We’re enjoying a brief, heavy downpour right now, and I wanted to take the opportunity to show you something. Fans of raised-bed gardening often criticize row gardening (as depicted above) as being wasteful of space. But look–those paths aren’t just for walking or operating machines. When you use a furrower between rows to build the rows up, the paths become irrigation channels. Particularly in clayey soil like we have, this allows the rows to be well drained, while the paths act as reservoirs. Over the next couple days, most of the water pooled up in those paths will soak down into the soil. In a few days (if we don’t get more rain), the hilled-up rows will have mostly dried out, but there will be a reserve of water several inches deeper that the roots can get at.
Here’s a shot of the same thing going on out back. Notice that I’ve laid these rows out along the contour of the sloping land, so that the water gets caught between the rows instead of just washing down hill and eroding the soil.
