[Community_garden] Paying for water at Community Gardens

[Sharon Gordon]

A few strategies that would be helpful for water conservation in addition to
drip irrigation:

If you are on even a slight slope, create fertile soil swales to catch and
hold water when it does rain.  These are sort of like invisible refilled
ditches that direct water to the planting beds.

Increase the amount of organic matter in the soil as it acts like a sponge
holding the water longer.

Start plants in flats to reduce their water needs when young. Use intensive
planting methods (see various books by John Jeavons) to allow crops to shade
the soil and reduce water needs.

If you have any buildings or shelters or if gardeners are allowed to build
small sheds or greenhouses on their plots, have them catch water off the
roofs in food grade waterbarrels made from 50 gallon food barrels.  

Ollas, which are unglazed pottery jars with lids can be buried at intervals
in the garden and crops planted around them.  The pot can be filled with
water and the lid replaced. The water will slowly seep to the crops.  This
is a traditional gardening method in many arid areas and is likely to save
water compared to drip irrigation.  Likely it would be most frugal for the
gardeners to bulk order a truck load of these.  They need to be of lead free
clay and for the neck to be large enough that adults can get their hand/arm
to the bottom to clean the ollas periodically.  Ollas come in different
sizes and shapes and which to choose can depend on how much water is needed
and what will be planted around them.

Waffle gardens also work well in arid conditions.   This is where each
garden has lots of sunken diamond shaped beds on a slant.  The crops are
planted in the bottom quarter to half of the diamond.  The water that falls
on the top half of the garden flows to the plants in the lower half.

Putting mulch over drip irrigation may help conserve water.  It's also
possible it might wick it out faster or tie up nitrogen, so it would be
worth trying a small experiment under your conditions.

Shade cloth may help in the heat of summer.

Raised beds are likely to dry out faster, so they or lasagna gardening may
take a lot more water.  It may work to do pit lasagna gardening by digging a
trench and layering everything in so that the bed is at or slightly below
ground level at planting time.

If the plumbing runs near the outside edges of the plots in the paths, it
makes it easier to dig up when there are leaks without damaging anyone's
garden.  If you run the pipes down the center of the paths, run the faucets
up the sides of the outside of plots to reduce mowing and maintenance costs.

Will each garden have its own locked water faucet or will people use
something like prepaid water credit cards to access group faucets?

Some crops can be used to shade others to  reduce water needs and to allow
cooler weather crops to survive longer into the summer.  One example would
be growing greens in alley between blocks of corn.  Another would be growing
plants that need less sun or heat under an arbor of squash vines.

Leaf lettuce is a good living mulch for pepper plants in the late spring and
early summer until it gets too hot.  Then the peppers will take over the
space.


Sharon
gordonse at one.net