Greetings
I live Italy, hardiness zone 9a, lots of clay in soil, semi-abandoned property in the middle of monocrop fields. This area is F L A T. I'm trying to figure out how to plan an orchard that doesn't need to much water and have read up a bit about water harvesting methods. I'll be planting a few local varieties of plum, apricot, apple and cherry trees. What is the best way to plan for a drought-filled future? I have done a few hugel beds a few years ago, but realized that raising land level is a poor choice for this area. Now I am considering digging down and planting trees in the middle of slightly sunken beds dug at a diameter of the projected mature tree canopy. Ideally these beds would be planted with nitrogen fixers & mulched. Obviously the creation of sunken beds would cause massive disruption to the soil. What are peoples' thoughts on this? Any advice? Thank you!