"len brauer" wrote in message

yeh much like janet, use all grey water and mulch, mulch, mulch & more
mulch, and water when stress is evident. hope it rains again soon!

Thanks Janet and Len for the input. I'll finally respond now that things
have calmed down a bit round here. I've been doing some experimenting and
thinking since you two posted - partly because of your posts but in reality
more because of the need to get things thoroughly wetted down in case of
fire. Anyway, here's my thought on watering.

I realisd when I read your posts and thought about them as I wandered the
garden that my problem isn't lack of water but in how it is delivered. We
still have a very full dam which has only dropped about 6 inches since the
drought began. It's spring fed and we have pumped out of it a lot but no
impact. So lots of water.

In the wetting down process, I've realised that I have to experiement a lot
more with specific watering strategies and change them depending on the soil
quality. I'm only talking here of the food growing areas of the gaden as
opposed to the formal 'garden' which has a big and powerful sprinkler system
installed that is operated by a poerful pump.

My garden area is on gravity feed and I have a number of watering options -
ie micro irrigation sprays, a low pressure sprinkler for rural use
(brilliant Len - can get them from Diggers Garden Club in Victoria) and then
just using the hose head without anything attached.

Now because my area is a mix of well prepared annual veg beds and then
ranges in all sorts of conditions through to simply just limestone rock
encrusted subsoil. Now mulch only seems to do any good in 2 cases. One is
the best soil and only spread on thinly and then watered with any sort of
irrigation or on best soil and spread on thickly but only watered by hand or
any sort of sprinkler but only after the thick mulch is pulled back and the
soil exposed. This sort of defeats the purpose.

I'm going to have to work harder at both soil prepa nd to do something about
getting a delivery system that gives BIG water droplets that can penetrate
through thick (and possibly matting down) mulch.

Anyway, water and mulch are two strategies to work more on but does anyone
find any other tricks that work well? Like does anyone have shadeclothe
installed overhead? Does this work to reduce the stress on plants? Has
anyone tried big container growing for veg and if so what aspect and what
sort of containers, growing medium etc?


while i'm here ted & sheena have moved onto their property near
howard, 40 acres in all, they are presently filling gaps in the walls
of the hhouse on their way to repainting and redecorating. they are
living under the house for now. they have a well treed property with 3
dams that could use a good drop of rain.

Thanks for the news Len. Please give him my regards. Have you had any luck
selling yet?

no gardens as yet i think they will be a long way off yet at least
until the house is finished. they have 5 brahford-X cattle 2 are
calves, can see some good meat coming along some time in the future.

I'l bet you already have the Barbie lit :-))

will have to get some udate pics online soon, everytime i go to do
anything about it there is something else to do i find, usualy if we
think rain is coming we maintane our contour rips and lay more mulch
and do work to stop bits of erosion around the house site.

Look forward to seeing more photos. How have your plants survived the
drought? Do you still have any water left? We have noticed that dams which
have never been empty in the 30 odd years we've been in this area are now
empty. Sodding drought!