Hello from Australia

Hi everyone,

I've been a lurker for the past couple of months, decided to join up today

I recently did a PDC which opened up a Pandora's Box of ideas! While listening to a Permaculture Voices podcast while driving, it automatically played the next episode which happened to be Paul Wheaton's '72 Bricks to Build a Better World'. From then on I was hooked!

At the moment I'm very interested in learning how to grow food in a dry climate. Even though I live in a 'subtropical' zone, we've been going through some really bad drought and I'd like to be more prepared for it next year. I thought I was starting to get pretty good at gardening until the drought hit. Many lessons were learned.

Yesterday I made ollas (the glue is still setting) and today I am building a herb spiral! I'd like to get my pollinator garden happy before I move on to repairing my vegetable gardens.

Some more projects/ideas on the backburner are:

- finishing my drip irrigation
- wicking beds
- hugulkultur (not sure how well it will do in my climate, but I'm thinking of doing some experiments)
- keyline or swales
- air wells
- zai holes

Thanks for having me guys, looking forward to being an active member in this community

Welcome aboard, Natasha, great to have you here!  We love to share our projects here, both the ones that turn out well, and the ones with room for improvement, and hope you will too!

Welcome! Hope you are managing amid that drought and the fires!  Take care and post often!

Welcome to Permies : )

Sounds like you have some good projects to work on.

Welcome to Permies.

Dealing with droughts is a concern for so many (usually they are followed by a round flood, which only makes it even more challenging).

I think you have alot of the knowledge already to grow in a dry climate and we look forward to your process and pictures.

So my take on growing in dry climate is earthworks/spacing/catchment area. If a plant normally need 20ft in wet climates give it 40ft if you get, say, half the rainfall. Give the water time to soak in vs sheet off (flatland) or runoff making gullies (steepland).

Drip irrigation is your friend, at least to get the system started. You can also use your greywater too. Mulch hay they are cheap $5/bale or woodchip, it might be free too. Mulching also cuts down on evaporation. Add carbon any how you can compost/chop and drop/biochar/etc.

Tree root take alot of water to get minerals into the tree, so have the tree trade with fungi-roots to get more mineral for less water overall, the trees will lose out on a but of sugar/stores sunlight but we already have an 'excess' of that.

Ground cover to slowly but surely build soil fertility, soil life, carbon in the soil, etc.

^ Everything S Bengi said :)

About Hugelkultur, I haven't done it, but I've heard that in a dry climate, it may be better to do buried hugelkultur rather than raised.

Natasha Rutherford wrote:Thanks for the warm welcome and advice everyone! Much appreciated :)

Now I have a silly question - where should I post photos of my herb spiral? I'm really proud of it and I think it looks really 'cottagy'.

Sounds good.

The projects forum might be the right place for it: https://permies.com/f/69/projects

Thank you Kate!! :)

Welcome!  Looking forward to seeing your projects!