Water-Wise Gardening by Steve Solomon - Paperback – February 2, 2022
Modern gardening books tell us to ditch large row gardens in favor of small raised beds filled with lots of compost. Authors and teachers now argue that wide spacing is wasteful and tiny gardens are the wave of the future. Yet our ancestors knew how to garden in tough times, often without irrigation or big piles of compost. Their experience led them not to tiny plots, but to wide spacing and a meager use of resources—especially water! In a time of climate change and droughts, wildfires and food shortages, learning to garden without intensive resources is vital to our survival. You can grow great vegetables with little input by transforming the way you garden and irrigate. Learn to grow with or without irrigation in this revised, rewritten, and expanded classic from gardening superstar Steve Solomon.
https://www.amazon.com/Water-Wise-Gardening-Steve-Solomon/dp/1955289107
Only place I see it available.
That book looks good! We have one rain barrel - and I already want another.
I have had HUGE gardens through the years and I’ve never had any sort of irrigation system. I’ve always been a hands-on gardener, and I dislike what sprinklers (overhead watering) do to a garden as a whole - and they are SO wasteful. You need to water the ROOTS, not the leaves. Wet leaves are just asking for disease.
Lucky to have always had rain water and well water to work with, though, so that helped a lot.
And lots and lots and lots of hoses, LOL!
If you have the land to garden I think you should use it. In urban or suburban gardening you might have to use Square foot gardening, but I do not think it produces the best yields or results. This is part of a debate between him and by John Jeavons. (How to grow more vegetables in less space than you ever imagined.)