It’s hot, it’s dry, and a vegetable grower’s mind turns to irrigation. Originally the manuscript for my book Sustainable Market Farming had a chapter on irrigation, but when it became clear that the manuscript was way too long, I had to cut out some chapters. One of them was on irrigation.
The other topics I cut out (radishes, mulches, tools, shade cloth and row cover) have since all made it into print in Growing for Market magazine or in this blog. But not irrigation. Recently I got an email from a reader who wanted to know if I had written anything on the topic, so I dusted the chapter off, and made it a pdf. You can see it here: Irrigation text only
We haven’t changed much since I wrote this, except for twice accidentally buying medium-flow drip tape rather than the low-flow we really like. I just finished separating it all out, and passed the medium-flow tape on to some other growers. We like the low-flow versus the medium-flow drip tape because you can run more at once. Naturally, you need to water for twice as long as with the medium-flow, but that suits us better too. Having two kinds was too confusing!
Stay cool, stay hydrated! Water for growers as well as crops is important.
Ah the missing chapters! This explains so much. I wondered about radishes but I was really confused about irrigation. As it is not covered in many US books, thought maybe it just rains regularly in most of your growing areas. In Australia where I farm irrigation is the Number 1 thing any grower has to figure out. Thanks for sharing this and hopefully I can find the rest of your missing chapters next.