Mulching can help during dry spells

In a perfect world, a vegetable garden would be a self-sufficient agricultural system, regulated by well-timed, deeply soaking rains and favored by gentle breezes and a reasonably warm sun.

So, when the forecaster predicts that rain will fall on our newly-planted gardens, as is the case this week, we gardeners feel that all is right with the world, that nature is functioning like a well-oiled machine. We may even feel a bit smug as we listen to the raindrops on the roof and calculate how much we’re saving on our water bill by not having to turn the tap on our garden.

I often wonder about those who gardened generations ago, who brought the dryland farmer’s mentality to growing vegetables. For many of our grandparents and great-grandparents, wells and cisterns offered the only supplemental water sources, and folks thought twice before using them for irrigation.

Some of us are still in that frame of mind. I talked to many gardeners last summer who simply let their gardens go because they didn’t want to incur the expense of ongoing watering. For people on rural water, the expense was even higher.

Despite the forecast for northeast Kansas this week, the long-term outlook is for another dry summer, following a relatively dry winter and spring. A run-off pond near my garden, which usually is full during the spring, sits bone dry. For the record, rainfall is running about an inch and a half behind for the first four and a half months of the year.

This being Kansas, and nature being less dependable than we’d like, the best approach to gardening is to assume that nature is not going to give you a break, and to prepare accordingly. I think of it as defensive gardening.

We’ve talked a lot in this space over the years about the importance of conserving the precipitation that does fall on a vegetable garden. The easiest way to do this is to put down mulch — such as straw or grass clippings — around plants to prevent moisture from evaporating. Two weeks after a rain, the soil beneath a thick layer of mulch will still be moist to the touch.

That soil will stay even moister if it is rich and full of humus. The easiest way to improve the soil is to incorporate compost into the garden, and the easiest way to do that is to till under your mulch whenever you finish up a crop. At the end of the season, apply composted manure or other organic material to the entire garden and till it under. In time, you will change the character of your soil.

How you organize the garden also is important. When I first started gardening, I spaced my rows like supermarket aisles. This had the benefit of giving me enough room to till up weeds between rows, which seemed like a more efficient use of my labor. Unfortunately, that also meant that it took more tap water to irrigate the garden, because everything was so spread out.

By compressing the layout of the garden and mulching all the plants and even the narrowest rows, I not only have less area to irrigate, but much of the water I do put on the garden can do double duty. For example, by planting bush beans in double rows, spaced 12 inches apart, a single soaker hose running between them can water both rows at once.

It took me awhile to realize that I only need to be able to access the row from one side, for picking and weeding. While this sounds in retrospect like a weak excuse for enlightenment, violating the gospel on the back of a seed package can be daunting.

I’ve also moved my corn closer together, and now space the rows about three feet apart, rather than the five feet that is often recommended. That allows me to plant three rows in about the same space that I used to allot to two rows of corn. Not only do I conserve on the watering, but I also may be improving pollination by moving the rows closer together.

– When she’s not writing about foods and gardening, Gwyn Mellinger is teaching journalism at Baker University.