been bred to suit thismethod. Many new varieties can'tforage and have become smaller, moredeterminate, and faster to mature.Actually, the larger, more sprawlingheirloom varieties of the past were nota great deal less productive overall, butonly a little later to begin yielding.

Fortunately, enough of the old sortsstill exist that a selective and varietallyaware home gardener can make do.Since I've become water-wiser, I'minterested in finding and conservingheirlooms that once supported large

numbers of healthy Americans inrelative self-sufficiency. My earlierbook, being a guide to what passes forordinary vegetable gardening thesedays, assumed the availability of plentyof water. The varieties I recommendedin [i]Growing Vegetables West of theCascades[i] were largely modern ones,and the seed companies I praised mosthighly focused on top-qualitycommercial varieties. But, looking atgardening through the filter of limitedirrigation, other, less modern varietiesare often far better adapted and otherseed companies sometimes more likelysources.

Seed Company Directory*

Abundant Life See Foundation: P.O.Box 772, Port Townsend, WA 98368(ABL)

Johnny's Selected Seeds: Foss HillRoad, Albion, Maine 04910 (JSS)

Peace Seeds: 2345 SE ThompsonStreet, Corvallis, OR 97333 (PEA)

Ronninger's Seed Potatoes: P.O. Box1838, Orting, WA 98360 (RSP)

Stokes Seeds Inc. Box 548, Buffalo,NY 14240 (STK)

Territorial Seed Company: P.O. Box20, Cottage Grove, OR 97424 (TSC)

*Throughout the growing directionsthat follow in this chapter, the readerwill be referred to a specific companyonly for varieties that are not widelyavailable.

I have again come to appreciate theolder style of vegetable—sprawling,large framed, later maturing, longeryielding, vigorously rooting. However,many of these old-timers have not seenthe attentions of a professional plantbreeder for many years and throw a fairpercentage of bizarre, misshapen,nonproductive plants. These "off types"can be compensated for by growing asomewhat larger garden and allowingfor some waste. Dr. Alan Kapuler, who

runs Peace Seeds, has brilliantlypointed out to me why heirloomvarieties are likely to be morenutritious. Propagated by centuries ofisolated homesteaders, heirlooms thatsurvived did so because these superiorvarieties helped the gardeners' better-nourished babies pass through thegauntlet of childhood illnesses.

Plant Spacing: The Key to Water-Wise Gardening

Reduced plant density is the essenceof dry gardening. The recommendedspacings in this section are those I have

found workable at Elkton, Oregon. Mydry garden is generally laid out insingle rows, the row centers 4 feetapart. Some larger crops, like potatoes,tomatoes, beans, and cucurbits (squash,cucumbers, and melons) are allocatedmore elbow room. Those few requiringintensive irrigation are grown on araised bed, tightly spaced. I cannotprescribe what would be the perfect,most efficient spacing for your garden.Are your temperatures lower than mineand evaporation less? Or is yourweather hotter? Does your soil holdmore, than less than, or just as muchavailable moisture as mine? Is it asdeep and open and moisture retentive?

To help you compare your site withmine, I give you the following data.My homestead is only 25 miles inlandand is always several degrees cooler insummer than the Willamette Valley.Washingtonians and BritishColumbians have cooler days and agreater likelihood of significantsummertime rain and so may plant alittle closer together. Inland gardenersfarther south or in the WillametteValley may want to spread their plantsout a little farther.

Living on 16 acres, I have virtuallyunlimited space to garden in. The focusof my recent research has been toeliminate irrigation as much as

possible while maintaining foodquality. Those with thinner soil whoare going to depend more on fertigationmay plant closer, how close dependingon the amount of water available. Moreirrigation will also give higher per-square-foot yields.

Whatever your combination ofconditions, your results can only bedetermined by trial. I'd suggest youbecome water-wise by testing a rangeof spacings.

When to Plant

If you've already been growing anirrigated year-round garden, this book'ssuggested planting dates may surpriseyou. And as with spacing, sowing datesmust also be wisely adjusted to yourlocation. The planting dates in thischapter are what I follow in my owngarden. It is impractical to includespecific dates for all the microclimaticareas of the maritime Northwest andfor every vegetable species. Readersare asked to make adjustments byunderstanding their weather relative tomine.

Gardeners to the north of me and athigher elevations should make theirspring sowings a week or two later than

the dates I use. In the Garden Valley ofRoseburg and south along I-5, startspring plantings a week or two earlier.Along the southern Oregon coast and innorthern California, start three or fourweeks sooner than I do.

Fall comes earlier to the north of meand to higher-elevation gardens; end-of-season growth rates there also slowmore profoundly than they do atElkton. Summers are cooler along thecoast; that has the same effect ofslowing late-summer growth. Itemsstarted after midsummer should begiven one or two extra growing weeksby coastal, high-elevation, and northerngardeners. Gardeners to the south

should sow their late crops a week ortwo later than I do; along the southOregon coast and in northernCalifornia, two to four weeks later thanI do.

Arugula (Rocket)

The tender, peppery little leaves makewinter salads much more interesting.

Sowing date: I delay sowing until lateAugust or early September so mycrowded patch of arugula lasts allwinter and doesn't make seed untilMarch. Pregerminated seeds emerge

fast and strong. Sprouted in earlyOctober, arugula still may reach eatingsize in midwinter.

Spacing: Thinly seed a row into anyvacant niche. The seedlings will beinsignificantly small until late summer.

Irrigation: If the seedlings suffer abit from moisture stress they'll catchup rapidly when the fall rains begin.

Varieties: None.

Beans of All Sorts

Heirloom pole beans once climbedover considerable competition whilevigorously struggling for water,nutrition, and light. Modern bushvarieties tend to have puny rootsystems.

Sowing date: Mid-April is the usualtime on the Umpqua, elsewhere, sowafter the danger of frost is over and soilstays over 60[de]F. If the earth isgetting dry by this date, soak the seedovernight before sowing and furrowdown to moist soil. However, do notcover the seeds more than 2 inches.

Spacing: Twelve to 16 inches apart atfinal thinning. Allow about 2[f]1/2 to 3

feet on either side of the trellis to avoidroot competition from other plants.

Irrigation: If part of the garden issprinkler irrigated, space beans a littletighter and locate the bean trellistoward the outer reach of thesprinkler's throw. Due to its height, thetrellis tends to intercept quite a bit ofwater and dumps it at the base. You canalso use the bucket-drip method andfertigate the beans, giving about 25gallons per 10 row-feet once or twiceduring the summer. Pole beans canmake a meaningful yield without anyirrigation; under severe moisture stressthey will survive, but bear little.

Varieties: Any of the pole types seemto do fine. Runner beans seem to prefercooler locations but are every bit asdrought tolerant as ordinary snapbeans. My current favorites areKentucky Wonder White Seeded,Fortrex (TSC, JSS), and Musica (TSC).

The older heirloom dry beans weremostly pole types. They are reasonablyproductive if allowed to sprawl on theground without support. Theirunirrigated seed yield is lower, but theseed is still plump, tastes great, andsprouts well. Compared to unirrigatedBlack Coco (TSC), which is my mostproductive and best-tasting bushcultivar, Kentucky Wonder Brown

Seeded (sometimes called OldHomestead) (STK, PEA, ABL) yieldsabout 50 percent more seed and keepson growing for weeks after Coco hasquit. Do not bother to fertigateuntrellised pole beans grown for dryseed. With the threat of Septembermoisture always looming over dry beanplots, we need to encourage vines toquit setting and dry down. Peace Seedsand Abundant Life offer long lists ofheirloom vining dry bean varieties.

Serious self-sufficiency buffs seekingto produced their own legume supplyshould also consider the fava, garbanzobean, and Alaska pea. Many favas canbe overwintered: sow in October,

sprout on fall rains, grow over thewinter, and dry down in June with thesoil. Garbanzos are grown like mildlyfrost-tolerant peas. Alaska peas are thetype used for pea soup. They're springsown and grown like ordinary shellingpeas. Avoid overhead irrigation whileseeds are drying down.

Beets

Beets will root far deeper and widerthan most people realize—inuncompacted, nonacid soils. Double ortriple dig the subsoil directly below theseed row.

Sowing date: Early April at Elkton,late March farther south, and as late asApril 30 in British Columbia. Beet seedgerminates easily in moist, cool soil. Asingle sowing may be harvested fromJune through early March the nextyear. If properly thinned, goodvarieties remain tender.

Spacing: A single row will graduallyexhaust subsoil moisture from an area4 feet wide. When the seedlings are 2to 3 inches tall, thin carefully to about1 inch apart. When the edible part isradish size, thin to 2 inches apart andeat the thinings, tops and all. Whenthey've grown to golfball size, thin to 4inches apart, thin again. When they

reach the size of large lemons, thin to 1foot apart. Given this much room anddeep, open soil, the beets will continueto grow through the entire summer.Hill up some soil over the huge rootsearly in November to protect themfrom freezing.

Irrigation: Probably not necessarywith over 4 feet of deep, open soil.

Varieties: I've done best with EarlyWonder Tall Top; when large, itdevelops a thick, protective skin andretains excellent eating quality.Winterkeepers, normally sown inmidsummer with irrigation, tend tobolt prematurely when sown in April.

Broccoli: Italian Style

Italian-style broccoli needs abundantmoisture to be tender and make largeflowers. Given enough elbow room,many varieties can endure long periodsof moisture stress, but the smaller,woody, slow-developing florets won'tbe great eating. Without any irrigation,spring-sown broccoli may still beenjoyed in early summer and PurpleSprouting in March/April afteroverwintering.

Sowing date: Without any irrigationat all, mid-March through early April.

With fertigation, also mid-Aprilthrough mid-May. This later sowingwill allow cutting through summer.

Spacing: Brocoli tastes better whenbig plants grow big, sweet heads.Allow a 4-foot-wide row. Space earlysowings about 3 feet apart in the row;later sowings slated to mature duringsummer's heat can use 4 feet. On a fist-sized spot compacted to restorecapillarity, sow a little pinch of seedatop a well-and deeply fertilized,double-dug patch of earth. Thingradually to the best single plant by thetime three or four true leaves havedeveloped.

Irrigation: After mid-June, 4 to 5gallons of drip bucket liquid fertilizerevery two to three weeks makes anenormous difference. You'll besurprised at the size of the heads andthe quality of side shoots. A fertigatedMay sowing will be exhausted byOctober. Take a chance: a heavy side-dressing of strong compost or completeorganic fertilizer when the rains returnmay trigger a massive spurt of new,larger heads from buds located belowthe soil's surface.

Varieties: Many hybrids have weakroots. I'd avoid anything that was "heldup on a tall stalk" for mechanicalharvest or was "compact" or that

"didn't have many side-shoots". Go forlarger size. Territorial's hybrid blendyields big heads for over a monthfollowed by abundant side shoots. Old,open-pollinated types like ItalianSprouting Calabrese, DeCicco, orWaltham 29 are highly variable, bushy,with rather coarse, large-beadedflowers, second-rate flavor and many,many side shoots. Irrigating gardenerswho can start new plants every fourweeks from May through July mayprefer hybrids. Dry gardeners who willwant to cut side shoots for as long aspossible during summer from large,well-established plants may prefercrude, open-pollinated varieties. Tryboth.

Broccoli: Purple Sprouting andOther Overwintering Types

Spacing: Grow like broccoli, 3 to 4feet apart.

Sowing date: It is easiest to sow inApril or early May, minimally fertigatea somewhat gnarly plant through thesummer, push it for size in fall andwinter, and then harvest it next March.With too early a start in spring, somepremature flowering may occur inautumn; still, massive blooming willresume again in spring.

Overwintering green Italian typessuch as ML423 (TSC) will flower infall if sown before late June. Thesesorts are better started in a nursery bedaround August 1 and like overwinteredcauliflower, transplanted about 2 feetapart when fall rains return, then,pushed for growth with extra fertilizerin fall and winter.

With nearly a whole year to growbefore blooming, Purple Sproutingeventually reaches 4 to 5 feet in heightand 3 to 4 feet in diameter, and yieldshugely.

Irrigation: It is not essential toheavily fertigate Purple Sprouting,

though you may G-R-O-W enormousplants for their beauty. Quality orquantity of spring harvest won't dropone bit if the plants become a littlestunted and gnarly in summer, as longas you fertilize late in September tospur rapid growth during fall andwinter.

Root System Vigor in the CabbageFamily

Wild cabbage is a weed and growslike one, able to successfully competefor water against grasses and otherherbs. Remove all competition with a

hoe, and allow this weed to totallycontrol all the moisture and nutrients inall the earth its roots can occupy, and itgrows hugely and lushly. Just for fun, Ionce G-R-E-W one, with tillage,hoeing, and spring fertilization but noirrigation; it ended up 5 feet tall and 6feet in diameter.

As this highly moldable family isinbred and shaped into more and moreexaggerated forms, it weakens andloses the ability to forage. Kale retainsthe most wild aggressiveness, Chinesecabbage perhaps the least. Here, inapproximately correct order, is shownthe declining root vigor and generaladaptation to moisture stress of

cabbage family vegetables. The tableshows the most vigorous at the top,declining as it goes down.

Adapted to dry gardening Not

vigorous enough

Kale

Italian broccoli (some varieties)

Brussels sprouts (late types)

Cabbage (regular market types)

Late savoy cabbage

Brussels sprouts (early types)

Giant "field-type" kohlrabi

Small "market-garden" kohlrabi

Mid-season savoy cabbage

Cauliflower (regular, annual)

Rutabaga

Turnips and radishes

Italian Broccoli (some varieties)

Chinese cabbage

Brussels Sprouts

Sowing date: If the plants are a foottall before the soil starts drying down,their roots will be over a foot deep; theplants will then grow hugely with a bitof fertigation. At Elkton I dry gardenBrussels sprouts by sowing late Aprilto early May. Started this soon, evenlate-maturing varieties may beginforming sprouts by September. Thoughpremature bottom sprouts will "blowup" and become aphid damaged, more,higher-quality sprouts will continue toform farther up the stalk during autumnand winter.

Spacing: Make each spot about 4 feet

apart.

Irrigation: Without any addedmoisture, the plants will becomestunted but will survive all summer.Side-dressing manure or fertilizer latein September (or sooner if the rainscome sooner) will provoke very rapidautumn growth and a surprisingly largeyield from plants that looked stress outin August. If increasingly largeramounts of fertigation can be providedevery two to three weeks, the lushBrussels sprouts plants can become 4feet in diameter and 4 feet tall byOctober and yield enormously.

Varieties: Use late European hybrid

types. At Elkton, where winters are alittle milder than in the Willamette,Lunet (TSC) has the finest eatingqualities. Were I farther north I'd growhardier types like Stabolite (TSC) orFortress (TSC). Early types are notsuitable to growing with insufficientirrigation or frequent spraying to fightoff aphids.

Cabbage

Forget those delicate, greensupermarket cabbages unless you haveunlimited amounts of water. Buteasiest-to-grow savoy types will do

surprisingly well with surprisinglylittle support. Besides, savoys are thebest salad material.

Sowing date: I suggest three sowingtimes: the first, a succession of early,midseason, and late savoys made inmid-March for harvest during summer;the second, late and very late varietiesstarted late April to early May forharvest during fall and winter; the last,a nursery bed of overwintered sortssown late in August.

Spacing: Early-maturing savoyvarieties are naturally smaller and maynot experience much hot weatherbefore heading up—these may be

separated by about 30 inches. The laterones are large plants and should begiven 4 feet of space or 16 square feetof growing room. Sow and grow themlike broccoli. Transplant overwinteredcabbages from nursery beds late inOctober, spaced about 3 feet apart;these thrive where the squash grew.

Irrigation: The more fertigation youcan supply, the larger and moreluxuriant the plants and the bigger theheads. But even small, somewhatmoisture-stressed savoys make veryedible heads. In terms of increasedyield for water expended, it is wellworth it to provide late varieties with afew gallons of fertigation about mid-

June, and a bucketful in mid-July andmid-August.

Varieties: Japanese hybrid savoysmake tender eating but may notwithstand winter. European savoys arehardier, coarser, thicker-leaved, andharder chewing. For the first sowing Isuggest a succession of Japanesevarieties including Salarite or SavoyPrincess for earlies; Savoy Queen,King, or Savoy Ace for midsummer;and Savonarch (TSC) for lateAugust/early September harvests.They're all great varieties. For thesecond sowing I grow Savonarch (TSC)for September[-]November cutting anda very late European hybrid type like

Wivoy (TSC) for winter. Small-framedJanuary King lacks sufficient rootvigor. Springtime (TSC) and FEM218(TSC) are the only overwinteredcabbages available.

Carrots

Dry-gardening carrots requirespatiently waiting until the weatherstabilizes before tilling and sowing. Toavoid even a little bit of soilcompaction, I try to sprout the seedwithout irrigation but always fear thathot weather will frustrate my efforts.So I till and plant too soon. And then

heavy rain comes and compacts myperfectly fluffed-up soil. But the looserand finer the earth remains during theirfirst six growing weeks, the moreperfectly the roots will develop.

Sowing date: April at Elkton.

Spacing: Allocate 4 feet of width to asingle row of carrot seed. When theseedlings are about 2 inches tall, thin to1 inch apart. Then thin every othercarrot when the roots are [f]3/8 to[f]1/2 inch in diameter and eat thethinnings. A few weeks later, when thecarrots are about 3/4 to 1 inch indiameter, make a final thinning to 1foot apart.

Irrigation: Not necessary. Foliarfeeding every few weeks will makemuch larger roots. Without any helpthey should grow to several poundseach.

Varieties: Choosing the right varietyis very important. Nantes and otherdelicate, juicy types lack enough fiberto hold together when they get verylarge. These split prematurely. I've hadmy best results with Danvers types. I'dalso try Royal Chantenay (PEA),Fakkel Mix (TSC), Stokes "Processor"types, and Topweight (ABL). Beprepared to experiment with variety.The roots will not be quite as tender asheavily watered Nantes types but are a

lot better than you'd think. Hugecarrots are excellent in soups and wecheerfully grate them into salads.Something about accumulatingsunshine all summer makes the rootsincredibly sweet.

Cauliflower

Ordinary varieties cannot forage formoisture. Worse, moisture stress at anytime during the growth cycle preventsproper formation of curds. The onlyimportant cauliflowers suitable for drygardening are overwintered types. I callthem important because they're easy to

grow and they'll feed the family duringApril and early May, when othergarden fare is very scarce.

Sowing date: To acquire enough sizeto survive cold weather, overwinteredcauliflower must be started on anursery bed during the difficult heat ofearly August. Except south ofYoncalla, delaying sowing untilSeptember makes very small seedlingsthat may not be hardy enough andlikely won't yield much in April unlesswinter is very mild, encouragingunusual growth.

Spacing: In October, transplant about2 feet apart in rows 3 to 4 feet apart.

Irrigation: If you have more wateravailable, fertilize and till up somedusty, dry soil, wet down the row,direct-seed like broccoli (but closertogether), and periodically irrigateuntil fall. If you only moisten a narrowband of soil close to the seedlings itwon't take much water. Cauliflowergrows especially well in the row thatheld bush peas.

Varieties: The best are the very pricyArmado series sold by Territorial.

Chard

This vegetable is basically a beet withsucculent leaves and thick stalksinstead of edible, sweet roots. It is justas drought tolerant as a beet, and in drygardening, chard is sown, spaced, andgrown just like a beet. But if you wantvoluminous leaf production duringsummer, you may want to fertigate itoccasionally.

Varieties: The red chards are notsuitable for starting early in the season;they have a strong tendency to boltprematurely if sown during that part ofthe year when daylength is increasing.

Corn

Broadcast complete organic fertilizeror strong compost shallowly over thecorn patch till midwinter, or as early inspring as the earth can be workedwithout making too many clods. Cornwill germinate in pretty rough soil.High levels of nutrients in the subsoilare more important than a fine seedbed.

Sowing date: About the time frostdanger ends. Being large seed, corn canbe set deep, where soil moisture stillexists even after conditions havewarmed up. Germination withoutirrigation should be no problem.

Spacing: The farther south, the fartherapart. Entirely without irrigation, I'vehad fine results spacing individual cornplants 3 feet apart in rows 3 feet apart,or 9 square feet per each plant. Were Iaround Puget Sound or in B.C. I'd try 2feet apart in rows 30 inches apart. GaryNabhan describes Papago gardeners inArizona growing individual cornstalks10 feet apart. Grown on wide spacings,corn tends to tiller (put up multiplestalks, each making one or two ears).For most urban and suburbangardeners, space is too valuable toallocate 9 square feet for producing oneor at best three or four ears.

Irrigation: With normal sprinkler

irrigation, corn may be spaced 8 inchesapart in rows 30 inches apart, stillyielding one or two ears per stalk.

Varieties: Were I a devotedsweetcorn eater without enoughirrigation, I'd be buying a few dozenfreshly picked ears from the back of apickup truck parked on a corner duringlocal harvest season. Were I a devotedcorn grower without any irrigation, I'dbe experimenting with various types offield corn instead of sweet corn. Were Ia self-sufficiency buff trying earnestlyto produce all my own cereal, I'daccept that the maritime Northwest is aregion where survivalists will eatwheat, rye, millet, and other small

grains.

Many varieties of field corn arenearly as sweet as ordinary sweet corn,but grain varieties become starchy andtough within hours of harvest. Eatenpromptly, "pig" corn is every bit astasty as Jubilee. I've had the best dry-garden results with Northstine Dent(JSS) and Garland Flint (JSS). HookersSweet Indian (TSC) has a weak rootsystem.

Successfully Starting CucurbitsFrom Seed

With cucurbits, germination dependson high-enough soil temperature andnot too much moisture. Squash are themost chill and moisture tolerant,melons the least. Here's a failure-proofand simple technique that ensuresyou'll plant at exactly the right time.

Cucumbers, squash, and melons aretraditionally sown atop a deeply dug,fertilized spot that usually looks like alittle mound after it is worked and iscommonly called a hill. About twoweeks before the last anticipated frostdate in your area, plant five or sixsquash seeds about 2 inches deep in aclump in the very center of that hill.Then, a week later, plant another clump

at 12 o'clock. In another week, plantanother clump at 3 o'clock, andcontinue doing this until one of thesowings sprouts. Probably the first trywon't come up, but the hill willcertainly germinate several clumps ofseedlings. If weather conditions turnpoor, a later-to-sprout group mayoutgrow those that came up earlier.Thin gradually to the best single plantby the time the vines are running.

When the first squash seeds appear itis time to begin sowing cucumbers,starting a new batch each week untilone emerges. When the cucumbers firstgerminate, it's time to try melons.

Approaching cucurbits this wayensures that you'll get the earliestpossible germination while beingprotected against the probability thatcold, damp weather will preventgermination or permanently spoil thegrowth prospects of the earlierseedlings.

Cucumbers

Sowing date: About May 5 to 15 atElkton.

Spacing: Most varieties usually runfive about 3 feet from the hill. Space

the hills about 5 to 6 feet apart in alldirections.

Irrigation: Like melons. Regular andincreasing amounts of fertigation willincrease the yield several hundredpercent.

Varieties: I've had very good resultsdry-gardening Amira II (TSC), evenwithout any fertigation at all. It is aMiddle Eastern[-]style variety thatmakes pickler-size thin-skinned cukesthat need no peeling and have terrificflavor. The burpless or Japanese sortsdon't seem to adapt well to drought.Most slicers dry-garden excellently.Apple or Lemon are similar novelty

heirlooms that make very extensivevines with aggressive roots and shouldbe given a foot or two more elbowroom. I'd avoid any variety touted asbeing for pot or patio, compact, orshort-vined, because of a likely linkagebetween its vine structure and rootsystem.

Eggplant

Grown without regular sprinklerirrigation, eggplant seems to get largerand yield sooner and more abundantly.I suspect this delicate and fairlydrought-resistant tropical species does

not like having its soil temperaturelowered by frequent watering.

Sowing date: Set out transplants atthe usual time, about two weeks afterthe tomatoes, after all frost danger haspassed and after nights have stablywarmed up above 50 degree F.

Spacing: Double dig and deeplyfertilize the soil under each transplant.Separate plants by about 3 feet in rowsabout 4 feet apart.

Irrigation: Will grow and produce afew fruit without any watering, but abucket of fertigation every three to fourweeks during summer may result in themost luxurious, hugest, and heaviest-

bearing eggplants you've ever grown.

Varieties: I've noticed no specialvarietal differences in ability totolerate dryish soil. I've had goodyields from the regionally adaptedvarieties Dusky Hybrid, Short Tom,and Early One.

Endive

A biennial member of the chicoryfamily, endive quickly puts down adeep taproot and is naturally able togrow through prolonged drought.Because endive remains bitter until

cold weather, it doesn't matter if itgrows slowly through summer, just solong as rapid leaf production resumesin autumn.

Sowing date: On irrigated raised bedsendive is sown around August 1 andheads by mid-October. The problemwith dry-gardened endive is that if it isspring sown during days of increasingdaylength when germination ofshallow-sown small seed is a snap, itwill bolt prematurely. The crucialmoment seems to be about June 1.April/May sowings bolt inJuly/August,: after June 1, boltingwon't happen until the next spring, butgermination won't happen without

watering. One solution is soaking theseeds overnight, rinsing themfrequently until they begin to sprout,and fluid drilling them.

Spacing: The heads become hugewhen started in June. Sow in rows 4feet apart and thin gradually until therosettes are 3 inches in diameter, thenthin to 18 inches apart.

Irrigation: Without a drop ofmoisture the plants, even as tinyseedlings, will grow steadily but slowlyall summer, as long as no other crop isinvading their root zone. The only timeI had trouble was when the endive rowwas too close to an aggressive row of

yellow crookneck squash. AboutAugust, the squash roots beganinvading the endive's territory and theendive got wilty.

A light side-dressing of completeorganic fertilizer or compost in lateSeptember will grow the hugest plantsimaginable.

Varieties: Curly types seem moretolerant to rain and frost during winterthan broad-leaf Batavian varieties. Iprefer President (TSC).

Herbs

Most perennial and biennial herbs areactually weeds and wild hillside shrubsfrom Mediterranean climates similar tothat of Southern California. They areadapted to growing on winter rainfalland surviving seven to nine monthswithout rainfall every summer. In ourclimate, merely giving them a littlemore elbow room than usually offered,thorough weeding, and side-dressingthe herb garden with a little compost infall is enough coddling. Annuals suchas dill and cilantro are also verydrought tolerant. Basil, however, needsconsiderable moisture.

Kale

Depending on the garden for asignificant portion of my annualcaloric intake has gradually refined myeating habits. Years ago I learned tolike cabbage salads as much as lettuce.Since lettuce freezes out many winters(19-21 degree F), this adjustment hasproved very useful. Gradually I beganto appreciate kale, too, and now valueit as a salad green far more thancabbage. This personal adaptation hasproved very pro-survival, because evensavoy cabbages do not grow as readilyor yield nearly as much as kale. Andkale is a tad more cold hardy than evensavoy cabbage.

You may be surprised to learn thatkale produces more complete proteinper area occupied per time involvedthan any legume, including alfalfa. If itis steamed with potatoes and thenmashed, the two vegetablescomplement and flavor each other. Ourregion could probably subsist quite abit more healthfully than at present onpotatoes and kale. The key to enjoyingkale as a salad component is varietalchoice, preparation, and using the rightparts of the plant. Read on.

Sowing date: With irrigation, fast-growing kale is usually started inmidsummer for use in fall and winter.But kale is absolutely biennial—started

in March or April, it will not bolt untilthe next spring. The water-wisegardener can conveniently sow kalewhile cool, moist soil simplifiesgermination. Starting this early alsoproduces a deep root system before thesoil dries much, and a much taller, veryuseful central stalk on oleracea types,while early sown Siberian (Napa)varieties tend to form multiple rosettesby autumn, also useful at harvest time.

Spacing: Grow like broccoli, spaced 4feet apart.

Irrigation: Without any water, thesomewhat stunted plants will survivethe summer to begin rapid growth as

soon as fall rains resume. With the helpof occasional fertigation they growlushly and are enormous by September.Either way, there still will be plenty ofkale during fall and winter.

Harvest: Bundles of strong-flavored,tough, large leaves are sold insupermarkets but are the worst-eatingpart of the plant. If chopped finelyenough, big raw leaves can bemasticated and tolerated by peoplewith good teeth. However, the tinyleaves are far tenderer and muchmilder. The more rosettes developed onSiberian kales, the more little leavesthere are to be picked. By pinching offthe central growing tip in October and

then gradually stripping off the largeshading leaves, oleracea varieties maybe encouraged to put out dozens ofclusters of small, succulent leaves ateach leaf notch along the central stalk.The taller the stalk grown duringsummer, the more of these little leavesthere will be. Only home gardeners canafford the time to hand pick smallleaves.

Varieties: I somewhat prefer theflavor of Red Russian to the ubiquitousgreen Siberian, but Red Russian is veryslightly less cold hardy. WestlandWinter (TSC) and Konserva (JSS) aretall European oleracea varieties.Winterbor F1 (JSS, TSC) is also

excellent. The dwarf "Scotch" kales,blue or green, sold by many Americanseed companies are less vigorous typesthat don't produce nearly as manygourmet little leaves. Dwarfs in anyspecies tend to have dwarfed rootsystems.

Kohlrabi (Giant)

Spring-sown market kohlrabi areusually harvested before hot weathermakes them get woody. Irrigation isnot required if they're given a littleextra elbow room. With ordinaryvarieties, try thinning to 5 inches apart

in rows 2 to 3 feet apart and harvest bythinning alternate plants. Given thisadditional growing room, they may notget woody until midsummer. On myirrigated, intensive bed I always sowsome more on August 1, to have tenderbulbs in autumn.

Kohlrabi was once grown as Europeanfodder crop; slow-growing farmers,varieties grow huge like rutabagas.These field types have been crossedwith table types to make "giant" tablevarieties that really suit dry gardening.What to do with a giant kohlrabi (orany bulb getting overblown)? Peel,grate finely, add chopped onion, dresswith olive oil and black pepper, toss,

and enjoy this old Eastern Europeanmainstay.

Sowing date: Sow giant varietiesduring April, as late as possible whilestill getting a foot-tall plant beforereally hot weather.

Spacing: Thin to 3 feet apart in rows4 feet apart.

Irrigation: Not absolutely necessaryon deep soil, but if they get one or twothorough fertigations during summertheir size may double.

Varieties: A few American seedcompanies, including Peace Seeds,have a giant kohlrabi of some sort or

other. The ones I've tested tend to bewoody, are crude, and throw many off-types, a high percentage of weakplants, and/or poorly shaped roots. Bythe time this book is in print,Territorial should list a unique Swissvariety called Superschmeltz, which isuniformly huge and stays tender intothe next year.

Leeks

Unwatered spring-sown bulbingonions are impossible. Leek is the onlyallium I know of that may growsteadily but slowly through severe

drought; the water-short gardener candepend on leeks for a fall/winter onionsupply.

Sowing date: Start a row or severalshort rows about 12 inches apart on anursery bed in March or early April atthe latest. Grow thickly, irrigate duringMay/June, and fertilize well so thecompeting seedlings get leggy.

Spacing: By mid-to late June theseedlings should be slightly spindly,pencil-thick, and scallion size. With asharp shovel, dig out the nursery row,carefully retaining 5 or 6 inches of soilbelow the seedlings. With a strong jetof water, blast away the soil and, while

doing this, gently separate the tangledroots so that as little damage is done aspossible. Make sure the roots don't dryout before transplanting. Afterseparation, I temporarily wrap bundledseedlings in wet newspaper.

Dig out a foot-deep trench the widthof an ordinary shovel and carefullyplace this earth next to the trench.Sprinkle in a heavy dose of organicfertilizer or strong compost, and spadethat in so the soil is fluffy and fertile 2feet down. Do not immediately refillthe trench with the soil that was dugout. With a shovel handle, poke a rowof 6-inch-deep holes along the bottomof the trench. If the nursery bed has

grown well there should be about 4inches of stem on each seedling beforethe first leaf attaches. If the weather ishot and sunny, snip off about one-thirdto one-half the leaf area to reducetransplanting shock. Drop one leekseedling into each hole up to the pointthat the first leaf attaches to the stalk,and mud it in with a cup or two ofliquid fertilizer. As the leeks grow,gradually refill the trench and even hillup soil around the growing plants. Thismakes the better-tasting white part ofthe stem get as long as possible. Avoidgetting soil into the center of the leekwhere new leaves emerge, or you'll notget them clean after harvest.

Spacing of the seedlings depends onthe amount of irrigation. If absolutelynone at all, set them 12 inches apart inthe center of a row 4 feet wide. Ifunlimited water is available, give them2 inches of separation. Or adjustspacing to the water available. Theplants grow slowly through summer,but in autumn growth will accelerate,especially if they are side-dressed atthis time.

Varieties: For dry gardening use thehardier, more vigorous winter leeks.Durabel (TSC) has an especially mild,sweet flavor. Other useful varietiesinclude Giant Carentian (ABL), Alaska(STK), and Winter Giant (PEA).

Lettuce

Spring-sown lettuce will go to largesizes, remaining sweet and tenderwithout irrigation if spaced 1 foot apartin a single row with 2 feet of elbowroom on each side. Lettuce cut aftermid-June usually gets bitter withoutregular, heavy irrigation. I reserve mywell-watered raised bed for thissummer salad crop. Those very short ofwater can start fall/winter lettuce in ashaded, irrigated nursery bed mid-August through mid-September andtransplant it out after the fall rainsreturn. Here is one situation in which

accelerating growth with cloches orcold frames would be very helpful.

Water-Wise Cucurbits

The root systems of this family arefar more extensive than most peoplerealize. Usually a taproot goes downseveral feet and then, soil conditionspermitting, thickly occupies a largearea, ultimately reaching down 5 to 8feet. Shallow feeder roots also extendlaterally as far as or farther than thevines reach at their greatest extent.

Dry gardeners can do several things

to assist cucurbits. First, make surethere is absolutely no competition intheir root zone. This means[i]one plantper hill, with the hills separated in alldirections a little farther than thegreatest possible extent of the variety'sultimate growth.[i] Common gardenlore states that squashes droop theirleaves in midsummer heat and that thistrait cannot be avoided and does noharm. But if they've grown as describedabove, on deep, open soil, capillarityand surface moisture reserves ensurethere usually will be no middaywilting, even if there is no watering.Two plants per hill do compete andmake each other wilt.

Second, double dig and fertilize theentire lateral root zone. Third, as muchas possible, avoid walking where thevines will ultimately reach to avoidcompaction. Finally, [i]do nottransplant them.[i] This breaks thetaproot and makes the plant moredependent on lateral roots seekingmoisture in the top 18 inches of soil.

Melons

Sowing date: As soon as they'llgerminate outdoors: at Elkton, May 15to June 1. Thin to a single plant per hillwhen there are about three true leaves

and the vines are beginning to run.

Spacing: Most varieties will grow avine reaching about 8 feet in diameter.Space the hills 8 feet apart in alldirections.

Irrigation: Fertigation every two tothree weeks will increase the yield bytwo or three times and may make themelons sweeter. Release thewater/fertilizer mix close to the centerof the vine, where the taproot can useit.

Varieties: Adaptation to our coolclimate is critical with melons; usevarieties sold by our regional seedcompanies. Yellow Doll watermelons

(TSC) are very early and seem the mostproductive under the most droughtyconditions. I've had reasonable resultsfrom most otherwise regionallyadapted cantaloupes and muskmelons.Last year a new hybrid variety,Passport (TSC), proved several weeksearlier than I'd ever experienced andwas extraordinarily prolific and tasty.

Onions/Scallions

The usual spring-sown, summer-grown bulb onions and scallions onlywork with abundant irrigation. But thewater-short, water-wise gardener can

still supply the kitchen with onions oronion substitutes year-round. Leekstake care of November through earlyApril. Overwintered bulb onions handlethe rest of the year. Scallions may alsobe harvested during winter.

Sowing date: Started too soon,overwintered or short-day bulbingonions (and sweet scallions) will boltand form seed instead of bulbing.Started too late they'll be too small andpossibly not hardy enough to survivewinter. About August 15 at Elkton Isow thickly in a well-watered and veryfertile nursery bed. If you have morethan one nursery row, separate themabout by 12 inches. Those who miss

this window of opportunity can starttransplants in early October and coverwith a cloche immediately aftergermination, to accelerate seedlinggrowth during fall and early winter.

Start scallions in a nursery just likeoverwintered onions, but earlier sothey're large enough for the tableduring winter, I sow them about mid-July.

Spacing: When seedlings are aboutpencil thick (December/January foroverwintering bulb onions), transplantthem about 4 or 5 inches apart in asingle row with a couple of feet ofelbow room on either side. I've found I

get the best growth and largest bulbs ifthey follow potatoes. After the potatoesare dug in early October I immediatelyfertilize the area heavily and till,preparing the onion bed. KlamathBasin farmers usually grow a similarrotation: hay, potatoes, onions.

Transplant scallions in October withthe fall rains, about 1 inch apart inrows at least 2 feet apart.

Irrigation: Not necessary. However,side-dressing the transplants will resultin much larger bulbs or scallions.Scallions will bolt in April; the bulbersgo tops-down and begin drying down asthe soil naturally dries out.

Varieties: I prefer the sweet andtender Lisbon (TSC) for scallions. Foroverwintered bulb onions, grow verymild but poorly keeping Walla WallaSweet (JSS), Buffalo (TSC), a betterkeeper, or whatever Territorial isselling at present.

Parsley

Sowing date: March. Parsley seedtakes two to three weeks to germinate.

Spacing: Thin to 12 inches apart in asingle row 4 feet wide. Five plantsshould overwhelm the average kitchen.

Irrigation: Not necessary unless yieldfalls off during summer and that isvery unlikely. Parsley's very deep,foraging root system resembles that ofits relative, the carrot.

Varieties: If you use parsley forgreens, variety is not critical, thoughthe gourmet may note slightdifferences in flavor or amount of leafcurl. Another type of parsley is grownfor edible roots that taste much likeparsnip. These should have their soilprepared as carefully as thoughgrowing carrots.

Peas

This early crop matures withoutirrigation. Both pole and bush varietiesare planted thickly in single rows about4 feet apart. I always overlook somepods, which go on to form mature seed.Without overhead irrigation, this seedwill sprout strongly next year. Alaska(soup) peas grow the same way.

Peppers

Pepper plants on raised beds spacedthe usually recommended 16 to 24inches apart undergo intense root

competition even before their leavesform a canopy. With or withoutunlimited irrigation, the plants will getmuch larger and bear more heavilywith elbow room.

Sowing date: Set out transplants atthe usual time. Double dig a few squarefeet of soil beneath each seedling, andmake sure fertilizer gets incorporatedall the way down to 2 feet deep.

Spacing: Three feet apart in rows 3 to4 feet apart.

Irrigation: Without any irrigationonly the most vigorous, small-fruitedvarieties will set anything. For anabundant harvest, fertigate every three

or four weeks. For the biggest pepperplants you ever grew, fertigate everytwo weeks.

Varieties: The small-fruited types,both hot and sweet, have much moreaggressive root systems and generallyadapt better to our region's coolweather. I've had best results withCayenne Long Slim, Gypsie, Surefire,Hot Portugal, the "cherries" both sweetand hot, Italian Sweet, and Petite Sirah.

Potatoes

Humans domesticated potatoes in the

cool, arid high plateaus of the Andeswhere annual rainfall averages 8 to 12inches. The species finds our drysummer quite comfortable. Potatoesproduce more calories per unit of landthan any other temperate crop.Irrigated potatoes yield more caloriesand two to three times as much waterybulk and indigestible fiber as thosegrown without irrigation, but the samevariety dry gardened can contain about30 percent more protein, far moremineral nutrients, and taste better.

Sowing date: I make two sowings.The first is a good-luck ritual donereligiously on March 17th—St.Patrick's Day. Rain or shine, in untilled

mud or finely worked and deeplyfluffed earth, I still plant 10 or 12 seedpotatoes of an early variety. Thisprovides for summer.

The main sowing waits until frost isunlikely and I can dig the potato rowsat least 12 inches deep with a spadingfork, working in fertilizer as deeply aspossible and ending up with a finelypulverized 24-inch-wide bed. AtElkton, this is usually mid-to lateApril. There is no rush to plant. Potatovines are not frost hardy. If frostedthey'll regrow, but being burned backto the ground lowers the final yield.

Spacing: I presprout my seeds by

spreading them out in daylight at roomtemperature for a few weeks, and thenplant one whole, sprouting, medium-size potato every 18 inches down thecenter of the row. Barely cover the seedpotato. At maturity there should be2[f]1/2 to 3 feet of soil unoccupiedwith the roots of any other crop on eachside of the row. As the vines emerge,gradually scrape soil up over them witha hoe. Let the vines grow about 4inches, then pull up about 2 inches ofcover. Let another 4 inches grow, thenhill up another 2 inches. Continuedoing this until the vines beginblooming. At that point there should bea mound of loose, fluffy soil about 12to 16 inches high gradually filling with

tubers lushly covered with bloomingvines.

Irrigation: Not necessary. In fact, iflarge water droplets compact the loosesoil you scraped up, that may interferewith maximum tuber enlargement.However, after the vines are a foot longor so, foliar feeding every week or 10days will increase the yield.

Varieties: The water-wise gardener'smain potato problem is too-earlymaturity, and then premature sproutingin storage. Early varieties like YukonGold—even popular midseason oneslike Yellow Finn—don't keep wellunless they're planted late enough to

brown off in late September. That's noproblem if they're irrigated. Butplanted in late April, earlier varietieswill shrivel by August. Potatoes onlykeep well when very cool, dark, andmoist—conditions almost impossibleto create on the homestead duringsummer. The best August compromiseis to leave mature potatoes undug, butsoil temperatures are in the 70s duringAugust, and by early October, whenpotatoes should be lifted and put intostorage, they'll already be sprouting.Sprouting in October is acceptable forthe remainders of my St. Pat's Daysowing that I am keeping over for seednext spring. It is not ok for my mainwinter storage crop. Our climate

requires very late, slow-maturingvarieties that can be sown early but thatdon't brown off until September. Latetypes usually yield more, too.

Most of the seed potato varietiesfound in garden centers are early ormidseason types chosen by farmers foryield without regard to flavor ornutrition. One, Nooksack Cascadian, isa very late variety grown commerciallyaround Bellingham, Washington.Nooksack is pretty good if you likewhite, all-purpose potatoes.

There are much better homegardenvarieties available in Ronniger'scatalog, all arranged according to

maturity. For the ultimate in earlies Isuggest Red Gold. For main harvestsI'd try Indian Pit, Carole, GermanButterball, Siberian, or a fewexperimental row-feet of any other latevariety taking your fancy.

Rutabagas

Rutabagas have wonderfullyaggressive root systems and arecapable of growing continuouslythrough long, severe drought. Butwhere I live, the results aren'tsatisfactory. Here's what happens. If Istart rutabagas in early April and space

them about 2 to 3 feet apart in rows 4feet apart, by October they're the sizeof basketballs and look pretty good;unfortunately, I harvest a hollow shellfull of cabbage root maggots. Rootmaggots are at their peak in early June.That's why I got interested in dry-gardening giant kohlrabi.

In 1991 we had about 2 surprisinginches of rain late in June, so as a test Isowed rutabagas on July 1. Theygerminated without more irrigation,but going into the hot summer as smallplants with limited root systems and noirrigation at all they became somewhatstunted. By October 1 the tops werestill small and a little gnarly; big roots

had not yet formed. Then the rainscame and the rutabagas began growingrapidly. By November there was apretty nice crop of medium-size good-eating roots.

I suspect that farther north, whereevaporation is not so severe andmidsummer rains are slightly morecommon, if a little irrigation were usedto start rutabagas about July 1, a decentunwatered crop might be had mostyears. And I am certain that if sown atthe normal time (July 15) and grownwith minimal irrigation but well spacedout, they'll produce acceptably.

Varieties: Stokes Altasweet (STK,

TSC) has the best flavor.

Sorrel

This weed-like, drought-tolerant saladgreen is little known andunderappreciated. In summer theleaves get tough and strong flavored; ifother greens are available, sorrel willprobably be unpicked. That's ok.During fall, winter, and spring, sorrel'slemony taste and delicate, tendertexture balance tougher savoy cabbageand kale and turn those crudevegetables into very acceptable salads.Serious salad-eating families might

want the production of 5 to 10 row-feet.

Sowing date: The first year you growsorrel, sow mid-March to mid-April.The tiny seed must be placedshallowly, and it sprouts much morereadily when the soil stays moist. Planta single furrow centered in a row 4 feetwide.

Spacing: As the seedlings grow, thingradually. When the leaves are aboutthe size of ordinary spinach, individualplants should be about 6 inches apart.

Irrigation: Not necessary in summer—you won't eat it anyway. Ifproduction lags in fall, winter, or

spring, side-dress the sorrel patch witha little compost or organic fertilizer.

Maintenance: Sorrel is perennial. Ifan unusually harsh winter freeze killsoff the leaves it will probably comeback from root crowns in early spring.You'll welcome it after losing the restof your winter crops. In spring of thesecond and succeeding years sorrel willmake seed. Seed making saps theplant's energy, and the seeds maynaturalize into an unwanted weedaround the garden. So, before any seedforms, cut all the leaves and seed stalksclose to the ground; use the trimmingsas a convenient mulch along the row. Ifyou move the garden or want to

relocate the patch, do not start sorrelagain from seed. In any season dig up afew plants, divide the root masses, trimoff most of the leaves to reducetransplanting shock, and transplant 1foot apart. Occasional unique plantsmay be more reluctant to make seedstalks than most others. Since seedstalks produce few edible leaves andthe leaves on them are very harshflavored, making seed is an undesirabletrait. So I propagate only seed-shyplants by root cuttings.

Spinach

Spring spinach is remarkably moredrought tolerant than it would appearfrom its delicate structure and thesucculence of its leaves. A bolt-resistant, long-day variety bred forsummer harvest sown in late April maystill yield pickable leaves in late Juneor even early July without any wateringat all, if thinned to 12 inches apart inrows 3 feet apart.

Squash, Winter and Summer

Sowing date: Having warm-enoughsoil is everything. At Elkton I firstattempt squash about April 15. In the

Willamette, May 1 is usual. Farthernorth, squash may not come up untilJune 1. Dry gardeners should nottransplant squash; the taproot must notbe broken.

Spacing: The amount of room to giveeach plant depends on the potential of aspecific variety's maximum rootdevelopment. Most vining wintersquash can completely occupy a 10-foot-diameter circle. Sprawly heirloomsummer squash varieties can desiccatean 8-or 9-foot-diameter circle. Thineach hill to one plant, not two or moreas is recommended in the averagegarden book. There must be nocompetition for water.

Irrigation: With winter storage types,an unirrigated vine may yield 15pounds of squash after occupying a 10-foot-diameter circle for an entiregrowing season. However, startingabout July 1, if you support that vineby supplying liquid fertilizer every twoto three weeks you may harvest 60pounds of squash from the same area.The first fertigation may only need 2gallons. Then mid-July give 4; aboutAugust 1, 8; August 15, feed 15gallons. After that date, solar intensityand temperatures decline, growth rateslows, and water use also decreases. OnSeptember 1 I'd add about 8 gallonsand about 5 more on September 15 if ithadn't yet rained significantly. Total

water: 42 gallons. Total increase inyield: 45 pounds. I'd say that's a goodreturn on water invested.

Varieties: For winter squash, all thevining winter varieties in the C.maxima or C. pepo family seemacceptably adapted to dry gardening.These include Buttercup, Hubbard,Delicious, Sweet Meat, Delicata,Spaghetti, and Acorn. I wouldn't trustany of the newer compact bush wintervarieties so popular on raised beds.Despite their reputation for droughttolerance C. mixta varieties (or cushawsquash) were believed to be strictly hotdesert or humid-tropical varieties,unable to mature in our cool climate.

However, Pepita (PEA) is a mixta thatis early enough and seems entirelyunbothered by a complete lack ofirrigation. The enormous vine setsnumerous good keepers with mild-tasting, light yellow flesh.

Obviously, the compact bush summersquash varieties so popular these daysare not good candidates forwithstanding long periods withoutirrigation. The old heirlooms likeBlack Zucchini (ABL) (not BlackBeauty!) and warty Yellow Crookneckgrow enormous, high-yielding plantswhose extent nearly rivals that of thelargest winter squash. They also grow adense leaf cover, making the fruit alittle harder to find. These are the onlyAmerican heirlooms still readilyavailable. Black Zucchini has becomevery raggedy; anyone growing it shouldbe prepared to plant several vines andaccept that at least one-third of themwill throw rather off-type fruit. It needs

the work of a skilled plant breeder.Yellow Crookneck is still a fairly"clean" variety offering gooduniformity. Both have more flavor andare less watery than the modernsummer squash varieties. YellowCrookneck is especially rich, probablydue to its thick, oily skin; mostgardeners who once grow the oldCrookneck never again grow any otherkind. Another useful drought-tolerantvariety is Gem, sometimes called Rolet(TSC). It grows an extensive winter-squash-like vine yielding grapefruit-size, excellent eating summer squash.

Both Yellow Crookneck and BlackZucchini begin yielding several weeks

later than the modern hybrids.However, as the summer goes on theywill produce quite a bit more squashthan new hybrid types. I now grow fiveor six fully irrigated early hybrid plantslike Seneca Zucchini too. As soon asmy picking bucket is being filled withlater-to-yield Crooknecks, I pull outthe Senecas and use the now emptyirrigated space for fall crops.

Tomato

There's no point in elaborate methods—trellising, pruning, or training—withdry-gardened tomato vines. Their root

systems must be allowed to control allthe space they can without competition,so allow the vines to sprawl as well.And pruning the leaf area ofindeterminates is counterproductive: togrow hugely, the roots need food froma full complement of leaves.

Sowing date: Set out transplants atthe usual time. They might also bejump started under cloches two to threeweeks before the last frost, to makebetter use of natural soil moisture.

Spacing: Depends greatly on variety.The root system can occupy as muchspace as the vines will cover and thensome.

Irrigation: Especially on determinatevarieties, periodic fertigation willgreatly increase yield and size of fruit.The old indeterminate sprawlers willproduce through an entire summerwithout any supplemental moisture, butyield even more in response toirrigation.

Variety: With or without irrigation oranywhere in between, when growingtomatoes west of the Cascades, nothingis more important than choosing theright variety. Not only does it have tobe early and able to set and ripen fruitwhen nights are cool, but to growthrough months without watering theplant must be highly indeterminate.

This makes a built-in conflict: most ofthe sprawly, huge, old heirloomvarieties are rather late to mature. Butcherry tomatoes are always far earlierthan big slicers.

If I had to choose only one variety itwould be the old heirloom [Large] RedCherry. A single plant is capable ofcovering a 9- to 10-foot-diameter circleif fertigated from mid-July throughAugust. The enormous yield of a singlefertigated vine is overwhelming.

Red Cherry is a little acid and tart.Non-acid, indeterminate cherry typeslike Sweetie, Sweet 100, and SweetMillions are also workable but not as

aggressive as Red Cherry. I wouldn'tdepend on most bush cherry tomatovarieties. But our earliest cherryvariety of all, OSU's Gold Nugget,must grow a lot more root than top, for,with or without supplemental water,Gold Nugget sets heavily and ripensenormously until mid-August, when itpeters out from overbearing (not frommoisture stress). Gold Nugget quitsjust about when the later cherry orslicing tomatoes start ripening heavily.

Other well-adapted earlydeterminates such as Oregon Springand Santiam may disappoint you.Unless fertigated, they'll set and ripensome fruit but may become stunted in

midsummer. However, a singleindeterminate Fantastic Hybrid willcover a 6-to 7-foot-diameter circle, andgrow and ripen tomatoes until frostwith only a minimum of water. I thinkStupice (ABL, TSC) and Early Cascadeare also quite workable (and earlierthan Fantastic in Washington).

Chapter 6

My Own Garden Plan

This chapter illustrates and explainsmy own dry garden. Any garden plan isa product of compromises andpreferences; mine is not intended tobecome yours. But, all modesty aside,this plan results from 20 continuousyears of serious vegetable gardeningand some small degree of regionalwisdom.

My wife and I are what I dub"vegetablitarians." Not vegetarians, orlacto-ovo vegetarians because we're notideologues and eat meat on rare,usually festive occasions in otherpeoples' houses. But over 80 percent ofour calories are from vegetable, fruit,or cereal sources and the remaining

percentage is from fats or dairy foods.The purpose of my garden is to provideat least half the actual calories we eatyear-round; most of the rest comesfrom home-baked bread made withfreshly ground whole grains. I put atleast one very large bowl of salad onthe table every day, winter andsummer. I keep us in potatoes ninemonths a year and produce a year'ssupply of onions or leeks. To break thedietary monotony of November toApril, I grow as wide an assortment ofwinter vegetables as possible and putmost produce departments to shamefrom June through September, whenthe summer vegies are "on."

The garden plan may seem unusuallylarge, but in accordance withSolomon's First Law of Abundance,there's a great deal of intentional waste.My garden produces two to three timesthe amount of food needed during theyear so moochers, poachers, guests,adult daughters accompanied bypartners, husbands, and children,mistakes, poor yields, and failures ofindividual vegetables areinconsequential. Besides, gardening isfun.

My garden is laid out in 125-foot-long rows and one equally long raisedbed. Each row grows only one or twotypes of vegetables. The central focus

of my water-wise garden is itsirrigation system. Two lines of low-angle sprinklers, only 4 feet apart,straddle an intensively irrigated raisedbed running down the center of thegarden. The sprinklers I use are Naans,a unique Israeli design that emits verylittle water and throws at a very lowangle (available from TSC and somegarden centers). Their maximum reachis about 18 feet; each sprinkler is about12 feet from its neighbor. On thegarden plan, the sprinklers areindicated by a circle surrounding an"X." Readers unfamiliar with sprinklersystem design are advised to study theirrigation chapter in GrowingVegetables West of the Cascades.

On the far left side of the garden planis a graphic representation of theuneven application of water put downby this sprinkler system. The 4-foot-wide raised bed gets lots of water,uniformly distributed. Farther away,the amount applied decreases rapidly.About half as much irrigation landsonly 6 feet from the edge of the raisedbed as on the bed itself. Beyond thatthe amount tapers off to insignificance.During summer's heat the farthest 6feet is barely moistened on top, but nowater effectively penetrates the drysurface. Crops are positioned accordingto their need for or ability to benefitfrom supplementation. For convenientdescription I've numbered those rows.

The Raised Bed

Crops demanding the most water aregrown on the raised bed. These includea succession of lettuce plantingsdesigned to fill the summer salad bowl,summer spinach, spring kohlrabi, mycelery patch, scallions, Chinesecabbages, radishes, and various nurserybeds that start overwintered crops fortransplanting later. Perhaps the bedseems too large just for salad greens.But one entire meal every day consistslargely of fresh, raw, high-proteingreen leaves; during summer, looseleafor semiheading lettuce is our salad

item of choice. And our individualsalad bowls are larger than mostfamilies of six might consider adequateto serve all of them together.

If water were severely rationed Icould irrigate the raised bed with hoseand nozzle and dry garden the rest, butas it is, rows 1, 2, 7, and 8 do getsignificant but lesser amounts from thesprinklers. Most of the rows hold asingle plant family needing similarfertilization and handling or, forconvenience, that are sown at the sametime.

Row 1

The row's center is about 3 feet fromthe edge of the raised bed. In March Isow my very first salad greens downhalf this row—mostly assorted leaflettuce plus some spinach—and sixclosely spaced early Seneca Hybridzucchini plants. The greens are all cutby mid-June; by mid-July my better-quality Yellow Crookneck squash comeon, so I pull the zucchini. Then I tillthat entire row, refertilize, and sow halfto rutabagas. The nursery bed of leekseedlings has gotten large enough totransplant at this time, too. These gointo a trench dug into the other half ofthe row. The leeks and rutabagas could

be reasonably productive locatedfarther from the sprinklers, but novegetables benefit more from abundantwater or are more important to a self-sufficient kitchen. Rutabagas break thewinter monotony of potatoes; leeksvitally improve winter salads, andleeky soups are a household staplefrom November through March.

Row 2: Semi-Drought TolerantBrassicas

Row 2 gets about half the irrigation ofrow 1 and about one-third as much asthe raised bed, and so is wider, to give

the roots more room. One-third of therow grows savoy cabbage, the rest,Brussels sprouts. These brassicas arespaced 4 feet apart and by summer'send the lusty sprouts form a solidhedge 4 feet tall.

Row 3: Kale

Row 3 grows 125 feet of various kalessown in April. There's just enoughoverspray to keep the plants fromgetting gnarly. I prefer kale to not getvery stunted, if only for aesthetics: onmy soil, one vanity fertigation aboutmid-July keeps this row looking

impressive all summer. Other gardenswith poorer soil might need moresupport. This much kale may seem anenormous oversupply, but betweensalads and steaming greens withpotatoes we manage to eat almost allthe tender small leaves it grows duringwinter.

Row 4: Root Crops

Mostly carrots, a few beets. Noirrigation, no fertigation, none needed.One hundred carrots weighing in ataround 5 pounds each and 20-somebeets of equal magnitude make our

year's supply for salads, soups, and alittle juicing.

Row 5: Dry-Gardened Salads

This row holds a few crowns ofFrench sorrel, a few feet of parsley.Over a dozen giant kohlrabi are springsown, but over half the row growsendive. I give this row absolutely nowater. Again, when contemplating theamount of space it takes, keep in mindthat this endive and kohlrabi must helpfill our salad bowls from Octoberthrough March.

Row 6: Peas, OverwinteredCauliflower, and All Solanaceae

Half the row grows early bush peas.Without overhead irrigation to botherthem, unpicked pods form seed thatsprouts excellently the next year. Thishalf of the row is rotary tilled andfertilized again after the pea vinescome out. Then it stays bare throughJuly while capillarity somewhatrecharges the soil. About August 1, Iwet the row's surface down with hoseand fan nozzle and sow overwinteredcauliflower seed. To keep thecauliflower from stunting I must

lightly hand sprinkle the row's centertwice weekly through late September.Were water more restricted I couldstart my cauliflower seedlings in anursery bed and transplant them here inOctober.

The other half is home to theSolanaceae: tomato, pepper, andeggplant. I give this row a little extrawidth because pea vines run, and Ifertigate my Solanaceae, preferringsprawly tomato varieties that maycover an 8-foot-diameter circle. There'salso a couple of extra bare feet alongthe outside because the neighboringgrasses will deplete soil moisture alongthe edge of the garden.

Row 7: Water-Demanding Brassicas

Moving away from irrigation on theother side of the raised bed, I grow asuccession of hybrid broccoli varietiesand late fall cauliflower. The broccoliis sown several times, 20 row-feet eachsowing, done about April 15, June 1,and July 15. The late cauliflower goesin about July 1. If necessary I could usemuch of this row for quick crops thatwould be harvested before I wanted tosow broccoli or cauliflower, but I don'tneed more room. The first sowings ofbroccoli are pulled out early enough topermit succession sowings of arugula

or other late salad greens.

Row 8: The Trellis

Here I erect a 125-foot-long, 6-foot-tall net trellis for gourmet delicacieslike pole peas and pole beans. The beanvines block almost all water that wouldto on beyond it and so this row getsmore irrigation than it otherwise might.The peas are harvested early enough topermit a succession sowing of PurpleSprouting broccoli in mid-July. PurpleSprouting needs a bit of sprinkling togerminate in the heat of midsummer,but, being as vigorous as kale, once up,

it grows adequately on the oversprayfrom the raised bed. The beans wouldbe overwhelmingly abundant if allwere sown at one time, so I plant themin two stages about three weeks apart.Still, a great many beans go unpicked.These are allowed to form seed, areharvested before they quite dry, andcrisp under cover away from thesprinklers. We get enough seed fromthis row for planting next year, plus allthe dry beans we care to eat duringwinter. Dry beans are hard to digestand as we age we eat fewer and fewerof them. In previous years I've grownentire rows of dry legume seeds at thegarden's edge.

Row 9: Cucurbits

This row is so wide because here aregrown all the spreading cucurbits. Thepole beans in row 8 tend to preventoverspray; this dryness is especiallybeneficial to humidity-sensitivemelons, serendipitously reducing theirsusceptability to powdery mildewdiseases. All cucurbits are fertigatedevery three weeks. The squash willhave fallen apart by the end ofSeptember, melons are pulled out bymid-September. The area is then tilledand fertilized, making space totransplant overwintered spring

cabbages, other overwintered brassicas,and winter scallions in October. Thesetransplants are dug from nurseries onthe irrigated raised bed. I could also setcold frames here and force tender saladgreens all winter.

Row 10: Unirrigated Potatoes

This single long row satisfies apotato-loving household all winter. Thequality of these dry-gardened tubers isso high that my wife complains if shemust buy a few new potatoes from thesupermarket after our supplies havebecome so sprouty and/or shriveled

that they're not tasty any longer.

Chapter 7

The Backyard

Water-Wise Gardener

I am an unusually fortunate gardener.After seven years of struggling on oneof the poorest growing sites in thisregion we now live on 16 acres ofmostly excellent, deep soil, on the floor

of a beautiful, coastal Oregon valley.My house and gardens are perchedsafely above the 100-year flood line,there's a big, reliable well, and if I everwant more than 20 gallons per minutein midsummer, there's the virtuallyunlimited Umpqua River to draw from.Much like a master skeet shooter whouses a .410 to make the sport moreinteresting, I have chosen to drygarden.

Few are this lucky. These days themajority of North Americans live anurban struggle. Their houses are asoften perched on steep, thinly soiledhills or gooey, difficult clay as on atiny fragment of what was once prime

farmland. And never does themunicipal gardener have one vitalliberty I do: to choose which one-sixthof an acre in his 14-acre "back yard"he'll garden on this year.

I was a suburban backyard gardenerfor five years before deciding tohomestead. I've frequently recalled thisexperience while learning to drygarden. What follows in this chapterare some strategies to guide the urbanin becoming more water-wise.

Water Conservation Is the MostImportant First Step

After it rains or after sprinklerirrigation, water evaporates from thesurface until a desiccated earth mulchdevelops. Frequent light wateringincreases this type of loss. Wherelettuce, radishes, and other shallow-rooting vegetables are growing,perhaps it is best to accept this loss orspread a thin mulch to reduce it. Butmost vegetables can feed deeper, so ifwetting the surface can be avoided, alot of water can be saved. Evensprinkling longer and less frequentlyhelps accomplish that. Half the reasonthat drip systems are more efficient isthat the surface isn't dampened andvirtually all water goes deep into theearth. The other half is that they

avoiding evaporation that occurs whilewater sprays through the air betweenthe nozzle and the soil. Sprinkling atnight or early in the morning, whenthere is little or no wind, preventsalmost all of this type of loss.

To use drip irrigation it is notnecessary to invest in pipes, emitters,filters, pressure regulators, and soforth. I've already explained howrecycled plastic buckets or other largecontainers can be improvised into veryeffective drip emitters. Besides, driptube systems are not trouble free:having the beds covered with fragilepipes makes hoeing dicey, while everyemitter must be periodically checked

against blockage.

When using any type of drip system itis especially important to relate theamount of water applied to the depth ofthe soil to the crops, root development.There's no sense adding more waterthan the earth can hold. Calculating theoptimum amount of water to applyfrom a drip system requires applyingsubstantial, practical intelligence toevaluating the following factors: soilwater-holding capacity and accessibledepth; how deep the root systems havedeveloped; how broadly the waterspreads out below each emitter(dispersion); rate of loss due totranspiration. All but one of these

factors—dispersion—are adequatelydiscussed elsewhere in GardeningWithout Irrigation.

A drip emitter on sandy soil moistensthe earth nearly straight down withlittle lateral dispersion; 1 foot belowthe surface the wet area might only be1 foot in diameter. Conversely, whenyou drip moisture into a clay soil,though the surface may seem dry, 18inches away from the emitter and just 3inches down the earth may becomesaturated with water, while a fewinches deeper, significant dispersionmay reach out nearly 24 inches. Onsandy soil, emitters on 12-inch centersare hardly close enough together, while

on clay, 30-or even 36-inch centers aresufficient.

Another important bit of data to enterinto your arithmetic: 1 cubic foot ofwater equals about 5 gallons. A 12-inch-diameter circle equals 0.75 squarefeet (A = Pi x Radius squared), so 1cubic foot of water (5 gallons)dispersed from a single emitter willadd roughly 16 inches of moisture tosandy soil, greatly overwatering amedium that can hold only an inch orso of available water per foot. Onheavy clay, a single emitter may wet a4-foot-diameter circle, on loams,anywhere in between, 5 gallons willcover a 4-foot-diameter circle about 1

inch deep. So on deep, clay soil, 10 oreven 15 gallons per application may bein order. What is the texture of yoursoil, its water-holding capacity, and thedispersion of a drip into it? Probably, itis somewhere in between sand andclay.

I can't specify what is optimum in anyparticular situation. Each gardenermust consider his own unique factorsand make his own estimation. All I cando is stress again that the essence ofwater-wise gardening is waterconservation.

Optimizing Space: Planning theWater-Wise Backyard Garden

Intensive gardening is a strategyholding that yield per square foot is thesupreme goal; it succeeds byoptimizing as many growth factors aspossible. So a raised bed is loosenedvery deeply without concern for theamount of labor, while fertility andmoisture are supplied virtually withoutlimit. Intensive gardening makes sensewhen land is very costly and the worthof the food grown is judged againstorganic produce at retail—and whenwater and nutrients are inexpensiveand/or available in unlimited amounts.

When water use is reduced, yieldinevitably drops proportionately. Thebackyard water-wise gardener, then,must logically ask which vegetablespecies will give him enough food ormore economic value with limitedspace and water. Taking maritimeNorthwest rainfall patterns intoconsideration, here's my bestestimation:

Water-Wise Efficiency of VegetableCrops

(in terms of backyard usage of spaceand moisture)

EFFICIENT ENOUGH

Early spring-sown crops: peas,broccoli, lettuce, radishes, savoycabbage, kohlrabi

Overwintered crops: onions, broccolicauliflower, cabbage, favas beans

Endive Kale

Garden sorrel

Indeterminate tomatoes

Giant kohlrabi

Parsley—leaf and root

heirloom summer squash (sprawly)

Pole beans

Herbs: marjoram, thyme, dill, cilantro,fennel, oregano

Root crops: carrots, beets, parsnips

MARGINAL

Brussels sprouts (late)

Potatoes

Determinate tomatoes

Rutabagas

Eggplant

Leeks

Leeks

Savoy cabbage (late)

Peppers, small fruited

INEFFICIENT

Beans, bush snap

Peppers, bell

Broccoli, summer

Radishes

Cauliflower

Scallions, bulb onions

Celery

Sweet corn

Lettuce

Turnips

Have fun planning your own water-wise garden!

More Reading

About the Interlibrary Loan Service

Agricultural books, especially olderones, are not usually available at locallibraries. But most municipal libraries

and all universities offer access to anon-line database listing the holdings ofother cooperating libraries throughoutthe United States. Almost any bookpublished in this century will bepromptly mailed to the requestinglibrary. Anyone who is serious aboutlearning by reading should discoverhow easy and inexpensive (or free) it isto use the Interlibrary Loan Service.

Carter, Vernon Gill, and Tom, Dale.Topsoil and Civilization.

Norman, Okla.: University ofOklahoma Press, 1974.

The history of civilization'sdestruction of one ecosystem after

another by plowing and deforestation,and its grave implications for ourcountry's long-term survival.

Cleveland, David A., and DanielaSoleri. Food from Dryland Gardens:An Ecological, Nutritional and SocialApproach to Small-Scale HouseholdFood Production. Tucson: Center forPeople, Food and Environment, 1991.

World-conscious survey of low-techfood production in semiarid regions.

Faulkner, Edward H. Plowman'sFolly. Norman, Okla.: University ofOklahoma Press, 1943.

This book created quite a controversy

in the 1940s. Faulkner stresses the vitalimportance of capillarity. He explainshow conventional plowing stops thismoisture flow.

Foth, Henry D. Fundamentals of SoilScience. Eighth Edition. New York:John Wylie & Sons, 1990.

A thorough yet readable basic soilscience text at a level comfortable foruniversity non-science majors.

Hamaker, John. D. The Survival ofCivilization. Annotated by Donald A.Weaver. Michigan/California:Hamaker-Weaver Publishers, 1982.

Hamaker contradicts our current

preoccupation with global warming andmakes a believable case that a newepoch of planetary glaciation iscoming, caused by an increase ingreenhouse gas. The book is also aguide to soil enrichment with rockpowders.

Nabhan, Gary. The Desert Smells likeRain: A Naturalist in Papago IndianCountry. San Francisco: North PointPress, 1962.

Describes regionally useful NativeAmerican dry-gardening techniques

Russell, Sir E. John. Soil Conditionsand Plant Growth. Eighth Edition. NewYork: Longmans, Green & Co., 1950.

Probably the finest, most human soilscience text ever written. Russellavoids unnecessary mathematics andobscure terminology. I do notrecommend the recent in-print edition,revised and enlarged by a committee.

Smith, J. Russell. Tree Crops: aPermanent Agriculture. New York:Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1929.

Smith's visionary solution to uplanderosion is growing unirrigated treecrops that produce cereal-like foodsand nuts. Should sit on the "familybible shelf" of every permaculturalist.

Solomon, Stephen J. GrowingVegetables West of the Cascades.

Seattle: Sasquatch Books, 1989.

The complete regional gardeningtextbook.

————————————-.Backyard Composting. Portland, Ore.:George van Patten Publishing, 1992.

Especially useful for its uniquediscussion of the overuse of compostand a nonideological approach toraising the most nutritious foodpossible.

Stout, Ruth. Gardening Without Workfor the Aging, the Busy and theIndolent. Old Greenwich, Conn.:Devin-Adair, 1961.

Stout presents the original thesis ofpermanent mulching.

Turner, Frank Newman. Fertility,Pastures and Cover Crops Based onNature's Own Balanced OrganicPasture Feeds. San Diego: Rateaver,1975. Reprinted from the 1955 Faberand Faber, edition.

Organic farming using long rotations,including deeply rooted green manuresdeveloped to a high art. Turnermaintained a productive organic dairyfarm using subsoiling and longrotations involving tilled crops andsemipermanent grass/herb mixtures.

ven der Leeden, Frits, Fred L. Troise,

and David K. Todd. The WaterEncyclopedia, Second Edition. Chelsea,Mich.: Lewis Publishers, 1990.

Reference data concerning everypossible aspect of water.

Weaver, John E., and William E.Bruner. Root Development of VegetableCrops. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1927.

Contains very interesting drawingsshowing the amazing depth and extentthat vegetable roots are capable of infavorable soil.

Widtsoe, John A. Dry Farming: ASystem of Agriculture for CountriesUnder Low Rainfall. New York: The

Macmillan Company, 1920.

The best single review ever made ofthe possibilities of dry farming and drygardening, sagely discussing thescientific basis behind the techniques.The quality of Widtsoe's understandingproves that newer is not necessarilybetter.

End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of

Gardening Without Irrigation: or

without much, anyway, by Steve Solomon

*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK

GARDENING WITHOUT IRRIGATION ***

***** This file should be named 4512-

h.htm or 4512-h.zip *****

This and all associated files of various

formats will be found in:

http://www.gutenberg.org/4/5/1/4512/

Produced by Steve Solomon. HTML version

by Al Haines.

Updated editions will replace the

previous one--the old editions

will be renamed.

Creating the works from public domain

print editions means that no

one owns a United States copyright in

these works, so the Foundation

(and you!) can copy and distribute it in

the United States without

permission and without paying copyright

royalties. Special rules,

set forth in the General Terms of Use

part of this license, apply to

copying and distributing Project

Gutenberg-tm electronic works to

protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept

and trademark. Project

Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and

may not be used if you

charge for the eBooks, unless you

receive specific permission. If you

do not charge anything for copies of

this eBook, complying with the

rules is very easy. You may use this

eBook for nearly any purpose

such as creation of derivative works,

reports, performances and

research. They may be modified and

printed and given away--you may do

practically ANYTHING with public domain

eBooks. Redistribution is

subject to the trademark license,

especially commercial

redistribution.

*** START: FULL LICENSE ***

THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE

PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE

OR USE THIS WORK

To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm

mission of promoting the free

distribution of electronic works, by

using or distributing this work

(or any other work associated in any way

with the phrase "Project

Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with

all the terms of the Full Project

Gutenberg-tm License (available with

this file or online at

http://gutenberg.net/license).

Section 1. General Terms of Use and

Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm

electronic works

1.A. By reading or using any part of

this Project Gutenberg-tm

electronic work, you indicate that you

have read, understand, agree to

and accept all the terms of this license

and intellectual property

(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you

do not agree to abide by all

the terms of this agreement, you must

cease using and return or destroy

all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm

electronic works in your possession.

If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy

of or access to a Project

Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do

not agree to be bound by the

terms of this agreement, you may obtain

a refund from the person or

entity to whom you paid the fee as set

forth in paragraph 1.E.8.

1.B. "Project Gutenberg" is a

registered trademark. It may only be

used on or associated in any way with an

electronic work by people who

agree to be bound by the terms of this

agreement. There are a few

things that you can do with most Project

Gutenberg-tm electronic works

even without complying with the full

terms of this agreement. See

paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of

things you can do with Project

Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you

follow the terms of this agreement

and help preserve free future access to

Project Gutenberg-tm electronic

works. See paragraph 1.E below.

1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary

Archive Foundation ("the Foundation"

or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright

in the collection of Project

Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly

all the individual works in the

collection are in the public domain in

the United States. If an

individual work is in the public domain

in the United States and you are

located in the United States, we do not

claim a right to prevent you from

copying, distributing, performing,

displaying or creating derivative

works based on the work as long as all

references to Project Gutenberg

are removed. Of course, we hope that

you will support the Project

Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free

access to electronic works by

freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm

works in compliance with the terms of

this agreement for keeping the Project

Gutenberg-tm name associated with

the work. You can easily comply with

the terms of this agreement by

keeping this work in the same format

with its attached full Project

Gutenberg-tm License when you share it

without charge with others.

1.D. The copyright laws of the place

where you are located also govern

what you can do with this work.

Copyright laws in most countries are in

a constant state of change. If you are

outside the United States, check

the laws of your country in addition to

the terms of this agreement

before downloading, copying, displaying,

performing, distributing or

creating derivative works based on this

work or any other Project

Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes

no representations concerning

the copyright status of any work in any

country outside the United

States.

1.E. Unless you have removed all

references to Project Gutenberg:

1.E.1. The following sentence, with

active links to, or other immediate

access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm

License must appear prominently

whenever any copy of a Project

Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the

phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or

with which the phrase "Project

Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed,

displayed, performed, viewed,

copied or distributed:

This eBook is for the use of anyone

anywhere at no cost and with

almost no restrictions whatsoever. You

may copy it, give it away or

re-use it under the terms of the Project

Gutenberg License included

with this eBook or online at

www.gutenberg.net

1.E.2. If an individual Project

Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived

from the public domain (does not contain

a notice indicating that it is

posted with permission of the copyright

holder), the work can be copied

and distributed to anyone in the United

States without paying any fees

or charges. If you are redistributing

or providing access to a work

with the phrase "Project Gutenberg"

associated with or appearing on the

work, you must comply either with the

requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1

through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for

the use of the work and the

Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set

forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or

1.E.9.

1.E.3. If an individual Project

Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted

with the permission of the copyright

holder, your use and distribution

must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1

through 1.E.7 and any additional

terms imposed by the copyright holder.

Additional terms will be linked

to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for

all works posted with the

permission of the copyright holder found

at the beginning of this work.

1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or

remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm

License terms from this work, or any

files containing a part of this

work or any other work associated with

Project Gutenberg-tm.

1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform,

distribute or redistribute this

electronic work, or any part of this

electronic work, without

prominently displaying the sentence set

forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with

active links or immediate access to the

full terms of the Project

Gutenberg-tm License.

1.E.6. You may convert to and

distribute this work in any binary,

compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or

proprietary form, including any

word processing or hypertext form.

However, if you provide access to or

distribute copies of a Project

Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than

"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format

used in the official version

posted on the official Project

Gutenberg-tm web site

(www.gutenberg.net),

you must, at no additional cost, fee or

expense to the user, provide a

copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a

means of obtaining a copy upon

request, of the work in its original

"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other

form. Any alternate format must include

the full Project Gutenberg-tm

License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.

1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access

to, viewing, displaying,

performing, copying or distributing any

Project Gutenberg-tm works

unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8

or 1.E.9.

1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee

for copies of or providing

access to or distributing Project

Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided

that

- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the

gross profits you derive from

the use of Project Gutenberg-tm

works calculated using the method

you already use to calculate your

applicable taxes. The fee is

owed to the owner of the Project

Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he

has agreed to donate royalties

under this paragraph to the

Project Gutenberg Literary Archive

Foundation. Royalty payments

must be paid within 60 days

following each date on which you

prepare (or are legally required to

prepare) your periodic tax

returns. Royalty payments should

be clearly marked as such and

sent to the Project Gutenberg

Literary Archive Foundation at the

address specified in Section 4,

"Information about donations to

the Project Gutenberg Literary

Archive Foundation."

- You provide a full refund of any money

paid by a user who notifies

you in writing (or by e-mail)

within 30 days of receipt that s/he

does not agree to the terms of the

full Project Gutenberg-tm

License. You must require such a

user to return or

destroy all copies of the works

possessed in a physical medium

and discontinue all use of and all

access to other copies of

Project Gutenberg-tm works.

- You provide, in accordance with

paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any

money paid for a work or a

replacement copy, if a defect in the

electronic work is discovered and

reported to you within 90 days

of receipt of the work.

- You comply with all other terms of

this agreement for free

distribution of Project Gutenberg-

tm works.

1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or

distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm

electronic work or group of works on

different terms than are set

forth in this agreement, you must obtain

permission in writing from

both the Project Gutenberg Literary

Archive Foundation and Michael

Hart, the owner of the Project

Gutenberg-tm trademark. Contact the

Foundation as set forth in Section 3

below.

1.F.

1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and

employees expend considerable

effort to identify, do copyright

research on, transcribe and proofread

public domain works in creating the

Project Gutenberg-tm

collection. Despite these efforts,

Project Gutenberg-tm electronic

works, and the medium on which they may

be stored, may contain

"Defects," such as, but not limited to,

incomplete, inaccurate or

corrupt data, transcription errors, a

copyright or other intellectual

property infringement, a defective or

damaged disk or other medium, a

computer virus, or computer codes that

damage or cannot be read by

your equipment.

1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF

DAMAGES - Except for the "Right

of Replacement or Refund" described in

paragraph 1.F.3, the Project

Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation,

the owner of the Project

Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other

party distributing a Project

Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this

agreement, disclaim all

liability to you for damages, costs and

expenses, including legal

fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO

REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT

LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH

OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE

PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3. YOU AGREE

THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE

TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR

UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE

LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT,

INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR

INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE

NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH

DAMAGE.

1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR

REFUND - If you discover a

defect in this electronic work within 90

days of receiving it, you can

receive a refund of the money (if any)

you paid for it by sending a

written explanation to the person you

received the work from. If you

received the work on a physical medium,

you must return the medium with

your written explanation. The person or

entity that provided you with

the defective work may elect to provide

a replacement copy in lieu of a

refund. If you received the work

electronically, the person or entity

providing it to you may choose to give

you a second opportunity to

receive the work electronically in lieu

of a refund. If the second copy

is also defective, you may demand a

refund in writing without further

opportunities to fix the problem.

1.F.4. Except for the limited right of

replacement or refund set forth

in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is

provided to you 'AS-IS' WITH NO OTHER

WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR

IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO

WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS

FOR ANY PURPOSE.

1.F.5. Some states do not allow

disclaimers of certain implied

warranties or the exclusion or

limitation of certain types of damages.

If any disclaimer or limitation set

forth in this agreement violates the

law of the state applicable to this

agreement, the agreement shall be

interpreted to make the maximum

disclaimer or limitation permitted by

the applicable state law. The

invalidity or unenforceability of any

provision of this agreement shall not

void the remaining provisions.

1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to

indemnify and hold the Foundation, the

trademark owner, any agent or employee

of the Foundation, anyone

providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm

electronic works in accordance

with this agreement, and any volunteers

associated with the production,

promotion and distribution of Project

Gutenberg-tm electronic works,

harmless from all liability, costs and

expenses, including legal fees,

that arise directly or indirectly from

any of the following which you do

or cause to occur: (a) distribution of

this or any Project Gutenberg-tm

work, (b) alteration, modification, or

additions or deletions to any

Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any

Defect you cause.

Section 2. Information about the

Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm

Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with

the free distribution of

electronic works in formats readable by

the widest variety of computers

including obsolete, old, middle-aged and

new computers. It exists

because of the efforts of hundreds of

volunteers and donations from

people in all walks of life.

Volunteers and financial support to

provide volunteers with the

assistance they need are critical to

reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's

goals and ensuring that the Project

Gutenberg-tm collection will

remain freely available for generations

to come. In 2001, the Project

Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation

was created to provide a secure

and permanent future for Project

Gutenberg-tm and future generations.

To learn more about the Project

Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation

and how your efforts and donations can

help, see Sections 3 and 4

and the Foundation web page at

http://www.pglaf.org.

Section 3. Information about the

Project Gutenberg Literary Archive

Foundation

The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive

Foundation is a non profit

501(c)(3) educational corporation

organized under the laws of the

state of Mississippi and granted tax

exempt status by the Internal

Revenue Service. The Foundation's EIN

or federal tax identification

number is 64-6221541. Its 501(c)(3)

letter is posted at

http://pglaf.org/fundraising.

Contributions to the Project Gutenberg

Literary Archive Foundation are tax

deductible to the full extent

permitted by U.S. federal laws and your

state's laws.

The Foundation's principal office is

located at 4557 Melan Dr. S.

Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its

volunteers and employees are scattered

throughout numerous locations. Its

business office is located at

809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT

84116, (801) 596-1887, email

business@pglaf.org. Email contact links

and up to date contact

information can be found at the

Foundation's web site and official

page at http://pglaf.org

For additional contact information:

Dr. Gregory B. Newby

Chief Executive and Director

gbnewby@pglaf.org

Section 4. Information about Donations

to the Project Gutenberg

Literary Archive Foundation

Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and

cannot survive without wide

spread public support and donations to

carry out its mission of

increasing the number of public domain

and licensed works that can be

freely distributed in machine readable

form accessible by the widest

array of equipment including outdated

equipment. Many small donations

($1 to $5,000) are particularly

important to maintaining tax exempt

status with the IRS.

The Foundation is committed to complying

with the laws regulating

charities and charitable donations in

all 50 states of the United

States. Compliance requirements are not

uniform and it takes a

considerable effort, much paperwork and

many fees to meet and keep up

with these requirements. We do not

solicit donations in locations

where we have not received written

confirmation of compliance. To

SEND DONATIONS or determine the status

of compliance for any

particular state visit http://pglaf.org

While we cannot and do not solicit

contributions from states where we

have not met the solicitation

requirements, we know of no prohibition

against accepting unsolicited donations

from donors in such states who

approach us with offers to donate.

International donations are gratefully

accepted, but we cannot make

any statements concerning tax treatment

of donations received from

outside the United States. U.S. laws

alone swamp our small staff.

Please check the Project Gutenberg Web

pages for current donation

methods and addresses. Donations are

accepted in a number of other

ways including including checks, online

payments and credit card

donations. To donate, please visit:

http://pglaf.org/donate

Section 5. General Information About

Project Gutenberg-tm electronic

works.

Professor Michael S. Hart is the

originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm

concept of a library of electronic works

that could be freely shared

with anyone. For thirty years, he

produced and distributed Project

Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose

network of volunteer support.

Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often

created from several printed

editions, all of which are confirmed as

Public Domain in the U.S.

unless a copyright notice is included.

Thus, we do not necessarily

keep eBooks in compliance with any

particular paper edition.

Most people start at our Web site which

has the main PG search facility:

http://www.gutenberg.net

This Web site includes information about

Project Gutenberg-tm,

including how to make donations to the

Project Gutenberg Literary

Archive Foundation, how to help produce

our new eBooks, and how to

subscribe to our email newsletter to

hear about new eBooks.