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livingontheland - Re: [Livingontheland] How do you start?

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  • From: yarrow@sfo.com
  • To: Healthy soil and sustainable growing <livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [Livingontheland] How do you start?
  • Date: Sat, 5 Apr 2008 09:54:50 -0700

You don't *need* an irrigation system. I hand-water most of my garden, which is practical because the whole thing is less than 1000 sf, including paths. I do have soaker hoses in the raspberry beds and in one of the artichoke beds, though. Because the beds are mulched (or planted so densely that the leaves shade the soil), I don't need to water more than twice a week (it doesn't rain here in the summer). The only time I water more often is if I've just planted seeds or have seedlings, and sometimes the container plants need to be watered more often during the one or two weeks when it gets hot.

If you're looking for a book about wide permanent beds, organic methods, etc., a good one is The Vegetable Gardener's Bible by Ed Smith.

I guess I'm having trouble with the concept of "walk out there, put in
irrigation system, put in plants, cover with mulch. Wait for things to
grow." I know when you look at it, it's not that much different than
regular gardening, but is that really all it is? With fine tuning
according to location and plant needs of course.

I have trouble with that concept, too. It doesn't describe the kind of gardening I do. One of our local landscape contractors, who teaches a lot, said that the most important thing to do in the garden is to leisurely walk through it every day. He likes to go out in the morning with a cup of coffee, looking at how things are doing. And I think John Jeavons has talked about the benefits of hand-watering similarly: a chance for protracted and careful observation about what's going on in the garden. For one thing, if you have an idea of how things normally look, you're more likely to notice the first sign that something is awry. For instance, you may spot the first cucumber beetle and shoo it away (hey, it worked last year, and they never came back!!). Of course, I almost never sit down and relax in the garden, I always have a mental list of hundreds of things I need to do, so hand-watering becomes a way to focus on one plant (or one area of the garden) at a time.




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