Gardening Without Irrigation

Bare soil may lose less water than a garden full of plants. So what, exactly, is making the garden thirsty?

West of the Cascades, summer brings long dry stretches just as vegetables need steady moisture. Steve Solomon once advised gardeners to replace an average of an inch and a half of water each week—but he came to see that rule as only half the story. In Gardening Without Irrigation, he reconsiders what drains a garden’s reserves: not just sun, heat and wind, but the plants themselves, their roots and how closely they grow. Drawing on soil science and hard-won experience, Solomon asks how gardeners can make the water already stored in the earth last through summer, with little or no watering. What changes when you stop treating every garden as equally thirsty?

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