Well, last year we had a major drought in my own local area, in some cases total crop loss, and all said and done, I got not even 25% of my normal yields, but the stars of the year without a doubt was the hugelculture beds, we did have a very early! but typical spring, which means as least for my area, snow melt off, an so the wood at the bottom was able to do a good soak at that point and despite not watering at all in some cases or very, very limited hand watering at the final fruiting stages, it was the hugelbeds that produced 80 plus percent of the food that did make it, the other star was my horse trough bed, as I was able to produce a very good amount of food in it during the cooler fall months and keep it covered and so was able to continue growing till well after snow on the ground.

one of the problems is that some people turn the sprinkler on in the garden & overwater the entire area. We have made raised squarefoot garden beds and at each one I have a plastic kitty litter container filled with rain water from my barrels (heating up in the sun the way plants like it) I fill them with tap water if there has been no rain. Each has a cup in it. I open the lid and fill the cup and water around the base of each plant, that is where the water is needed, it does not get on the leaves and promote fungus, plant burn or diesease, I am not feeding weeds or a watering the ground where I don't have plants. I purchased 30' flat soaker hose (4 per garden bed) and a main hookup that the 4 hoses screw into that sits at the eadge of the first box (I have 2 rows of 5 boxes each-can add another box) this accepts the tap hose or a hose from my water barrel (which is on a platform so it will gravity feed) to water at the base of the plants. I use one or both of these depending on what needs watering and the weather we are having.We dont have any lawn, we have gravel and I can hand water my flowerbeds and bushes at the base as I do the garden

Well, last year we had a major drought in my own local area, in some cases total crop loss, and all said and done, I got not even 25% of my normal yields, but the stars of the year without a doubt was the hugelculture beds, we did have a very early! but typical spring, which means as least for my area, snow melt off, an so the wood at the bottom was able to do a good soak at that point and despite not watering at all in some cases or very, very limited hand watering at the final fruiting stages, it was the hugelbeds that produced 80 plus percent of the food that did make it, the other star was my horse trough bed, as I was able to produce a very good amount of food in it during the cooler fall months and keep it covered and so was able to continue growing till well after snow on the ground.

Do you have any info on the hugelculture beds please anita? Also, I can't remember if it was you or farmgal that had a post with a link for making Chaplin Buckets ? and now I can't find it anywhere

http://www.richsoil.com/hugelkultur/

http://livingmydreamlifeonthefarm.wordpress.com/2011/03/20/hugelbeet-part-one/

http://livingmydreamlifeonthefarm.wordpress.com/2011/09/06/fall-update-on-hugelbeets-and-how-well-they-produced-in-year-one/

http://livingmydreamlifeonthefarm.wordpress.com/2012/04/24/hugelculture-making-hill-beds-for-garden-use/

one of the problems is that some people turn the sprinkler on in the garden & overwater the entire area. We have made raised squarefoot garden beds and at each one I have a plastic kitty litter container filled with rain water from my barrels (heating up in the sun the way plants like it) I fill them with tap water if there has been no rain. Each has a cup in it. I open the lid and fill the cup and water around the base of each plant, that is where the water is needed, it does not get on the leaves and promote fungus, plant burn or diesease, I am not feeding weeds or a watering the ground where I don't have plants. I purchased 30' flat soaker hose (4 per garden bed) and a main hookup that the 4 hoses screw into that sits at the eadge of the first box (I have 2 rows of 5 boxes each-can add another box) this accepts the tap hose or a hose from my water barrel (which is on a platform so it will gravity feed) to water at the base of the plants. I use one or both of these depending on what needs watering and the weather we are having.We dont have any lawn, we have gravel and I can hand water my flowerbeds and bushes at the base as I do the garden

I hear what you are saying lgs, but any water is a very precious comodity here right now and I need a long term sustainable solution and new methods of growing in these obliterating conditions as this could very possibly be something we are going to have to deal with alot more in future years. Growing outdoors in summer could even become a thing of the past for us, or it may have to be done under some sort of shade cover.

Virtually the entire North Island of NZ is suffering drought at this time and water levels are dangerously low everywhere. I have never used sprinklers at any time and the use of soaker hoses is not even an option I would consider - our excess overflow rainwater supply from the house tank that was stored has long gone, we have had to buy in two half tank loads just for our daily existence in the home and this is service is now been screened and at worst may soon be rationed, so any grey water is recycled any way we can utilise it, ie keeping the cleanest leftover for laundry once a week, flushing the toilet with it once or perhaps twice a day, using it to keep anything we can alive...there is no "spare" water of any kind for anything other than what is absolutely necessary to keep us going at present. So you see, we have a pretty serious issue on our hands and need to look at ways to grow our own food with different methods in the future to those we are accustomed to.

http://www.richsoil.com/hugelkultur/

http://livingmydreamlifeonthefarm.wordpress.com/2011/03/20/hugelbeet-part-one/

http://livingmydreamlifeonthefarm.wordpress.com/2011/09/06/fall-update-on-hugelbeets-and-how-well-they-produced-in-year-one/

http://livingmydreamlifeonthefarm.wordpress.com/2012/04/24/hugelculture-making-hill-beds-for-garden-use/

Thank you for the links farmgal, I had a "senior" moment there and called you anita 😳 sorry!!!!

I hear you, last year we had to buy water late fall, and it was water the livestock or the garden, the garden didn't get water, but hugelbeds like i said gave me full crops, i did very carefull water maybe three time for them on the worst of the drought/heat, If you have the requires things to make them so worth it

I hear you, last year we had to buy water late fall, and it was water the livestock or the garden, the garden didn't get water, but hugelbeds like i said gave me full crops, i did very carefull water maybe three time for them on the worst of the drought/heat, If you have the requires things to make them so worth it

Definitely worth looking at doing, thank you farmgal. Do you think they could be utilised successfully/well enough, in part shade or with a removeable semi shade cover?

yes, if you plant for it, in fact if you read all the interconnected links on my blog you will see that I in fact have one small 5 by 14 or so shade one, it gets lots of full sun in the spring for warm up but then gets dappled shade for the rest of the year and is my "cool" greens, etc growing bed, and while the plants are picked to handle it, I then do full sun ones for certian plants but yes, I see no reason whatsoever that it would not work well with a removeable semi shade cover.

We are from a damp area but we did have success during the dry summer with Deep Mulching. 6 to 10 inches of hay on the ground or what ever else you can find other than oak leaves wich kill plants. Each time we pulled up the hay it was damp in the earth with lots of worms. This year I want to do a First Nations trick of planting gourds in with the corn. They provide ground shade, keeping weeds down wile keeping moisture in. Push the hay out of the way to plant then fill in the space as they grow. Hope this helps

Grace have you seen the "greening the desert" video by Geoff & Nadia Lawton?
This is just a part of the video - http://www.30bananasaday.com/video/greening-the-desert-with-geoff

In Alberta many years back we had a pretty bad drought. Farmers started renting backhoes and digging deep pits on their properties. These pits were very deep, and about the size of a public swimming pool or larger in area. Water collects in these manmade ponds. And farmers now had water for their livestock without having to pipe it in. The water being deep was cool and didn't evaporate as quickly as natural ponds

Grace have you seen the "greening the desert" video by Geoff & Nadia Lawton?
This is just a part of the video - http://www.30bananasaday.com/video/greening-the-desert-with-geoff

Thanks Sussanah, I will have a look at it, sounds interesting! 🙂

In Alberta many years back we had a pretty bad drought. Farmers started renting backhoes and digging deep pits on their properties. These pits were very deep, and about the size of a public swimming pool or larger in area. Water collects in these manmade ponds. And farmers now had water for their livestock without having to pipe it in. The water being deep was cool and didn't evaporate as quickly as natural ponds

Thanks for the post LH, we do have two ponds here, both have almost emptied and dried up now 🙁 This is the worst drought in 72 years for us...lots of lessons to be learnt about being more prepared for next summer