High Productivity in Dry Conditions - Part 2

High Productivity in Dry Conditions - Part 2

In part 1 of this blog post series, I talked about a design for growing water hungry plants in dry conditions.

In this post, I thought I would share my experience installing some of these in my own garden to see how they go.

My garden beds are 48'' wide double-reach beds, so a 48'' diameter circle bed was the natural choice for this project.

I chose an area that has not been touched this season, and was overgrown with horsetail, chickweed, lambs quarters, and grass.

I started by digging a hole in the middle of the garden bed, and building up a doughnut shape of soil. I pulled the biggest plants out and left the rest in there as you can see from the photo to the right.

It was a rough as guts installation, and took less than 5 minutes. I then scrunched up the plants I pulled previously, and stuffed them into the bottom of the hole.

I patted the soil and shaped it a bit to make sure I had a solid ring into which I will plant the seedlings later.

After that, I took some garden debris from last year and filled the hole with it.

The next step was to cover the entire thing in newspaper. Each placement you see in the photo is approximately 6 sheets of newspaper thick, and I started at the base and worked my way into the center, making sure there was a good overlap.

This will act to keep moisture in the soil, and prevent any unwanted plants taking over.

I also made sure there was a ready pathway for water to enter through in the center of the circle.

I watered the paper down to make it all stick together, and topped it off with some semi-finished compost.



Finally, I covered the entire thing with a thick blanket of old straw and gave it a good watering.

I made two more of these. One that used hay instead of straw to see if it really makes that much of a difference.

And the final one is positioned under a tree where it receives lots of sun but very little water. 

In fact, it is so dry, and the soil so sandy, that I couldn't really form a decent doughnut shape because the soil wouldn't stay in place.

This spot barely grows anything except the odd dandelion and some grass. It's a very difficult corner of the garden and so it will be a great test location for the circle garden.