IRRIGATING DURING DROUGHT YEARS

The drought forced us to seek water saving ways to irrigate the 1000 trees.

We experimented with Hugelkultur, olla pots, and deep stake watering.

The Hugelkultur will take some time to know if it is a way to go. It involves burying dead oak limbs in the soil around each tree, after soaking the logs well with water. It is rather labor intensive to install however. 

We completely eliminated the ollas pots for the orchard, since they did not work well in the clay soil.  They are much better suited to the much finer soil of a vegetable garden, where they are being used successfully.

See this article “Irrigating Using Clay Pots” in the Spring 2020 GreenFriends North America newsletter.

The winner for the orchard is the deep stake watering.