Water as a limiting factor
Last weekend, we got 4.5
inches of rain in two days and the garden started growing like nuts.
This confirmed what I'd already suspected --- despite my compost
troubles, water was
the primary limiting
factor in this
year's garden.
I've only been hand
watering enough to get new transplants and 
seedlings up and running.
And, honestly, I hadn't even really been doing a good job of the latter.
The stumbling block was
twofold. I don't want to use too much water on the garden before we
installed rain barrles. And I was actually a bit glad to use water as a
limiting factor keeping garden work (aka weeding) down to a dull roar
during year one.
Excuses aside,
irrigation will definitely be on the agenda before next summer. Because
now that we're a bit more established, I don't mind weeding if it means
harvesting three times as much delicious, homegrown vegetables and
fruit!
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About us: Anna Hess and Mark Hamilton spent over a decade living self-sufficiently in the mountains of Virginia before moving north to start over from scratch in the foothills of Ohio. They've experimented with permaculture, no-till gardening, trailersteading, home-based microbusinesses and much more, writing about their adventures in both blogs and books.
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Hi Anna and Mark,
I have been monitoring in situ soil conductivity for some time [years]. I can confirm that not all water is the same!!!!! Some rain makes it MUCH better, some MUCH worse. Most thought provoking!!!
I am not sure who is doing what, but the effect is not just water. It appears to be water with BIG differences.
Growing under plastic [hoop houses] seems to make whatever effect MUCH less on plant growth.
John