The Big Fat Thread of Dryland Farming Ideas!

A great thread, so I'm replying... almost ten years later 😀

My scenerio: I live in Southwest Saskatchewan,  Canada, semi-arid, relatively flat prairie country. We used to get lots of snow in the winter that would melt in spring and jumpstart everything growing.  But we've been getting longer periods of thaw mid winter, leaving less and less snowmelt each spring.  I'm also on a well, always haunted by the "what if" of it running dry someday. The soil is very sandy, sucking up moisture and then drying out very quickly.
We get rain in May, 2-3 inches if were lucky, then long periods of dry weather with little to no rain at all. On top of that the mid-summer temps have risen dramatically in recent years...

For growing veggies, 2 ft high raised beds, built with secondhand lumber, filled with composted manure, with heavy mulching around transplants, have been the answer for us.  I grow the transplants to a good size in my huge south facing winter window. The larger plants seem to survive better than smaller seedlings. Carrots, etc that are direct seeded, are lightly sprinkled with the crumbled, dry leaves from last year's veggies and then the whole bed covered with reusable fine netting to reduce moisture loss from the winds.

Last year I determined to start capturing all the spring rain I could off the roofs of my house and outbuildings. To this end I scrounged used (organic) IBC totes from the neighbouring farmers. So far I have only one tote collecting rain off my 13x30 metal garage roof, but, to my surprise I got almost 1000 gallons of water off it last season. To my delight, this spring it is now filled to the brim with snowmelt water, which I will use to soak down all the raised beds beds before planting.

Now that I know it's worth the work, I will set up more totes to capture more May rain from my roofs. This is not strictly "irrigation free", but between moisture rich compost, heavy mulching and rain from the rooftops, I have greatly reduced the pressure on my well.

Rainmaker: What started out as a decorative arbor woven from invasive thorny olive bushes has become a permanent fixture, with ribs of 1/4" rebar and crosslinks of muscadine (on the left) and kiwifruit vines (on the right).

This did not happen according to a refined plan, which was to grow peas, beans and passion vines (for butterflies) while a profusion of kiwi vines took over to make a permanent structure. Kiwifruit is (so far) still readily available in the produce section of the grocery store, and is easy to cultivate - as long as you're willing to wait 6-12 months to see sprouts. While we were waiting for the seeds to germinate (easy), grow (not so easy, with a 75% failure rate), and successfully transfer to soil (with additional 50-75% loss), we transplanted wild muscadine vines to get the process started. Muscadine is a weed around here, is virtually 100% transplantable, and is incredibly drought and winter tolerant. It should make a good, sturdy skeleton for the kiwi to cover.

TO THE POINT: This has been an unpleasantly dry spring and early summer. The air is quite humid, but rain has been insistent on occupying itself elsewhere. Morning dew persists, however, and I was pleased to see it dripping this week from inside the arbor, forming actual puddles on the ground. Apparently the structure has become a natural condensation accumulator. It probably doesn't hurt that we dug an 18x18" trench in the middle of the floor, replacing the clay and gravel with organic material. In addition, overflow from our rain barrel is channelled away from the house directly to the structure.

The arbor is also where our next door neighbor dumps his grass clippings and leaves year-round, so the space is always involved in some level of water retention. We have a similar dome arbor in the back yard with a central bird feeder. It benefits from year-round avian fertilization, and likely similar water retention capabilities - enough to keep a nice crop of loofa happy all season. It would make sense to consider more of these enclosures in other areas of the garden, to see if the condensation process can be multiplied.