Book Review: Gardening With Less Water

At the recommendation of my friend Leigh over at Five Acres and A Dream, I bought the book Gardening with Less Water by David A. Bainbridge.  She was very enthusiastic about the book and she knows her stuff.

My experience with gardening has only been in two climates.  The first - Old Home - was a typical "Mediterranean"  or "Monsoon" climate, where the bulk of the rains came once a year (Late October to early April, typically), followed by 6 months of no rain.  The second - New Home - can see rain throughout the year, including summer - or maybe not, just depending on the year.  In either case, the ability to manage water matters:  we pay for our water, so I need to get value out of it, and in both places we have lived through drouthy years, where water was limited.

The great thing about this book is it simply, practical solutions.  The author - who has done many years of work in this area here and throughout the world - takes the simplest, low tech solution to watering and goes from there.

The simplest solution - I do not think I am revealing any true secrets here - is the common unglazed clay pot, its bottom hole sealed, buried in the garden with the plants it supports around it, covered with the pot base.  The plants use the water as they need it; the gardener (you or me) fills the pot, not the entire garden.  As a side note, weeds are greatly reduced as there is no water to feed them.  I suspect another outcome would that some pests are reduced (slugs and snails for example), as there are not nearly the moisture laden humus for them to hide in.

But this is the most basic solution.  Bainbridge also has suggestions and drawings for automatically filling these pots with tubing from a single source, sealing and burying pots and then filling them with a distribution system (Porous Capsules), Deep Pipes (PVC pipe with holes drilled next to a perennial to tree to get them started), Wicks, Porous Hoses (buried and unburied), Clay Piping (using the same principle as the clay pots) and tree shelters (to protect trees from sun and wind loss of moisture).  His descriptions are clean, his pictures and drawings are quite clear, and it is apparent this is something that has been successfully used and can be easily accomplished by an individual with a minimum of gardening skills to start.

The second half of the book - Taking It To The Next Level - covers more extreme measures:  Rainwater Harvesting, landscaping to maximize use of the environment to preserve water, and some potential layouts of gardens and farms to maximize water usage. It is all equally as clear, although probably beyond the scope of anything I could or would do at this time.  He also has some interesting comments on older civilizations (The Nabateans at Petra and the Anasazi at Mesa Verde) who built thrived in the midst of limited water by ingenious usage of harvesting and targeted watering (I wish the author had spent more time on these.  Ah well, a subject worthy of further research).

Frankly, I enjoyed the book.  It is clear, well written, and the initial steps he recommends are things I could go out and do tomorrow with minimal cost.  I intend to at least try the concept of clay pots in next year's spring and summer garden.  He also (very correctly) calls out the rather foolish policy of Utah and Colorado that bans rainwater harvesting.

Of course, like any author, there are things I disagree with as well.  He only sees solutions in terms of government action:  cities or states offering rebates to perform things like changing to xeriscaping, promoting rainwater harvesting, etc. (that money has to come from somewhere and it is not the government that makes it).  He also extends this to globally enacted solutions, something which (to my mind) seldom produces the results that are intended.

But those points are minor in comparison to the knowledge offered in the book - practical knowledge from a man who has done this and experimented with the concepts for years.  It is between $10 and $14 online and well worth the price for practical solutions to improve one's gardening and reduces one's water usage and cost of water.