[tired&retired]

I too lost quite a bit to the dry sandy soil in North Carolina.

So I’m putting together a plan to avoid this in the future.

1. Soaker hoses under mulch to stop evaporation.

2. Increasing the compost and humis in the soil to hold more moisture in our sandy soil.

3. Putting several 300 gallon containers on the hill to collect rainwater. We are on municipal water and the water and sewer combined cost is over $17 per thousand gallons. (Sewer is based upon water meter inflow)

4. Building dams and water flow routes in the garden soil to preserve rainwater runoff.

Any additional ideas are welcome.

[Ellendra]

For smaller gardens or around specific high-value plants, you could try using an olla. Basically an unglazed terracotta jar buried in the soil. Water seeps through the clay very slowly, allowing plants time to absorb it.

One of my books talks about terracotta irrigation pipes, which use the same principal over a larger area, but as far as I know those never made it to market. Seems like they would break too easily anyway. There is probably a way to attach terracotta spikes to a regular irrigation hose, but I’ve never tried it.