Gardening Without Irrigation In Hot Dry Mediterranean California

Hey everyone its been a while since I have posted but I have moved to a new home with a big front yard and an open minded landlord/friend. We plan on gardening the entire front yard but for now I am experimenting with one garden bed under my bedroom window. The bed is an attempt to dry garden (no supplemental irrigation) in Sacramento Ca. It is hot and dry up to 9 months out of the year so this is a good challenge. I combined subterranean hugelkulture with a thick "Back to Eden" style blanket of wood chip mulch. I also employed a few other experimental techniques. Check out the videos below and let me know what you think. It is still a work in progress but I am pretty happy so far.

 (part 1)

 (part 2)

 (part 3)

 (part 4)

 (part 5)

nicely done! keep us posted!

Awesome! I'm excited to see what happens with this.

Update:
So it has been one year to the day since building these beds. Here is an update. I am sorry for the poor audio. Basically, I have not watered this bed for an entire year and it is growing great. The only water it has received came from mother nature and the little water I added when planting new starts or seeds. This bed has been an amazing success and I have plans to expand and make it even better.  Growing in the bed are tomatoes, chard, purple mustard, purple and orange sweet potatoes, morning glories, and a little baby Moringa. Stay tuned for Future updates.

James this is so awesome!!

I live and garden in Davis so I know the Sacramento Summer slog in the garden. I was keen to try hugel this year but didn't have time to put it together. (And of course, I'm about to move out of the area!)

Do you think the plants near the sidewalk might be struggling due to the thermal mass of the sidewalk+road right there?  (I wonder if you could extend your season through the winter by planting toward that edge?)

Hi James
I am pretending to do something similar in a similar climate in Chile ...
How were your experiences in the past months?
Did you water the wood in the beds before burying it?
Did you put any manure in?
Have you tried planting trees in These beds?

Hey James!

Congrats and cheers to more success!

I live in SoCal with a very similar climate. The heat can be brutal. I just heard of hugelkultur and the first thing I thought about was being able to preserve water here.

Thanks for the inspo. 👍